Stalls in a cloud?

[A Squared]

Hi,
My friend recently told me that him and his CFI went into a cloud, and did actual steep turns and stalls. They did all kinds of manuevers like that inside the cloud. It raised some alarm bells in my mind. Is this type of thing generally done,

I dunno, I do it every 6 months, as do all the other captains at my company. THe FOs do it every 12. well, whether it's actually in the clouds or not depends on the weather on checkride day, but i've done plenty of stalls and steep turns in in clouds.

 

[Alex429595]

I dunno, I do it every 6 months, as do all the other captains at my company. THe FOs do it every 12. well, whether it's actually in the clouds or not depends on the weather on checkride day, but i've done plenty of stalls and steep turns in in clouds.

Really? What kind of work do you do?

 

[81Horse]

Hunh.

Reminds me of a check airman, at a place long ago, who used to love turning off the pitot heat in IMC -- seemed to think that was a character-builder.

Also reminds me of my grandfather, who used to "simulate" engine failures by shutting off the fuel. He also liked to show you that you could, in fact, continue a takeoff and return for a normal landing after the cabin door popped open.

Sometimes, it's the flight instructor who's the real character-builder.

 

[MauleSkinner]

1.)This was this private pilot in trainings first time in IMC

2.)It was an IFR days, with low clouds

3.)As far as he described it, they were full stalls

This sounds to me like a bad idea...probably an instructor who decided he needed to make some money and build some time that day. My guess is the student probably didn't gain much of anything from the lesson.

On the other hand, as A Squared indicated, in certain segments of the 135/121 world, doing these maneuvers in the clouds is the norm, and at that point there really shouldn't be any difference between being in the clouds or under the hood.

Fly safe!

David

 

[threegreen]

Sounds like a low time, overconfidient instructor who is bored. Personally, I just don't see the point - you wouldn't do MCA in the pattern would you?

 

[flyer172r]

The CFI is aware that VFR flight into IMC has been a leading accident cause for many years, right?

 

[firstthird]

I agree with the 'bad idea' crowd.

The Navy/Marines (and now some Air Force types) fly king airs in Corpus Christi. It was one of the 'safer' training commands with no loss of life for 10+ years. But about 3 or 4 years ago, they lost one with the instructor and 2 students. I'm pretty sure that the investigators suspected it was a stall series in marginal VFR conditions. That is with a Navy instructor with 1000+ hours and 2 students that are working on their commercial/multi equivalents not private pilot students and marginal VFR not in actually flying around in clouds.

Just because you 'should be able to recover from a stall buffet in IMC' is not a good reason to practice stalls in IMC. Risk management dictates that you get good training doing it in VFR (with foggles if you want) but the perceived gain by actually being IMC is not worth the risk of getting an aircraft in an unusual attitude without the actual horizon to use as a recovery reference. That's why the NTSB spends so much time doing those investigations so we can learn from the mistakes/misfortunes of others because none of us would live long as pilot if we had to make all the mistakes ourselves.

 

[onthebeach]

91.303

§ 91.303 Aerobatic flight.

No person may operate an aircraft in aerobatic flight—
(a) Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement;
(b) Over an open air assembly of persons;
(c) Within the lateral boundaries of the surface areas of Class B, Class C, Class D, or Class E airspace designated for an airport;
(d) Within 4 nautical miles of the center line of any Federal airway;
(e) Below an altitude of 1,500 feet above the surface; or
(f) When flight visibility is less than 3 statute miles.
For the purposes of this section, aerobatic flight means an intentional maneuver involving an abrupt change in an aircraft's attitude, an abnormal attitude, or abnormal acceleration, not necessary for normal flight.
[Doc. No. 18834, 54 FR 34308, Aug. 18, 1989, as amended by Amdt. 91–227, 56 FR 65661, Dec. 17, 1991]