I don't get the obsession with stall behavior

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43

Are you in the U.S.? The minimum altitude for a return to the airfield that I was taught, and that is pretty much universal in the U.S. is 200’ AGL.

I had a similar experience to yours once. Up until this point practice rope breaks had always been simulated by the instructor, but one day I got the guy who was a co-owner of the gliderport and known as kind of a crusty old curmudgeon. He was also an exceptional pilot, but liked to torture you as a student pilot.

That day, the winds were steady at about 40 kts straight down the runway. He had warned me that he might pull a simulated rope break on me at some point, so I was expecting it, but what I was not expecting was for him to “simulate” it by actually pulling the release. He pulled it on me when we were just above 200’ AGL and my first thought was, “Uh…we’re going to have a 40 kt tailwind…this will be exciting. We were in a Grob Twin II, and all I can say is that I’ve never seen the ground go by that fast. Our ground speed was about 110 mph, and we were landing in the grass next to the runway, which wasn’t exactly smooth. Everything happened so fast that I was operating purely on training and instinct, but it all went fine.

He also pulled some pretty extreme unusual attitudes for me to recover from on the other flights that day. It’s always a little “pucker inducing” when the instructor says, “I’ve got it” and then dumps the nose and starts building up airspeed. You’re always wondering what’s about to happen, and in this case he would pull up into a steep climb, with a bit of a roll in one direction, until we were in about a 45 degree climb, inverted, and banked maybe 30 degrees to one side. Just as my brain was catching up with everything that was happening, and just as the airspeed was bleeding off to stall speed, he suddenly said, “You’ve got it!” Recovering from such a weird, disorienting situation with almost no airspeed was pure instinct and basic stick and rudder skills. We did it several times, from a variety of unusual attitudes. He was happy with how I did, but I still don’t know exactly how I did it other than by the instincts for sensing and managing an aircraft’s energy state that sailplane flight training naturally instills in you. It was definitely a “use the Force” moment.

That training, and the aerobatic training I did later, definitely gave me much more confidence if everything were ever to go completely haywire, though.

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44

You will want to practice whatever lies one step beyond what you want to be proficient in. To be proficient in avoiding a stall you need to practice slow flight. Practicing slow flight, if goofed up, results in a stall. Therefore, you want to also practice stalls, so you do not get in trouble if you mess up your slow flight practice.

In my view, an instructor trying to discourage a student from practicing stalls on their own is either trying to minimize liability for themselves rather than trying to minimize risk for their students or is trying to maximize their own job security. Same with instructors striving for 25 hours to solo and 75 hours to a PPL – that is done for the benefit of the instructor, not for the benefit of the student.

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45

To amend my previous comment, I see now that you were talking about altitudes for winch launch. I was thinking about aerotow, which is the only way I’ve ever launched.

46

Don’t disagree with this - and the point at which stalling occurs is still within the flight envelope and understanding the boundaries is important. Beyond the stall point, the sim will be trying to model a chaotic airflow situation - very different to airflow in the normal flight envelope. How the flight model performs in that chaotic airflow situation will be a poor indicator of how the flight model performs in normal flight.

I think the OP is suggesting that Asobo shouldn’t spend much time trying to get the modelling of the behaviour once in the stall perfect - rather than they focus their attention on getting the much more common normal flight behaviour correct.

Of course, we’d all want it perfect if possible, but there is only so much time and energy available.

47

Yeah, i was taught that after it happened to me. The black and white C152 that did it is etched in my memory. And, truth is, I trained myself how to handle it correctly in FS9 between lessons, to apply opposite rudder and resist the urge to level the wings until the airplane accelerated. The black and white C152 with a red stripe that did it is etched in my memory. I don’t remember any of the seven others at the school.

48

Yes, definitely don’t want them putting too much resource into edge conditions. On the hand, if they’ve modelled the wing correctly, and the prop, etc, then they shouldn’t need to add anything extra for when the wing is stalled. It should just work. They shouldn’t need different modelling for different situations. If they get the model right, then the wing will behave as it should in all situations, flying or stalled.

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49

Whats the point focusing on stall behaviour if the air movement is not realistic first? The air flow should not be in a constant motion like it is now near ground. Making the landings and takeoff too easy. Also makes every landing and takeoff be the same. I think if they have a realistic movement it will also make the planes behave realistic.

50

Why would that be? You need both the air movements and the accurate flight model for the whole realistic experience.
And doing the turbulence “first” as you suggest would just obfuscate problems with the flight model. The flight dynamics need to be tested/evaluated in calm conditions - just like in real life.

