Action after Stall Recovery
 

Having recovered from stall and levelled the wings (if necessary) we ease out of the dive, would you regain straight and level flight or put the a/c back into the climb?

I have my own views on this but would be interested in other opinions.

I teach to always recover to a climb as most real world inadvertent stall scenarios happen at low altitude

Into the climb is most commonly taught and I agree with the above however you could also teach to the straight and level as the climb may not be a catch all?

I agree with recovering into a climb, if only to be sure you are not still losing height.


MJ:ok:

+1 for recovery to the climb. It can be consciously varied, but generally there's far less to be scared of above you than any other direction, so it should be the default action.

G

Used to teach to the climb, but more recently have been teaching to
recover to S&L then assess the situation.

I am far more concerned with teaching them to recognise the APPROACH to the stall and recover BEFORE it happens. When teaching fully developed I am much more interested that they can recover using the column, power and rudder correctly than what happens once they've got flying speed again.

I would hope what you wrote is a given for every instructor. However the OP specified actions after the stall recovery which is where I directed my answer.

If a low time pilot gets into an inadvertent stall then they are likely to be rattled after the recovery and will revert to what they where trained. You can't go wrong by starting a climb, you can however get into trouble by recovering to straight and level at low altitudes.

Duchess_Driver for me that's a given too.

The reason I asked the question was that a recent candidate was criticised by an examiner for climbing after recovery and not going for straight and level.

If you stalled at low level and were recovered at 200 ft agl would you fly straight and level?

I've been thinking about this lately, too.

So, what I do now is:

a) teach recovery to a glide descent,
b) recover to a glide descent, then recover to S&L (as per ex 8)
c) recover to a glide, then recover to a climb
d) recover with minimum height loss, to a climb (which I think is what the examiner will be looking for).

The rationale here is to show in a) the pure aerodynamic recovery with change in A of A, back to the known (glide recovery to S&L), THEN introduce the ideal in d). Too many people on reval. flights shove in the power before the A of A has reduced, causing a pitch up back into the stall, with all kinds of yawing going on 'cos they don't adjust rudder against the power slipstream changes. I'm looking eventually with a 'straight' stall, for a constant heading through the manoeuvre.

TOO

For the stall recovery, the CAA provide the following guidance in:

Standards Doc 19(A)

Standards Doc 14(A)

ifitaint...

Do what is appropriate for the situation.

Fireflybob, the examiner should have specified what he wanted to see after recovery in his briefing. In the absence of that then Standards doc guidance would be appropriate. When I am examining I usually brief to recover to the normal climb (i.e. best rate, clean). You normally carry out a series of stalls during a skill test so it makes sense to recover lost altitude between each one.

I have a few issues with this.

There is a lot of evidence that pilots under high stress will revert to the first thing they learned - in your case, you are setting people up for a pitch only recovery as default action, which will cause excessive height loss.

Secondly heading is really not that important - an unstalled aeroplane in a turn, is an unstalled aeroplane. The ONLY thing that in the immediacy should be going on with the rudder is keeping zero sideslip.

I do absolutely agree that nobody should be applying power first - but there is adequate evidence that simultanous power and pitch both gives us consistent stall recovery and minimum height loss. (For the Brits, this is the CFS stall recovery.)


It seems to me that everybody - but especially a new pilot - should drill the right actions (simultaneous pitch and full power, zero sideslip with rudder, attitude for a shallow climb), then anything (such as pitch only to explore something, partial power in a very high powered aeroplane, recovering to level flight, correcting bank or heading) should be a deliberate exception from drilled best practice *only* once that best practice is consistent and instinctive.

Similarly - no. Can I offer a parallel from my other interest - when not doing aviation, I do martial arts. I have a 3rd dan black belt and am chief instructor at a club - so not a beginner. I teach flinch responses to immediate threats, and in our style basically only a very very limited range of actions. These responses have been designed over a lot of years to protect somebody from immediate harm, without hurting anybody else.

So - somebody swings a baseball bat at my head - I pass it out of the way and step behind the arm.
So - somebody jokingly but I didn't notice early enough swings a cushion at my head - I pass it out of the way and step behind the arm.

Or - somebody grabs me from behind with malign intent, and I drop my weight and go into a guard position.
Or - an aunt spots me in Sainsburys and gives me an unexpected hug, and I drop my weight and go into a guard position.

In my martial arts, I'm making myself instinctively safe without making things any worse, then stopping to think what to do next.


I see a stall recovery in exactly the same way. Any pilot should have an instinctive stall response - stick forward, full power, ball in the middle with rudder, climb attitude. That protects life and aircraft, THEN once that's done there's time to "Do what is appropriate for the situation". The alternative is for things to get worse whilst you use non-existent thinking time to decide upon the right actions.


G

What is the main aim of a stall recovery? To recover the aircraft from the stall, it has nothing to do with minimum height loss! This is the very problem that has been discovered with approach to stall recovery training and causes problems with loss of control etc.

I do however agree that the height loss should not be ignored however carrying out a stall recovery with the aim of minimum height loss is not good.

There is nothing wrong with trying to minimise height loss.

It is paramount to recover from the stall of course, and then to minimise height loss. But you still do both.

The problems we all know about were because minimising height loss was put first above good stall recovery practice, not because it was considered.

G

I think the point of teaching 'Reduce AoA' - 'Increase power' as a 1-2 action, (albeit separated by little more than an instant) rather than simultaneously, is to make it clear that it shouldn't be the other way around.


MJ:ok:

I had exactly that conversation with David Scouller at my last instructor renewal.

Delayed power = increased height loss

Delayed pitch = potential secondary loss of control.


That's a trivial decision - one must certainly organise things so that power is never applied first.

G

To recover to a climb should be the eventual aim to regain any height loss. The student should be taught to recognise whether recovery to S&L or a climb is required. (Common sense?).

The primary importance is to get the student to understand the stall symptoms, the indication of the stall itself, and safely action the SSR.

Once they have understood the basics, and can demonstrate good competency, then the climb becomes important, as they will be expected to affect minimum height loss and to return to the original height they started at, but it will also show other elements.

Here is key opportunity to demo the secondary stall (as you climb away rapidly), but also introduce them to the go-around, low power/idle to full power climb. This is a good time to see the progression of the student and how their co-ordination is.

So you put primacy on understanding, rather than drilling correct and immediate stall recovery?

G

Stall recovery technique in students has to developed to the point where it is instinctive and unthinking to unload the wing by applying forward stick, then applying power and then preventing the aircraft from yawing.

If the pilot has to think about the actions then they are not ready to deal with an inadvertent low altitude stall, the most common real world scenario.