People stall on takeoff because they are trying to clear an obstacle in many cases. If you think it is going to be close the best thing to do is aim for the top of the obstacle that will be your flattest path and give you the best chance of clearing it. Stick and Rudder is a great book all pilots should read. Everything you have said is spot on, thanks.
I think learning to fly on gliders has taught me a lot about energy management and how a plane behaves at different speeds, angles of attack and bank angles. Still a lot more to learn though. I really enjoyed this video, it was really informative!
Glider flying is the best way to learn how aircraft behave IMO because it completely removes the thrust element from the equation. One can also learn valuable information from RC aircraft flying because the principals are the same.
I’m a student working on my CPL and remember my instructor drilling into my head that a stall can happen at any altitude at any airspeed, grateful to have him as my teacher! We spent one lesson just going over the many types of stall and factors that can affect it, I wasn’t understanding it from the books so he figured it would be a better connection if I was able to associate what physically happens to the plane. Really glad we did that, it was a bit of an “aha!” moment for me when we figured out that demonstrating these book scenarios was sort of the web that tied everything together for me!
Timely content Joe! I’m a CFI and the misinformation out there is, well, you know! Yesterday in fact, posted this to a great discord community/group (midlife pilot) when talking about stalls and turns in the pattern: ‘Just don’t pull. While i am not recommending it here, 30-45 degrees of bank, as long as you are NOT pulling (maintaining altitude), you won’t stall the wing. If you get some serious ‘impossible turn’ training, you’ll see that the turn back to the runway is aggressive AF. 30-45° of bank, must be done, to remotely have a chance. BUT YOU CAN’T PULL, ever. I did some super intense RV-8 tailwheel training with an air show pilot (who is a character and a half. He smoked cigarettes in the back while I flew in the front. 😂. It was such a GREAT experience to be taught by a guy that comfortable in the airplane.) Anyway, once, he had me SKID the airplane on final. I was nervous AF, but he kept saying, don’t load the wing up, then no stall. It was crazy to see and feel. (AGAIN, don’t recommend you do this without training). But this guy with - bazillion hours, a couple of world records, showed me a LOT. Just don’t load up the wing ever, and you won’t stall/spin it into the ground.” Thanks for all the awesome content. I fly out of 39N occasionally when I am up that way. Hope to meet up and fly some day 👊👊👊
I honestly think in order to solo, students should have read stick and rudder first, it has certainly made me a better pilot, and taught me things I wasn’t even taught in my training. Great video Joe!
Thanks! And agree. Really have to focus on making sure we don’t lose the basic “stick & rudder” skills all in hopes of just breeezing through early training because the airlines are hiring and people don’t want to miss out
Excellent video! Thank you for doing this. As a CFI, I understand this concept, but this video gave me a few ideas to help teach this concept to students. I had superb spin training which covered this in detail, but having a detailed video with demonstrations really helps. Also, I liked your comment about published stall speeds being at an “unaccelerated, one G” condition. It coincides with what I teach: ‘what increases stall speed? Load factor.’
A close reading of the first four chapters of “Stick And Rudder” will make you a better-and safer-pilot. For my money, there isn’t a better explanation out there of the central importance of angle of attack in all phases of flight.
During the hammerhead turn around the is no lift, and no angle of attack, as the airplane is vertical, so there can be no stall. There is no relative wind to detach from the wing.
Hi Joe, I’ve often wondered whether the (tired? confused) pilots of AF 447, who got their Airbus into that tragic high altitude stall..and apparently a nearly flat (near zero forward speed) vertical descent, even had, after the first minute or so, the ability to unload the wing. That is, as the plane fell nearly vertically, was there any available elevator (horiz stabilizer) authority left to permit a pitch over… Can you comment on that? My very limited understanding of big swept wing planes is that throttling up tends to cause a pitch up? But maybe throttling up, even with some pitch up, would in time have created good airflow over the tail to make it function again and allow unloading?