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51

Yes but even calm winds isn’t constant. In the sim the air is constant at groundlevel with some bumps up and down while in the air. To me it doesn’t matter how much they work on flightmodel if they have constant winds in the sim. Agree both needs to be correct but the airmovement lacking.

This sim is already released back in 2020. I’m not evaluating the flightmodel. Thats a thing devs do.

They can switch to calm winds if they want to. I can’t have gusts in live-weather. It’s not realistic.

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It looks like this will be changing in SU9. You could try out the beta if you wanted to provide some feedback. Some are now complaining about the air movements in the clear sky weather preset… ( not realizing that thermal activity is possible without cloud buildup)

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I’ve tested it. Can’t comment on it here though. because su9 is not released. I don’t get it why you think gusts would be back in su9? They have not stated that thing.

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Well, that’s the odd thing. It’s not in the release notes but Seb mentioned in a Q&A that it would be in SU9.

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/new-air-wind-model/508636

The consensus seems to be that things have changed.

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55

Yeah, but that was for later su updates with visuals of thermals and air movement. They said gust may improve with thermals update. I do not have high expectations for that. Gust/varied windspeed exists everywhere all the time. Especially near or at groundlevel in storms not just in high temps. Often in high temps we should have calm winds istead. It’s in unstable weather we get the most gusts as in hurricanes for example where the air pressure difference is the most and that is caused by global weather conditions. Not local thermals.

56

I’d rather have both!

A moving air mass is definitely an extremely important aspect of a flight simulator. Having an aircraft stall accurately is also a good reflection on the flight model, as long as the rest is done properly too.

In fact, I would say to be realistic, you can’t do without either one!

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57

He’s been teaching for 50+ years (still teaching at 86). He’s never had a student fail a checkride and never lost a former student to an accident. So, sorry, but not so.

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58

Correct for a glider but missing the very first action for powered planes:

  • THROTLE TO IDLE
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59

Never forget that stalls can happen at high speed as well. In light aircraft, accelerated stalls can occur at significantly higher speeds than slow speed stalls. It is all about the angle of attack of the wings. Steep bank angles will also significantly increase the stall speed. Density altitude (hot, high, or both) will also require a greater airspeed for a given angle of attack.

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60

A similar step in gliders would be to close the spoilers, but that’s situational, depending of course on whether you have them open at the time.

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61

Really? Either flight training has changed A LOT, or you have a very odd CFI. I wouldn’t know as I did this training long ago.

But during my PPL training I was expected to be out practicing all the maneuvers even on my student pilot solos, and I continued doing this kind of maneuver training the entire time I was actively flying.

Encouraging someone not to practice probably the most important skills in flying seems a little short sighted. There is nothing magic about a CFI, they are supposed to be training you to their skill level. Not to make a buck on you anytime you need to practice stalls, or any other thing they taught you to be afraid of doing.

The most valuable thing learned from stall practice is learning what this specific aircraft is going to feel like in the moment just before the stall. As someone pointed out above, each plane is its own thing. There is no ‘this is what a plane feels like just before’, every plane is different, and you need to keep that sensation well programmed into your butt so you know to catch it.

Sounds weird to me. Proper training stalls at a safe altitude aren’t dangerous, and if a student is getting into danger he’s not properly been instructed, and that is the CFI’s responsibility to correct prior to signing him off.

Again, either the times have changed (for the worse) or that instructor is an odd duck. Of course I’m of the mindset that they never should have stopped training actual spins too. Just telling someone what to do is not the same as building the actual reflexes to do it in a situation when its going to save your life and the lives of others on your plane.

Of course you’re not ever ‘supposed’ to be in those situations, but those situations happen regardless. And every pilot should have the skillset well practiced and on-hand incase it does.

Anyhow, regarding why its important to MSFS, well, aerodynamics working properly at the edge of the envelope means you’ve got a better aerodynamic simulation. Why would you not be trying to perfect this part of the sim? I think that’s why it’s important. If the sim breaks at the edges, its not a good sim.

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62

Exactly, the main part in modern day Upset Prevention and Recovery Training (UPRT) is the prevention part, still we train recovery from undesired aircraft states because they do occur in real life and you need to know how to safely recover from those.

Loss of control is not always due to pilot deviation, it could be weather related, wake turbulence, mountain waves, icing, you name it. These things do occur and will continue to occur.

Its important to train these events as they can be disorientating and startling when encountered for the first time unexpectedly. And its a big benefit to do UPRT in a “full envelope” aircraft to really go inverted and try to resist the “panic pull” for example.

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