pilotyip
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 26, 2001
- Posts
- 13,629
great post, but flying to a stall recognition and recovering is much different than flying into a stall departure, which from what I read is what the Fed's are looking for. At Zantop in the Electra we did are stall recoveries in flight in the airplane, but only to the point where you started to buffet.CWG, great summary and interesting info. I agree with your summary of AF stall training. In each plane I flew it was a high emphasis item. In T37s, T38s, and later T1s it seems the first maneuer you did after vertical S's was stalls, stalls, and more stalls. Configured left and right simulating stalling on the base turn, and configure/unconfigured straight ahead simulating stalls on final or at cruise. At the time it seemed like it was way overdone but the recognition/recovery routine was really drilled into your head. I can't speak to it, but I believe getting a private license involves much the same initial training.
I was also a tanker toad and I remember taking guys up to do approach to stalls as a currency item. Not sure if was once per year or even less frequent, but every line pilot had to do it. It's been a long time, but I believe we got a 2,000 foot block of space between 20k' and 30k', slowed and trimmed for level flight until we got to approach speed, then continued slowing without trimming until the rumble started, then recovered. While near buffet we'd talk about the deck angle (pretty dramatic), ADI picture, mushiness of controls, and noise level. It wasn't a full stall like pilot training, but it does show how seriously the AF took the issue. Taking a B707 to initial buffet was a continuation of the philosophy of recognize/recover.
One final note, we didn't have sims for annual checkrides and the inflight checkride included unusual attitude recover as a mandatory item. You told the pilot to close his eyes and you put the plane into a turning nose high slowing attitude or a turning nose low accelerating attitude, then say "recover." On the high one you did not want to see the roll to wings level until the nose had fallen through the horizon and you were picking up some speed. On the low one you'd want to see the roll to wings level first so the pull had maximum effect to minimize altitude loss.
Haven't seen any of this kind of training or re-familiarization in annual evals at the majors. It seems that the MBA view is to automate and proceduralize flying enough by putting the autopilot on/off at 1000' AGL and flying the plane by tapping your fingers onto a box to the point where no one ever gets into an unusual attitude or a stall. This works--most of the time. Unfortunately, while "most of the time" works for running a business (they can just declare bankruptcy and move on), it's not such a great philosophy for flying planes.