Kevin, from what I understand the Captain was in rest and the pretty inexperienced FO's were in control until the CA came up a bit after the event started. I believe they put themselves in such a deep stall that they would have needed something like 20,000ft+ to recover. I don't totally blame them because "Airbus won't stall" and I believe the procedure at the time was full aft stick and power out (which has since changed since I started flying the Bus. ) Powering out of a stall always seemed odd to me and you do notice a very noticeable pitch up from the underslung engines. I also think the CA told one of them (or maybe he did it himself to go stick Forward but with the opposite stick full aft it takes the average which in this case would be stick neutral. I'm kind of rambling here but another thing to note is when we do this "unreliable airspeed" situation in the Sim, it is very very difficult to pick up on it initially and is really eye opening how quickly it can get out of hand. Sorry for the rant, hopefully some of that makes sense
I am a fan Joe, but I have to wonder if anyone doesn’t already know this basic fact of life? Other than some zero-instruction goofball who’s bought an ultralight? As a sweetener to the concepts you provide above, I’d offer that it’s possible to be at NEGATIVE airspeeds and not stalled :-)
To be compassionate; I’d argue nobody really has an amazing definition of a stall. At what point is it exactly a stall? “Exceeding critical AoA” doesn’t help people much other than understanding angle of attack is the important part. Not many seem to agree on what principle really matters most to make wings fly… So there’s no wonder it’s confusing what makes them stall! I agree that it’s sad how overlooked this area is - go around to any primary instructors/schools and many don’t have a clue in my opinion.
@@Bananasssssssss A lot out there now on social media with the AQP push and that you're safe flying DMMS in the pattern, but fail to mention you can also still stall at DMMS. An old crop duster once told me, you can not stall while pulling negative g. Unload the wing.
If you’re not using the wing for lift - the lift can’t fail you. It’s like taking a plane to zero g’s, as if you took it into space - you can’t stall. If you don’t ask anything of the wing, then it can’t fail you - does that make sense? If you fly a plane straight up, you are using previous acceleration, not lift from the wing to do so. Therefore when you fall, it’s because you ran out of acceleration, not lift from the wings. Technically you will be moving through the air at a speed, going to zero as you run out of acceleration (side note, hopefully that’s the right use of the word - forgive me if it’s not!) Remember both lift and thrust can make you go higher, in normal flight you use them together to go up. But in certain situations you don’t - like imagine a rocket/modern jet capabilities or a glider just using lift with the flow of air etc. Also remember lift is not exclusive to the wing. It’s basically just a force created. It’s generally used for the force away from the earth - but if you take away the idea of to/away from earth. It’s just a force really. You can create lift with the fuselage or any part of the plane, even the rudder or elevator. You can create lift with a brick or your hand - they just aren’t optimized for it so usually the lift is much less than it would need to practically fly. Imagine every surface of the airplane is like a lesser wing. Also envision the prop as a type of “wing”. The wings are just optimized for a force a specific direction from their orientation - up and down only have meaning relative to the wing if it’s not a symmetrical shape (with a symmetrical wing the rest of the plane has an effect, but if you were simply to take the wing, it would make no difference) . - the rudder is optimized to create a force 90 degrees from the wings. The stabilator/elevator is optimized to create a force 90 from that just like the wings. The only real difference is their size and functional use of the force they create. Remember also that g-forces don’t coincide with towards or away from the earth - it does but it doesn’t sort of. G’s I’m flying are really just relative to the design of the plane and us - our bottom and top/the planes bottom and top. So lift - ie staying away from the earth - can be achieved in positive or negative G’s, because it’s relative to us. Just as away from the earth can be negative G’s, (like hanging upside down); towards the earth can be positive G’s (like in some loops) If that all didn’t make sense - well it’s hard without drawing it out, I think.
@@Bananasssssssss I’m confused lol. I’m not doubting you I just can’t grasp the concept. I’m imagining a plane trying to fly at only 5 knots and not falling out of the sky lol
@@missequestrian3448 yea sorta get what you’re saying but when somebody says you can fly at 5 knots and not stall I imagine a plane slowing down to 5 knots and stalling well before it reaches that. To me, no plane can maintain flight at 5 knots and not be falling out of the sky. Lol I’m sure it was meant in a different way but that’s the way I interpreted it lol. I’m just a student pilot getting ready to take my check ride so I don’t know a whole lot just honestly trying to understand a plane not stalling at 5 knots. I would think trying to slow to 5 knots would cause you to have to exceed your angle of attack in order to stay up resulting in a stall. In a vertical attitude heading straight up until you slow to 5 knots like you said, you have already exceeded the angle of attack and are decelerating so you are about to fall out of the sky either way. You can’t fly straight and level flight at 5 knots without stalling
I learned all this flying model airplanes which every pilot should do because you can make deadly mistakes over and over again and all you have to do is bring a bag to clean up your mess. I had a habit of overloading my planes with too big an engine and ending up with high wing loading and then high G moves at low altitude - tip stall, snap roll, clean up mess - ha ha!
