pilots begin practicing stall recognition and recovery before their
first solo flights they have to demonstrate those skills repeatedly on
check rides and subsequent flight reviews but year after year unintended
stalls are among the leading causes of fatal aviation accidents why one major
reason is that the stalls we practice in training don't look or feel much like
the ones that catch pilots off-guard also pilots often fail to understand the
implications of being close to the ground every time we fly a portion of
that flight is being spent in the red zone basically an altitude that may not
offer enough time or height above the ground to recover from a stall or spin
let's look at the standard wings level power off stall the deliberate entry and
recovery that's taught to students is the most docile of all the stall
maneuvers in the curriculum easy-peasy and yet this procedure is meant to
prepare us for flying in the traffic pattern where things can be very
different compared to practice maneuvers actual stalls in the traffic pattern are
outright dangerous and they come as a surprise
the shock slows a pilots reaction when it's already at low altitude powers not
likely to be all the way back to idling a lot of these occurred during turns if
the banks not coordinated the airplanes likely to spin from an altitude that
doesn't leave room to recover even with perfect technique traffic pattern stalls
usually result from some combination of distraction for pattern discipline and
sloppy stick and rudder flying the eventual loss of control arises from an
earlier loss of command discipline precision and awareness are needed to
disrupt that chain of events the lower the airplane the more the pilots
attention should be focused on the fundamentals of flying it knowing the
causes helps define the Cure's there are a few simple things we can do that will
help us keep command so we don't lose control
the first is enforcing a sterile cockpit this means minimizing distractions
during the high workload phases of flight or a special approach and landing
the airlines prohibit all non-essential activity or discussion below 10,000 feet
the equivalent for GA is the last 10 minutes before arrival and below 2500
feet above ground level once you're in the sterile cockpit zone have your
passengers keep quiet unless you can enlist them to your call
out traffic turn right around and come back the other way and then
you should also stow any loose items you won't need before landing think of it as
mentally decluttering the cockpit so that once things get busy you'll be able
to give full attention to flying the aircraft the second thing the pilots can
do to help eliminate lapses and airmanship is a stabilized approach that
means having the airplane correctly configured and at its intended altitude
airspeed and descent rate so that only small adjustments to course and power
are required you cross the threshold with the airplane ready to land but
stabilizing the approach begins long before you turn final typically at each
checkpoint end of descent pattern entry abeam the numbers base and short final
you should have precise targets for airspeed altitude descent rate and
spacing from the runway make configuration changes at the same points
every time and preferably wings level keep turns to a maximum of 30 degrees of
bank and pay attention to coordination keep in mind that there may be times
when a one-size-fits-all pattern procedure doesn't apply where you'll
need to rely on using good judgment based on the surrounding environment for
example flying into a mountain strip in any case find the specific values that
work for your airplane the goal is to aim small and miss small anything more
than a modest divergence from those standards means that the approach is no
longer stable if there's any doubt power up go around and try again
quite a few pattern stalls happen while the pilots trying to slow the airplane
for spacing from traffic ahead any need to slow below normal approach speed or
attempt s turns 360 s or other non-standard maneuvers is a clear sign
that the approach isn't stable if it's at the towers request don't hesitate to
tell them unable plan to go around with a sidestep if that's necessary to keep
traffic in sight even after crossing a threshold you're not home free come in
too fast and you might hit the nose gear first and bounce back into the air this
carries a real risk of damaging the aircraft flare too high and too
aggressively and you'll stall too far above the runway once the nose drops is
a good chance it will touch down before the mains the higher the altitude the
harder the impact you might escape with just a hard landing but botched landings
have the potential to do damage to the aircraft the good news here is that most
hard landings are survivable especially when everyone's wearing a seat belt with
a shoulder harness stalls from altitude aren't nearly as benign the extra energy
collected during a 50 or 100 foot fall vastly increases impact forces more than
half of these accidents are fatal compared to less than 2% of landing
stalls the traffic pattern is not the place to
worry about things other than flying the airplane and maintaining an adequate
margin of safety avoiding low-power stalls isn't difficult but it requires
awareness and management of the airplanes energy state just like every
other phase of flight understanding the interplay between airspeed
angle-of-attack altitude bank angle and descent rate enables you to maintain
control throughout the approach strive for precision attend to the details and
focus on flying the machine until it's down and stopped do it consistently and
the only stalls you'll ever see are the ones you practice deliberately