Where to Practice
One major problem of instruction is where to go to safely practice stalls. Since you will be flying in all directions during this period you want to be within 3000' of the earth's surface. Avoid flight at altitudes where the hemispheric rule applies. You try to find an area clear of an active fly way between airports and preferably clear of any airways or vectoring routes. I have found it best to operate over mountain ridges and plateaus which allow legal operations at such altitudes as 4300' or 3800'. This gives some additional glide range to the lowlands. I would avoid any operations at even thousands of feet as well as those at the 500s' since you will be exposed to either IFR or VFR transient aircraft. I have often utilized radar advisories where available during these training operations.

On a particularly poor visibility and ceiling day, I obtained a Class Delta clearance to practice in the top 600' of their airspace. I was above arrival/departure traffic and any traffic 'should' obtain a clearance to get where I was. Just monitor the radio and have a good time right above the airport.

Not so Real Stalls
It is nearly impossible to create a 'practice' stall that has all the qualities of an unintentional stall. However, the recovery from both the intentional and unintentional stall will be the same. Efforts to create the accidental or unintentional stall may be so emotionally traumatic that the mere mention of a stall causes an anxiety attack. The mental and emotional attitude of the student toward a stall and the recovery is perhaps more important that the actual performance.

The deliberate stall is an integral part of a normal landing. The student should be talked through a landing to understand how the aerodynamics of a stall with all of its control feel and sinking sensations makes the landing possible.

Power is not needed either to perform or recover from a stall. (Use a paper airplane to demonstrate) The use of power in the stall will make for a higher angle of attack and power in the recovery will reduce the loss of altitude. The essential of any stall recovery is to be decisive, deliberate and timely in the recovery.

As such, the procedural "stall" we learn, practice, and mimic for the examiner bears little-to-no resemblance whatsoever to real-life inadvertent stall/spin scenarios--the stuff we as pilots must be on guard for and be prepared to deal with. In fact, one Princeton University study revealed the following about stall-only (no spins!) fatal accidents:

--60 percent of the cases, turning flight preceded the fatal stall accident.

--Turning and/or climbing flight preceded 85 percent of the fatal stall accidents.

--Only 15 percent of fatal stall accidents involved neither turning nor climbing prior.

Stall Exercises
Select an altitude that is less than 3000' AGL over a single hill that is not at an even thousand or five-hundred. In a C-150 make clearing turns. Apply carburetor heat and reduce power to 1500 and hold heading and altitude while airspeed decreases to 60 knots. Increase power to 2000 rpm. Trim for 60 knots. Have the student slowly but constantly raise the nose to the first whimper of the stall horn and then lower the nose to return to original altitude at 60 knots. Use the rudder to maintain heading. Do it again but get a more pronounced stall warner before recovering. Do it again and reach the first aerodynamic signs of a stall before lowering the nose and recovering. Continue into progressively more deeply into the stall up to a full stall and recovery. All of this maneuver can be performed within 100' of altitude with no change in power setting.

Show that any 'wing drop' is due to a rudder problem and that using the aileron will not solve the problem but rudder will.

Stall exercises (Instructor)
The great weakness in stall/spin training is that it is unsafe to practice or simulate those situations that are most likely to surprise a pilot. We can teach and train for:

Stall Avoidance Practice at Slow Airspeeds (PTS)
1. Hold heading and altitude while reducing power and trimming.
2. Hold heading and altitude with stall warner on.
3. Demonstrate elevator trim from neutral to full up.
4. Note left turning tendency and rudder effectiveness.
5. Demonstrate required right rudder.
6. Demonstrate rudder effect by releasing/applying.
7. Make right/left turns without rudder to show yaw.
8. Practice slow flight climbs, descents, turns.
9. Demonstrate flap extension/retraction at slow speeds to avoid stall.
10. Distractions
11. Check altitude loss. Note airspeed loss in transition.

Stall Recognition
The stall is because of the angle of attack not the airspeed or attitude.
a. Mushy controls
b. Change in pitch of exterior air flow
c. Buffet, vibration, pitching, sounds
d. Stall warning
e. Body sensing

Natural Stall Warning
Some older aircraft do not have stall-warners. The natural stall warning is a first sensing of buffeting on the horizontal tail surfaces. The usual stall-warners alerts you up to 10 knots before the stall. The new FAR 23.207 requires prior warning but at no stated point.

Generic Stall Recovery
At recognition reduce angle of attack. The quickness of the yoke movement should correspond with the abruptness of the stall. Apply smooth power and establish straight and level or climb as required. A pilot must make significantly incorrect control input during the stall to create an incipient spin. Instinctive reactions are invariably, if not wrong, too much control application. Stall and spin recoveries are intellectual; not instinctive.

Secondary Stall
A secondary stall is a 'failure' during any flight test. The secondary stall occurs when, during the recovery of an initial stall, the pilot over-controls the recovery. At the slow speeds involved there is greatly reduced stick forces. It all too easy to apply enough back pressure to make the secondary stall both abrupt and violent.

Stalls Down Low
There is something about ground proximity and low altitude turns that cause reactions leading to stalls. It could be that more attention is being paid to the ground than to flying. Many of the factors that are likely to increase stall speeds exist close to the ground. Turbulence, increased bank angle, lack of coordination, and low speeds are most likely.

The quality of the turn for a given angle of bank can make the turning stall either break ahead or create an abrupt wing break which if reacted to by aileron will only make things worse. The un-stalled wing aggravates the drop by providing ever more lift. The nose will drop while following the dropping wing. The ground makes the pilot reluctant to lower the nose, even though this is the only possible solution. If power is increased at the turn entry, the increase in speed may be used to offset drag created by the turn. Power applied while in the turn is already too late. Stall speeds increase as the square root of the load factor. A 30-degree bank results in only .15 G increase in load factor. Banks beyond 30-degree can result in dramatic load factor increases as can turbulence. An aircraft at low speed will stall at a relatively small angle of bank. When stalls occur down low there is usually insufficient altitude for recovery regardless of proficiency.

Deep Stall
A deep stall can occur when the aircraft is in a very high angle-of-attack and high drag configuration as in minimum controllable. Airplanes, by design, will enter this undesirable mode only when loaded outside weight and center-of-gravity limits. Recovery from a deep stall may be possible only by changing the C. G. of the aircraft. Don't do stalls if you don't know the status of your C. G.

The deep stall occurs when the rearward center of gravity makes it so that the nose cannot be lowered with full elevator deflection. The stall angle of attack is exceeded by a margin well beyond the normal angle. The pitch-up is rapid and uncontrollable. The effectiveness of the horizontal stabilizer and elevator is dependent on the flow of the relative wind over these tail surfaces. The airflow over the tail surfaces is greatly reduced at slow speeds and high angles of attack. The nose will remain high with a very high rate of descent until the tail surfaces stall or until effectiveness can be restored. The use of full flaps can precipitate this condition in wind-shear conditions. T-tail aircraft are more prone, simply because there is no prop-wash to augment any relative wind needed to load the tail surfaces.

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