What did you have trouble with during PPL training?

A

amd87

Well-Known Member
Okay, its official...I HATE POWER-OFF STALLS!!!
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We did the initial stall lesson about 4 times ago, and I think I handled them very well for the first time. Now everytime we go up, we practice a few power-on and power-off stalls. I pretty much now have the power-on stalls down, yet my power-offs seem to be actually getting worse.

I think I suck for two reasons, my stupid flight simulator instincts tell me to throw the nose immediately down, and my natural instincts are just saying, "What the hell are you doing this for Adam!?!" It's not that the stalls make me nervous, its just an uncomfortable feeling and the whole potential spin/secondary stall thing may be getting to my head.

Eitherway, I just wanted to get that off my chest. I guess the only way to get better is to do them over and over and over again.

So what did you all find difficult when beginning to fly?
 
A lot of people have trouble with stalls. tThe trick is to avoid suddent pitch changes....gradually increase your pitch attitude during the entry phase. Once you pitch up enough to induce a stall (usually 12-15 degrees in a 172 or similair), just hold that amount of back pressure, let the airspeed slowly bleed off, and as soon as you feel a buffet just release the back pressure, don't slam the yoke forward. Don't jerk back on the yoke to try and make the airplane stall....

Also, remember to use your rudders to keep the nose straight and the wings level during the stall entry....your ailerons will lose effectives during but the rudder still has the prop slipstream sending air over it.

What did I have trouble with as a student pilot? Probably short field/soft field landings and steep turns more than anything.
 
Yeah, so far my landings have been suprisingly good for a beginner...I go in to do XW landings next time, should be interesting. Im sure we will be doing stalls also
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If you're having trouble with power off stalls then maybe you just need to get more comfortable with flight just before a stall condition. Fly around in slow flight with the stall horn blaring. Do some shallow turns, climbs and descents. Then when you're comfortable with that, try some stalls, reducing the power each time until you eventually can do them comfortably with power off.

As for me, I found the flare the most problematic thing during my training.
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Nothing. I was that good. Everything came naturally.
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Steep turns were the toughest maneuver for me ... I couldn't hold altitude. Cross-wind landings were the toughest landing for me ... the centerline was often a football field to my left or right.
 
My biggest problem was being scared of landing short of the runway. I could land fine, and I could land in a strong crosswind fine-- but I couldn't seem to touch down in the first half of the runway (it was a 5000 ft. runway). My logic at the time was... if you have a 5,000 ft. runway, you may as well use it-- then I know I'm not short. I guess it never occured to me that if a Citation was using kess runway than me-- it probably couldn't be considered a good landing. Needless to say, I had a terrible time with short field landings.
 
I had more trouble with power-on than power-off stalls. The power-off stalls seem so docile compared to power-on. The power-off is the pretty much the same as a power-on...minus the excessive angle of attack, minus the large amount of right rudder needed to keep the plane coordinated, and minus the violent break. Think of it that way and you should have no problems. To me it seems much easier to get into a spin in the power-on than power-off...as long as you keep the ball centered you should have no spin problems. What are you flying by the way?
 
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As for me, I found the flare the most problematic thing during my training.
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I think I have the flaring portion under control, but now I either add too much rudder, or not enough!
 
This is somewhat embearesing, but the hardest thing for me to learn was Taxiing. Once I got in the air I was OK, but I looked like a drunken idiot trying to get to the runway. You know it's bad when you can't keep a C-152 on the taxiway. It took me at least four lessons to figure it out.
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I've never been crazy about power on stalls either. I always manage to get set in this crazy climb while I wait for the airplane to stall. My main solution was to get pissed off and make the SOB stall by pitching up sharp enough to scare my instructors. It wasn't pretty, but it worked!
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My soft field landins wern't very soft. I think they were probably more rough than when I was just trying to land normal.

Dan
 
Finding free flight time ... none of my friends seem to want to chip in for my training in exchange for an hour or two looking down on the world !! ...
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Seriously though... I too would have to agree with XW landings... for the life of me I just couldn't get the darn things for what seemed like an eternety... actually.. it wasn't until recently that I really did develop somewhat of a good visualization of what the heck I was trying to do !!
 
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Re: What did you have trouble with during PPL training?

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Landings. Took me FOREVER to get it down. Then one day... click!
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Okay, its official...I HATE POWER-OFF STALLS!!!
It's not that the stalls make me nervous, its just an uncomfortable feeling and the whole potential spin/secondary stall thing may be getting to my head.

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Adam
Not to psychoanalyze you ... but it sounds like down deep inside you have a fear of an unknown outcome ...

Two things I would recommend you do.
1. With your instuctor go out and put the airplane in a power off stall and do nothing ... continue to hold back pressure and maintain wings level with your rudder and see what happens. You should find out that the airplane will stall, the nose will fall on its own because of the inherant designed stability ... airspeed will pick back up and the airplane will start a climb ( because you are stiol holding back pressure ) and it will stall again .... repeat as necessary. You will feel like a fluttering leaf falling in the fall. Play around with your rudders for turns in the stall.

2. With your instructor go out and do some spins. Once you realize how "difficult" it is to actually spin the airplane you will have a lot more confidence in the stability of the airplane. You will also realize that spins are not that big of a deal and can actually be fun. Remeber you can't spin an airplane unless you first stall the wing and also have a yaw introduced at the stall.

Jim
 
Turns around a point. I kept on expecting farmer Joe to come out of his house with a shotgun when I was 500 feet AGL.
 
500 AGL
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Not to hijack the thread but I started my training kinda near pgh.. so we always stayed above 1500 ... never went below much... but after moving to a school out in the boonies I can't tell ya how wild it is to drop a plane down that low while practicing engine outs...

There's an agg guy always out at our field... I wanna go up so bad !!!
 
Yeah if I were you I would definately do spins! I had the same thing, I had a fear of the unknown, all that talk about spins and how 'bad' they can be made me nervous; so I did them with a cfi and after that everything was great. In a 152 it's actually pretty hard to get in a spin and pretty easy to get out of one.

What did I have a hard time with? Finding the $$$ to fly! Oh and soft field landings, I'd add power in the flare, and of course I'd balloon up like crazy and drop it in
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