Originally Posted by rich34glider
I still reckon some correct and instinctive recovery action may have saved the day .. certainly trying to correct the wing drop with aileron and no rudder guaranteed it was going in. Stick & rudder flying, just like was taught back in the good old days when Mallards were built.
Even this Canadian research says "They (instructors) need to be able to teach their
students how to recover from these stalls as soon as the wing drops and before
autorotation develops" .. but everyone is saying the training is all too hard/not relevant .. confused!
I've done lots of stalls. Lots and lots. And a fair number of spins, in three different types, and I can't disagree with you. I used to practice stalls (and all sorts of other stuff) at least once a week, when I was flying lots. I was fortunate enough to be able to. I doubt the majority of pilots are able to maintain that level of currency.
I think, that in this kind of situation where there's been a stall/spin crash, that the pilots headspace was probably far enough away from what the aircraft was doing that the reaction time -even if stall recovery has been thoroughly taught - is likely to be excessive. By their very nature, it's clear these unintended events catch people by surprise.
I doubt that in this case recovery was possible once it was stalled. There may have been a brief opportunity before the wing started to drop, if the reaction had been correct and immediate. The out-of-spin aileron probably wasn't a mistake; it was more likely to have been a panic reaction, and by the time it was applied it was beyond recovery, anyway.
I believe that better training toward planning, and risk analysis regarding any proposed manouever, combined with some kind of resilience-against-surprise training might pay off better.