Snowbird crash in CYKA

[CpnCrunch]

35 degrees works too, and you don't lose a lot of extra altitude. The radius of turn is about 40% bigger, though. That may be good, or bad, depending.

Radius is 23% bigger (comparing 45 degrees at 70kt vs 35 degrees at 65kt).

While I don't question your own experience, my experience of the difficult-to-fly C150 is that it, too, is not more particularly prone to spin entry than other slow single-engine types. It's certainly not more difficult to maintain in slow flight, which is all we are talking about here.

A 150 certainly a lot more liable to drop a wing in a stall than a 172, and that's not just my experience. The 172 has a much larger amount of washout, so it would be quite odd if you experienced a similar stall characteristics on it to a 172.

I prefer to fly the attitude rather than fuss about exactly how much back pressure. If you fly attitude, then you're ahead of any airspeed excursions.

You still need to look at your airspeed.

[photofly]

You still need to look at your airspeed.

I take your point, but you can do quite well with just attitude and the stall warning horn on/off. That compensates for weight and cg automatically too. How much time do you spend looking at the ASI practicing slow flight?

[CpnCrunch]

I take your point, but you can do quite well with just attitude and the stall warning horn on/off. That compensates for weight and cg automatically too. How much time do you spend looking at the ASI practicing slow flight?

If the stall warning is such a panacea in this situation, why are there still so many stall/spin accidents after engine failures?

[photofly]

I take your point, but you can do quite well with just attitude and the stall warning horn on/off. That compensates for weight and cg automatically too. How much time do you spend looking at the ASI practicing slow flight?

If the stall warning is such a panacea in this situation, why are there still so many stall/spin accidents after engine failures?

One can equally well ask why isn’t the airspeed indicator such a panacea. I mean, there it is in front of you, all you have to do is look at it.

But are there that many such accidents? And how many is that many, anyway? Are there any at all, among pilots who are properly prepared?

If there are among the unprepared, it may be because the stall warning horn doesn’t (as yet, as far as I know) reach out from behind the instrument panel and give your nuts a hard squeeze when your angle of attack rises too high. You actually have to listen for it, listen to it, and understand what it’s telling you, which is the point of practice, isn’t it?

[Squaretail]

If there are among the unprepared

If they’re unprepared, it’s usually because they were taught wrong. Two vectors here, first every once in a while an enterprising instructor decides that power is the first action to get out of a stalling situation, and we’ll if there is no power, we’ll then all is lost. Second, I see a lot of stall training that is incredibly timid that doesn’t show students actual stalls, but recoveries at the “approach” to the stall. The horn might squeak, stick goes forward. Slow flight is taught minimally at the barest indicating of the regime. The idea one may have to fly the airplane with the horn on constantly and maybe louder than they have ever previously experienced would be a terror to pilots trained in such a manner, since they have also been taught that the stall itself is instant death.

[CpnCrunch]

But are there that many such accidents? And how many is that many, anyway? Are there any at all, among pilots who are properly prepared?

If there are among the unprepared, it may be because the stall warning horn doesn’t (as yet, as far as I know) reach out from behind the instrument panel and give your nuts a hard squeeze when your angle of attack rises too high. You actually have to listen for it, listen to it, and understand what it’s telling you, which is the point of practice, isn’t it?

Well there's this accident, there's the recent Cessna 140 STOL fatality, there's the floatplane fatality a few years ago that killed a poster on here. Probably lots more, those are just a few off the top of my head. All of them were highly experienced as far as I know. I doubt they ignored the stall warning horn.

This accident report indicates that in this particular plane there is little warning of the stall during a climbing turn, although it could be due to the mods:

http://www.tsb-bst.gc.ca/eng/rapports-r ... p0345.html

I haven't experienced that in any 150 or 172, but then I haven't tried deliberately making errors like pulling too hard or banking too much during a 45 degree turn at idle power. Maybe in certain cases there is just very little time between the stall warning and the stall?

[rookiepilot]

Maybe a thread drift, but I think a lot of stall spin accidents are correlated with a strong tailwind (on base, typically).

Don’t stomp on the rudder to overcorrect for a tailwind…..bad things can happen.

It is VERY tempting to do, having overshot the base to final turn, and low……

[photofly]

All of them were highly experienced as far as I know. I doubt they ignored the stall warning horn.

