Recently I had an emotional rapture of sorts -- facing my fear of falling, er stalling.

I don't want to sound over the top, but this was more of a hurdle for me than I had thought, and removing it is like the removal of a big sinking weight. (OK, that is a bit over the top, remove head from clouds and return to 500-ft below ceiling, please...)

Sometimes you just read a lot about something, you imagine what it's like, you add a little imagination, and it just takes off from there. What you envision often makes a rapid departure from reality, and it becomes something scary and a source of constant anxiety even if it is ill-deserved.
This was definitely one of those times.

It was holding me back a bit as everytime I banked the plane, something that perhaps I could roll into somewhat smoother, I had this silent fear of entering into a spin. Everytime that I climbed, or added power, I was certain that I was going to push the limit and enter into a stall. Yes, one can easily see how this can be a limitation to one's progress. Being timid and backing off does not engender one with advancement of piloting skills, particularly when there is no valid reason for it.

So one sunny afternoon, as I was getting into ever deeper banks and alternately learning to hold airspeed, hold altitude, and make endless ascending and descending turns, and trimming for level flight (all of which was going somewhat well, by the way), the subject of stalling came up.
It had come up during the previous session, at which time I had said "No thank you, not today. Maybe next time."

With a sense of deja-vu, I found myself once again chanting the mantra "No, no no. Not today, next time..."

Well this was not to be.

"No, not next time. TODAY. We are going to do it today and you will see that it's really no big deal..." He said this with a degree of determination that was rather compelling.

"OK."

I dutifully brought us back up to 3000 feet as instructed. Understandably, the lead time was a bit extra smooth... honestly I was in no rush to get there. Slowly we ascended past 26, then 27, then 28, then 29... until we just creeped up to 3000. [Gee, can you tell that I was trying to put it off a bit longer?]

At that point, I heard the semi-ominous words "I have the controls..."

Oh yes, he was really going to do it. "No big deal. "

Cognitively, I believed it. On some level, there's a degree of trust and it was a strong trust, and so far nothing had ever happened to erode away at that trust. So this was probably in fact NOT a big deal. Somewhere deep inside, I knew this was true. But when you face something that is unknown, there is a level of second-guessing. Quietly I thought to myself "There is 'no big deal' -- and then there is 'NO BIG DEAL'. This guy says he's into acrobatics... what is no big deal for him is not necessarily no big deal for me..."

OK, so there I was in silence, he had the controls and we were about to do this thing at 3000 feet. On the way up there I was asking about the 3000 feet, and just how much altitude we expected to lose. 500 feet? "Oh no, not even 100 feet, IF THAT. Probably not even close."
After a few seconds to process this I asked "And this feels like...?"
"Oh, you won't even feel a thing!"

I was starting to wonder if we were in fact talking about the same thing. Indeed, maybe I just didn't know what it was that I was asking about...?

So finally, we had the flaps down, we lowered airspeed and I watched it slowly drop as we continued to fly. Yes, the plane continued to fly.
We dropped below 70... then we reached 60. "This is it!" I thought - after all, the magic number of "59" was in my head. But no, this was NOT it. We had the flaps fully extended. And in a 1975 C-172, the flaps go all the way down to 40-degrees.
We continued to drop - 55, 50. The horn was blowing. This is "it?"

No, we contiuned to drop airspeed - 45... 40. We were down to 40 knots and we were STILL FLYING!!

I observed that we had all this warning -- it was clear that a stall doesn't just happen. We had to WORK to set up these conditions. It took some time -- there was fully 10--15 seconds of that stall warning horn sounding. If you didn't get it by then...
[Oh, and by the way, who invented that thing? Like a duck saying happy new year...Clearly, someone, somewhere has a demented sense of humor!!]

And then it happened and it was over in seconds -- the plane stalled, we dropped maybe 10-feet and we pulled right out of it.
THAT IS ALL THERE WAS TO IT!

Immediately after that, I had a demonstration of the "other" kind of stall, a power-on stall. This is a good thing to know, as it may happen during take-off.

