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7 Answers

Power on stall procedure

Asked by: 9336 views
Student Pilot

I have some concerns about the technique I was taught to use for power on stalls after watching a bunch of guides on it and being uncomfortable with the answers that my instructor gave for several questions on them.  For reference we fly a 152

My instructor demonstrated the maneuver:

1. Reduce power to 1500 rpm

2. When approaching 60 kts increase throttle to 2300 rpm (fairly significantly below full)

3. Pitch up to slow to stall

4. Keep holding back pressure until the plane enters a full stall, this will be signified by the nose dropping and most likely the right wing dropping.

I've demonstrated the maneuver for him on that lesson and our next and he seems more than pleased with my performance of it.  However, on the last demonstration the left wing fell instead of the right.  As he couldn't really provide any explanation as to why the right wing fell in the first place let alone why the left wing fell this most recent time.   I decided I wanted to find out why.

Well a few hours of research later.  All evidence is pointing to the wing drop as being a sign of flying uncoordinated during the approach to the stall, a fairly scary proposition in my mind since that's the path to a spin as I understand it and means that I'm performing the maneuver incorrectly and not being corrected at all.  He also was very uncomfortable with power on stalls at full power, demonstrating that the 152 could reach some pretty exceptionally high pitch up attitudes before stalling with full power (though I assume that you could use a less extreme pitch attitude and just take longer to enter the stall as well).

Should I expect that a wing will drop in the power on stall?

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7 Answers

  1. Best Answer


    Wes Beard on Jul 09, 2014

    The procedure you were taught was correct and your analysis of why the wing drops is also correct including the possibility of entering a spin. Make sure the ball is centered while adding full power and pitching up. Remember that P factor is greatest with full power. This means that you will need more right rudder when adding power in the maneuver.

    For the first stalls you were not adding enough right rudder and that is why the right wing fell during the stall. In the later ones, too much rudder was used and the left wing dropped.

    If your CFI doesn’t understand this…. What else is he deficient on?

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  2. Mark Kolber on Jul 10, 2014

    Whoa Wes, before auto-criticizing the CFI and deciding he’s deficient as an instructor, perhaps it would be wise to find out what he is trying to do?

    If I had a student who used too much or not enough right or left rudder, had a wing drop and recovered without inducing a spin, I’d be very pleased at my student’s ability to recognize a problem and correct it appropriately.

    After all, in the more realistic distraction/lack of attention that leads to a real stall, how does the student who has never seen the result of lack of coordination and always did the practice perfectly react? I think we’ve all seen the answer as instructors in pilots who perform poorly – aileron correction only, increasing the problem and the likelihood of an unintended spin.

    I would hope the CFI in this case would follow up this lesson with the appropriate discussion of the causes of the wing drops and how to maintain proper coordination throughout the maneuver. But “If your CFI doesn’t understand this…. What else is he deficient on?” seems to me to be jumping the gun a bit.

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  3. Mark Kolber on Jul 10, 2014

    PS Forget the ball. Look out the window. Learn to see coordination or its absence.

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  4. Wes Beard on Jul 10, 2014

    Mark,
    I can see where you are going with this. If the student drops his wing and recovers successfully it would be a good debrief discussion about what could have been done differently. From what I understood of the question the CFI didn’t understand why the wing was dropping in the first place.

    Quote from the original question. “As he couldn’t really provide any explanation as to why the right wing fell in the first place let alone why the left wing fell this most recent time.”

    I absolutely agree that we need to show and let them demonstrate the maneuvers perfectly and imperfectly. It is usually when the maneuvers is done incorrectly that true learning takes place… as in this example.

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  5. Nibake on Jul 11, 2014

    A likely possibility is also that the instructor knew exactly what was happening and why, but questioned the students and maybe even slightly feigned ignorance. Have any of the other instructors on here not done so to get a response out of a student and test their level of understanding and decision making? Perhaps it was interpreted by the student as “couldn’t really provide any explanation” when the instructor was just trying to get him/her to think about it. Something to consider.

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  6. Brian on Jul 16, 2014

    “I decided I wanted to find out why.”

    The side slip that was present and unaccounted for by improper use of rudder is the cause, as Wes already stated. The why is a bit more complicated, but it has to due with the length of the chord line being increased in a side slip.

    In a left side slip the right wing acts very similar to a delta wing in it’s stall characteristics. That is to say that the right wing tip will stall more quickly than the left wing tip. The result would be a right wing drop due to lack of right rudder input. (Wes’ first example.)

    A right side slip, from adding too much right rudder, would have the exact opposite result -> the left wingtip would stall more quickly than the right and the stall would therefore break to the left.

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  7. Kris Kortokrax on Jul 17, 2014

    Wes and Brian,

    In the airplanes I have flown, if I press too much right rudder in a stall, the right wing drops (not the left). If I don’t press enough right rudder in a stall, the left wing drops.

    Having initiated more than a few spins, this has always been true. Use right rudder to spin to the right (right wing drops). Use left rudder to spin to the left (left wing drops).

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