Forgive me - I thought that was precisely the contention: that these experienced pilots where so overwhelmed by the novelty of their situation their arms locked in the fully back position as their brains rejected every audible, visual and kinesthetic cue as to how to remain in or recover control of their aircraft.

Are you saying that the stall warning horns were inoperative, and if they had been working the accident(s) would have been avoided? If so, that puts a very different spin (no pun intended) on how to look at this - one would ask why the stall warning horn was inoperative, why an accident investigation didn't highlight that as a contributing factor, and why it wasn't detected pre-flight.

Or are you saying that an otherwise-functioning stall warning horn does not and cannot work in this scenario? I have to say, that's not my experience.

I should add that a competent pilot can detect and recover from an actual stall with or without a stall warning horn to announce a stall is being approached. Even in a 45° bank.

Going back to the point of airspeed indicator with/without stall warning horn, for judging a turn. I"m sure there are lots of ways to fly this manoeuvre, and I was simply describing mine, recognizing that a stall warning horn is simply an aural angle-of-attack indicator that sounds at close to the AoA of interest. I give you a lot of credit for thinking about how to carry it out such a turn if you need it; the details of bank angle, airspeed judgment etc are to a very large extent a matter of pilot preference in individual types and individual airframes.

[CpnCrunch]

Or are you saying that an otherwise-functioning stall warning horn does not and cannot work in this scenario? I have to say, that's not my experience.

I should add that a competent pilot can detect and recover from an actual stall with or without a stall warning horn to announce a stall is being approached. Even in a 45° bank.

All I'm saying is that perhaps all these pilots aren't as incompetent as you seem to think they are: ignoring the stall warning horn and not pushing the nose down. TBH I find that unlikely. Another factor that could have been a factor in the recent 140 STOL accident is wind shear.

[photofly]

Or are you saying that an otherwise-functioning stall warning horn does not and cannot work in this scenario? I have to say, that's not my experience.

I should add that a competent pilot can detect and recover from an actual stall with or without a stall warning horn to announce a stall is being approached. Even in a 45° bank.

All I'm saying is that perhaps all these pilots aren't as incompetent as you seem to think they are: ignoring the stall warning horn and not pushing the nose down.

I don’t think they’re incompetent pilots at all. I think they were in an emergency trying to improvise a manoeuvre which they had not properly rehearsed. None of the contributors to this thread, including you, me and BPF think that’s a good idea.

[CpnCrunch]

I was trying to find some cockpit video of a stall/spin accident. The only one I managed to find was this:

https://www.netairspace.cc/forum/viewto ... =13&t=2398

Obviously there were a number of things this pilot did wrong, but in the end the actual stall/spin was indeed caused by ignoring the stall warning and not pushing down. Close to the ground it is difficult to resist that urge to pull up. Also contributing to this accident was his decision to do a steep turn close to the ground.

[photofly]

. Also contributing to this accident was his decision to do a steep turn close to the ground.

Does the aerodynamics of a steep turn change at low altitude?

[CpnCrunch]

. Also contributing to this accident was his decision to do a steep turn close to the ground.

Does the aerodynamics of a steep turn change at low altitude?

Of course not, but a steep turn causes altitude loss when there is no excess power available. A less steep turn likely wouldn't have caused any altitude loss. And close to the ground there isn't sufficient altitude to recover from a stall.

[Aviatard]

. Also contributing to this accident was his decision to do a steep turn close to the ground.

Does the aerodynamics of a steep turn change at low altitude?

Of course not, but a steep turn causes altitude loss when there is no excess power available.

Does it?

[rookiepilot]

. Also contributing to this accident was his decision to do a steep turn close to the ground.

Does the aerodynamics of a steep turn change at low altitude?

Of course not, but a steep turn causes altitude loss when there is no excess power available. A less steep turn likely wouldn't have caused any altitude loss. And close to the ground there isn't sufficient altitude to recover from a stall.

I am a pilot, and I don’t begin to understand this sentence.

A) its a lack of excess energy, measured as an adequate airspeed margin over the stall, not power,

B) any turn, no matter how slight, will use more energy than straight ahead flight, and absent that excess energy, any turn will cause an altitude loss.

[CpnCrunch]

Does it?

It does if you want to maintain a certain airspeed and you don't have sufficient power to maintain that airspeed in a steep turn.