Stalling practice

Sunday 1st July - its not quite midsummer but luckily the clouds have moved away a bit so there is a decent ceiling of around 3500 ft which is perfect for our stalling practice. This is probably what people worry about the most when flying and I was quite nervous as we taxied out to 22 and took off.

I needn't have been. The first time we stalled, my instructor took the controls, eased off the power and held the nose up as the speed dropped from our cruise of 110 kts down to the stall speed of around 40kts. Despite holding the yoke right back, as we got down to the stall speed with the Warner blaring in our ears the nose of the aircraft suddenly pitched down. The recovery was so simple, just pitch the aircraft down with the yoke and immediately the airspeed begins to build and the stall ends.

My turn next, I was surprised by how difficult it was to actually stall it. The aircraft wants to pitch down when the speed drops and you have to really fight it to keep the controls back. Once again as soon as the nose dropped I pushed forwards and the airspeed began to build. With power it was even easier with only a couple of 100 feet of altitude lost.

Finished the lesson with a couple more circuits and 2 very good landings in blustery cross wind conditions, including one wing drop at 300ft: thank God for the stalling practice we'd just done as I instinctively pitched down and recovered it for a smooth touch down.