Accidental Aerobatics

Remember my first stall fiasco that prompted talk about starting a dive bombing school because I was a natural? The power-off stall training was followed by power-on stall training. Power-on stalls are intended to simulate stalling the plane on the climb-out after leaving the runway. In a power-on stall the plane attains a much higher angle to the ground before stalling, as you might expect.

Well, after the accidental dive bombing event and a few power-on stalls I decided to go out by myself and practice so that I would develop some confidence with them. I rented my favorite C-152 and headed for the practice area. Because I was still very anxious about stalls I climbed to seven thousand feet instead of just three thousand. That turned out to be a wise decision.

I took a deep breath and started my power on stall procedure... full throttle... pull back on the yoke until the plane stalls... release back pressure... pretty simple.

It seemed to be taking a long time for the plane to stall... maybe that was because I was alone in the plane. If it were more lightly loaded it would achieve a higher angle to the ground. It had been a long time since I had seen the horizon, so I looked out the side window to get an idea of my orientation.

I was appalled to discover that the horizon was vertical in my window! That meant the plane was pointing straight up! I did not know why or how I had attained a straight up orientation, but I noted that this was the opposite orientation of my dive bombing stall, so I had that going for me. I decided that something was amiss so I pulled back on the throttle.

The plane stalled immediately and without warning. Of course. I had just removed all upward thrust that the engine was providing. Of course it would stall immediately and without warning!

I felt myself falling backward in what must have been at first a tail slide. But the plane is rather like a dart, in that it wants to go nose-first in the air, and as it was sliding backwards toward the earth it was also turning around. I was expecting that to happen.

I saw the horizon appear in the top of my windshield and move toward the nose. The direction it was moving was reassuring, but what was not so reassuring is that from my viewpoint the sky was down and the ground was up. I was upside-down! The plane was putting the nose first by falling backwards.

Soon the plane was pointing straight at the ground again. Great. More dive bombing. At least this time the engine was not at full power. I watched the airspeed move toward the red line. Not good. Gingerly, I started pulling back on the yoke and coaxed the plane out of the dive without exceeding the maximum allowable speed or pulling enough gees to make me sick. I noted that the dive bottomed out at three thousand feet, so I had lost four thousand feet falling backwards and flipping over. If I had started my stall at three thousand feet I would have plowed into the ground at a high velocity.

A little shook up, I decided to go back to the airport and call it a day.

Later that night I discovered why all that happened. To simulate a stall on climb-out after take-off, the plane needs to be at the same speed it would be at during climb-out... somewhere around seventy miles per hour. I had started pulling back on the yoke at cruise speed - one hundred and fifteen miles per hour.

Flying is really about ninety percent planning and ten percent moving your hands and feet. That was my introduction to that concept.