To be fair, it would seem that when these exercises were created the only thing that was of concern was a low altitude stall leading to impact with terrain. Little or no altitude loss was of prime concern in order to try & avoid impact.
The training requirement has been this way for a long time: 1) approach to stall with ground contact imminent, and 2) approach to stall with ground contact not imminent.
The only difference I see between the two is tighter margins when contact is imminent. When ground contact is imminent, you first need to ensure the aircraft is not stalled - usually by pitching down to reduce the angle of attack - then you need to establish a climb without delay. That last part is where you're performing with tighter margins (closer to the stall) because you're pulling out of the nose down attitude earlier; at a lower speed.
As far as it not being imminent, you're doing the exact same recovery except that you allow the airplane to pick up more speed before gently easing out of the nose low attitude.
But that's not how a lot of instructors see it.
They want you powering out of the stall event and they will argue that you are not stalled so you can power out and you can do it in the plane so how can you argue with that, right?
Well I strongly disagree. You can power out of a low speed scenario - 1.15VS or 1.2VS... but when you get any indication of a stall you MUST treat it as an actual stall. As I pointed out
here, power must be applied
after stall warnings have ceased. If it's just the warning and you haven't actually stalled, the warnings will cease almost immediately after you move the control column forward and you may apply power when the warnings do cease. However, if you are actually stalled, applying power before the airplane has recovered can easily put the plane into a severe upset, possibly a spin, due to the possibility of asymmetric thrust. A lot of transport and commuter category airplanes are sensitive when stalled - especially with swept wings. A little bit of yaw could be all that it takes to flip the airplane and put it into a spin.
However, this has now lead to these techniques being applied by flight crews across the entire stalling scenario spectrum, including high altitude stalls & upsets. Due to the lack of specific training in high altitude stalls, some pilots have fallen back on the only stall recovery techniques that they know.
This is perfect proof that you will revert to your training when in a bad situation. When you're trained to recovery from stalls when you're not actually stalled, when you are actually stalled you'll kill yourself if you did the same thing.
These approach to stall exercise were made decades ago. They were designed as approach to stalls instead of stalls because most airplanes didn't have a flight simulator that was easily accessible. Most companies were doing training in their aircraft. Understandably, most instructor pilots didn't want to be stalling a transport category airplane on a regular basis. Now that virtually every single commuter, transport, and business airplane has a simulator, there is no reason why they shouldn't be mandating actual stall training in the simulator.
This technique was taught in order to prevent a further wing drop at the stall due to aileron input.
This is a bit of a tangent but related to this statement.
Ever tried snapping aileron full deflection in a C172 at the point of stall? Which way will it go?
Theory says it'll go opposite the deflection (and it's correct) but in the Cessna it'll happily roll in the direction of the deflection.
It's good to teach and I recommend teaching it but it's virtually impossible to demonstrate to your student haha. "Hey Johnny, you don't wanna put aileron in at the stall because it'll roll the other way and might put you in a spin. Watch this!.... oh... it rolled in the direction of the deflection... hmm... well don't do it anyways!!!"
The reason for that is the outboard wing on the Cessna (due to washout) is generally not stalled when you stall the airplane. The whole point of washout is to provide roll control at speeds around stall speed. Not all airplanes have this which is why it's still a good practice to teach, regardless of being able to demonstrate it!
And as for picking up a wing... forget that! Pitch down and recover from the stall. There's a lot of simultaneous things happening during a stall recovery but pitching down is first, dealing with the wing drop is second.
D.P. Davies gives the following advice to airline pilots. -
That was an excellent excerpt! I fully agree... pilots do need more enthusiasm. Too many lazy pilots out there that don't take pride in doing their job well.