It wasn’t an instructor that told me that, it was the examiner. I don’t really know why he said it other than a guess that he’d heard something in accident stats or something. He also said to always double your minimums…if the rule says 3 miles vis then don’t go unless you have 6. If the required ceiling is 1,000 don’t go up unless there’s 2…stuff like that. I sat there listening, taking it all in. Personally, I’d say the advice about doubling the minimums is a pretty good one for VFR pilots. Anyway, at the end, he said that he couldn’t force me to take his advice, and that’s what it was…advice.
Personally, I do recommend people practice stalls in the sim, particularly power-on stalls and stalls in turns. Those are the situations that will get you in the most trouble. But, someday, they need to focus on some of the other aspects of flight…like being whipped 60 degrees over on your side by a sudden gust under the lowest cloud layer.
It’s still like this today, at least where I rent and recently got back into flying again (KASH/KBED/KMHT). I’ve NEVER had any instructor I’ve worked with say I shouldn’t practice stalls on my own, very much the opposite, and I’ve only had one experience with an examiner, and he certainly didn’t say any such thing as to not practice stalls, I’m nearly certain we discussed the opposite, but, that was a long time ago (26 years) and my memory is fuzzy on it. I just did my BFR a couple of weeks ago, and he said no such thing either.
Nearly all my Rusty pilot training 2 years ago was in stall recovery and engine out, as well as steep turns. There was lots of discussion of me practicing on my own. I don’t get that anyone would say the opposite.
I was fortunate in my PPL training to have an access to an Aerobat, so I even got to do some spin training after I got my PPL when my instructor and I went up for fun… That was a blast!
We need to learn how to avoid stalls, and how to recover from stalls. Not one or the other, but both.
As a corollary, we also need to learn how to stall an aircraft, not necessarily as a goal in itself but to be able to safely practice stall recovery. Setting up the stall the wrong way could turn stall practice into incipient spin practice, which might not be what we were after. So as to “why would you [specifically] want to teach someone to stall an airplane”, that is a reason.
A reminder to keep this thread on topic. If you wish to continue participating in this thread, avoid posts aimed at others or their views/opinions, and focus only on the discussion.
Same thing. And I swear I was thinking, “This is going to take twenty minutes just to get to 5,000 feet… that’s nearly half my hour-long lesson just spent climbing!”
That is generally a good idea. And double true if you’re out of your familiar area. It always feels tighter than it looks, and especially when you’re new you shouldn’t be trying your luck right at the limits. It doesn’t take much for 3 to become 2.5… And then you’re asking for help. I had that happen precisely once, and never made that mistake again.
I think I agree with the power on stall. I hate doing them as well but both should absolutely be experienced whilst training in an actual trainer airplane, like the 152/172. You simply cannot replicate all the sensations of an actual stall in a desktop simulator - doesn’t matter how good “accurate” the flight model is.
So true - And the power off stall is that landing condition you discuss and the power on is for that last-minute go around around rising terrain. Yes, you practice them for a reason indeed.
I’d have a different thought on that. You are rating the simulator flight model on an outlier maneuver that - especially in the sim - you should never intentionally encounter? The stall characteristics do not depict the overall flight model quality. The real Pilatus PC-12 flies beautifully within it’s normal envelope - Stall one and it’s a whole different story, hence the use of aggressive stall warnings devices.
I’d much rather see an “accurate” flight model for the normal flight envelope that the airplane was intended to be flown within. Can my simulator airplane get close to book numbers? If so, I’d be happy with the flight model because that’s how the airplane was designed to be flown.
Desktop simulator do not come even close to the experience of non standard flight conditions.
A spiral dive in some aircraft has you almost out of your seat sideways like a carnival ride, spins are worse. Simple stalls can vary from a very slow tame “mushy” loss of height though to quite violent sudden reactions.
I don’t see it as having different flight models for different parts of flight. If they’re doing it right, there is a single flight model. They model the wing and the other parts of the aircraft. They model the environment and the airflow. The wing moves through the environment as defined by the flight model. That single model defines when the aircraft flies level, ascends, descends, turns and when the wing stalls. They don’t write an extra bit of code that is executed when the wing comes close to, or past, the stall. It’s just one flight model.
Even if it were the way you suggest, I’d still see accurate modelling of the stall as extremely important. If you have an aircraft that can turn base to final and drop below the wing’s stall speed with no effect, then you have a very poor simulation.
Yes, this I have to agree with. Don’t get me wrong, FMs are important. I’ve had experiences with poor flight models in the “normal” flight envelop which just make for an awful experience. And as you state, I’d imagine the stall behavior in an aircraft like that would be horrible as well. Its just that I’d be judging the aircraft on its normal flight envelope vs. stalls. If an airplane can’t fly properly there’s no point in stalling it to prove the FM is no good.
Every airplane stalls - or at least approaches an incipient stall - on every single flight (I suppose excepting Navy carrier aircraft).
It’s not any kind of outlier of the flight envelope. It’s actually pretty critical to model correctly, if the plane is supposed to fly correctly even on a “normal” flight.
I think the stalls that every student needs to be exposed to are the ones that cause the most GA deaths - the cross control stall that occurs on the base to final turn.
This is when the pilot overshoots the approach path and tries to correct using rudder in one direction while applying aileron in the opposite direction
This sort of thing should be practiced at altitude to illustrate the danger.
If IRL you ever find yourself in that situation - just go around. Dont horse it around like that at treetop height.
Exactly. This is what I was trying to get at earlier. We really don’t teach prevention. I have never heard another pilot explicitly use the philosophy of turning in slightly too early rather than slightly too late. If you turn in too early you can just drift over to centerline; if you turn in too late, that’s how you wind up in the situation you describe. Turning in too early is how you avoid this situation to begin with. And if your base leg is downwind, you really have to turn in sooner.
And we also don’t teach pilots that go-arounds are a positive maneuver. A landing is an approach where you don’t find a reason to go around.
Isn’t there a danger that this could cause pilots to risk landing in a situation which would be safer to go around, and try again? I’ve seen enough videos of students porpoising down the runway, with some crushing the nose wheel. An extreme example, but if the encouraged mindset is to treat a go-around as a negative, could that not encourage poor decision making?
Things may have changed but back when I was flying gliders, in the UK, 1 hour in a glider counted as two hours in a powered aircraft when calculating the required hours for a PPL. (That could count for up to 50% of the total required hours).
The captain of the Air Canada 767 that ran out of fuel and made a dead-stick landing at Gimil, in 1983, was a =n experienced glider pilot. Who else would have slide-slipped a 767 to the runway?