To accomplish this, we went to full throttle and began to climb at a really RIDICULOUS angle of attack. This was an angle of attack that you would NEVER be in. How steep? Well, I was aware of being more and more vertical. Nearly on my back. The more vertical it got, the more nervous I felt, but I continued to talk through this.
I was amazed by the fact that a 172 could be so nearly vertical.
Yes, it really was!!

Finally we stalled -- for half a second we fell, immediately pitched forward, and just as immediately we pulled up and we were flying again. The end.

Yes, that was all there was to it.

After all of this, a greatly relieved soul comfortably made a few more turns and flew straight and level towards home. Well, relatively straight and level...
But in any event, I was content at knowing that I was never anywhere near the point of testing the plane's limits, now that I know where they are.

Dan,

It's funny that you mentioned "slow flight" -- because that is exactly what came next!
Oh, and we're not done with slow flight yet. The object is to continue with slow flight and "work into the stalls" as was explained to me.
As it turns out, the stall demonstration I had was delivered by a (substitute), or someone else filling in while my regular instructor was away. It was he who recognized the need to skip ahead a bit and go into stalls to deal with my apparent timidness with maneuvers in normal cruise flight...

Now in slow flight, you quickly recognize the need for right rudder. It is one thing to READ about things like P-factor, but quite another to FEEL it. And to know WHEN it becomes more and less of a factor. Also, when all of your flying is at 70 knots or less, you're always one step ahead of getting into the stall region. As I creep down to 60 kn, I am always either using the throttle or pitching downward.
I can quickly see where all this slow-flight becomes important in the syllabus -- after all, where are you likely to encounter slow flight maneuvers? During takeoff, landings and go-arounds. Where are you most likely to stall? No, not while cruising at FL10...

Funny you mention a tendency to pull back and pitch up -- where might that happen?
Of course, if you're getting low and see trees coming at you, psychologically you have a tendency to pitch up rather than pitch down to gain airspeed. But pitching up will make it more likely that you will go INTO the trees... and so the lecture goes.

It's a lot less scary at 3,000 and 4,500 feet rather than 300-feet above the trees... hence the slow flight training and "working down into the stalls."

Due to work schedule and bad weather, I've had only one slow flight lesson and one ground school lesson since I began this topic.
But in the coming week, I will have two more flight lessons (weather permitting!) and so will have more to discuss about slow flight and stalling... to be continued!

--dAve

Stick and Rudder -- I know that book (author has a German name). In fact, I discovered this title the night before your post at a local Barnes&Noble while away on business in Alabama.

I already understand the tradeoff between speed and altitude, but I suspect that I will have a different perspective on this after completing slow speed and stall training...!:)

If training pilots would just read that book before starting training things would fall into place far quicker. I am going to say that almost all of the Pilot error accidents that happen, happen because the pilot does not yet understand the concept of flight. He knows how to fly, but does not UNDERSTAND flight. If you understand, and practice (snap decisions) you will be far better off when things go bad. What we do now in training is practice stalls so you know what it is and hopefully avoid it. The problem is we do it in a way that you already know it is coming. "OK we are going to do a level flight stall" "OK now we are going to do a power on stall." a power on stall would take me 2 min to develop, because I did not like them so I went into it slow. I would tell myself how stupid is this I would not even begin to hold a plane like this so why am I practicing it. Stall training should have little to do with the actual stall. The CFI should get you into a fast climb 1100 fpm or so then give you something else to do, "get that paper out of the back" or something. As you reach for the paper you forget to let go of the yoke and pull back just enough to put it into a power on stall going right into a spin. NOW that is stall training! Slow flight stalls, get as slow as you can and then say "Turn 180 to the right @ 45deg. You will stall. This is a typical return to the airport stall spin crash when you loose an engine on Take Off. In these scenarios you do not have to actually stall for him to correct you. It is your first reaction that counts. What did you do first? Once you know what to do first you will never stall a plane by accident. Hey look out for that bird!!... Did you pull back or turn sharp without more power or speed? It does no good to miss the bird if you auger in.

Dan