Stall

Stall - is a reduction in lift coefficient (fixed-wing aircraft) generated by the aerofoil (wings) as angle of attack (angle between the chord line and the relative airflow) increases.

It was a cloudy day but clearing up. I had a friend along with me, Mr. Billy. Well, this good friend of mine manage to travel a mass distance from up north of the country down here to my place just to get a ride in the good ol' Cessna 172. Fortunately, my generous instructor allowed him to backsit the lesson.

Today's lesson is going to be 'Stall', in which case whom I presumed that doesn't know what stall is, read the above. If it is still unclear, go and thank Google for creating a superb search engine. Actually, I have booked a 30min on the Cessna for a city tour for this good friend of mine because I don't want someone to paint the inside of the aircraft with some chewed up fried chicken and fries. But it seems that Billy was keen on backsitting earlier than planned.

It was while I was doing some inspection on the outer side of the aircraft where Billy was busy following me to see what the hell I was doing. He was keen on learning I presumed, but in the other hand, he was just awe looking at the mini beast behold upon him. Once I was done with the exterior, I entered the cockpit and did some checks. My instructor, well not really my instructor, he is the Resident Flying Instructor whom was assigned to check my progress. Some people said that I did my flying a bit too fast, so he wanted to check either I was doing alright or I was just fucking aroud in the cockpit.

"Do you want to follow now or later?" The instructor asked Billy.

"Eh, if possible, I would like to follow the training as well." Billy said.

"Ok, hop in."

I was quite starstrucked at my instructor's question, but nevertheless, it was alright since Billy can have a good long ride in the aircraft. Adding to that, this is Billy's first flight ever since he was born. Eventhough successfully working as an Industrial Engineer in one of the big companies, he never did try to get on a plane. So it worries me a bit since the last passenger I had managed to hold his food in his stomach up until we landed. Well, I guess everyone have different tolerance towards altitude and attitude change, especially when you know that the metal thing that you're sitting in can fall out of the sky anytime and anywhere it wants. Even thinking about it really fucked my mind up sometimes, but the sky is the aim, nothing to be scared about.

We received clearance for start up, taxi and enter RWY 22.

"9-FC, sir we're ready for take off." I told the ATC guy after done all the necessary pre take off checks.

"9-FC, left turn clear for take off."

"Left turn clear for take off, 9-FC," I replied.

Power 2000, brakes holding, temperature and pressure within limit, suction good, compass and DGI synchronized, hatches and harness secured, full power, release brakes and off we go.

"40kts, 45kts, 50kts, and 55kts, rotate," I pull the control column back causing the aircraft nose attitude to pitch up and the tires to slowly leave the hard ground. We were climbing at 75kts with a climb rate of 500ft/min. I level off at 1000ft before establishing the training area, R236.

Once arrived, we received clearance to operate there without any traffic. My instructor asked me to climb to 2000ft for ground clearance and I did that without hesitations. Once reached the desired altitude, my instructor asked me to do the HASELL check and 1 clearing turn.

Well, HASELL is a pre-stall check:

H - Height

A - Airframe

S - Security

E - Engine

L - Location

L - Lookout

Once everthing is done, I did one clearing turn of 180degrees and hand over the controls to my instructor. He told me to observe and follow through. He put the power to idle and hold the aircraft at a straight and level attitude. I can see the speed start to drop super fast causing the stall horn to scream aloud. My instructor pulled hard on the control column to make it pitch back and maintain level. Suddenly, I can feel the aircraft starts to shake a bit (buffet) and the nose suddenly dropped down causing the aircraft to plunge towards the ground. My stomach shrunk as if I were sitting on a roller coaster. But this roller coaster is a different one, imagine having a roller coaster rushing towards the ground but without any tracks in front, yeah, imagine having to cope with that.

"Yahhooooooooo!!" Opps, I screamed out loud on the microphone. To be honest, I'm totally sucked at riding roller coasters and riding one without any tracks make it worst. I tend to scream half of my lungs out. My instructor laughed at me while he maintained the nose down towards the earth attitude of the aircraft. As the airspeed passed around 60kts, he pulled back hard and level off the aircraft. We lost about roughly 200feet of altitude which is normal if no power was added. Yep, a lot if you don't have enough sky to recover, bad enough if this happens during final approach.

We tried a different exercise next, where power is being added once the nose drops. Once again with the checks and clearing turn, we brought the aircraft to a stall state and once the nose drops out of the sky, full power and right rudder to counter the slipstream effects. This time, we loose about 50 feet only which is good. This exercise is called SSR or Standard Stall Recovery. This is practised if stall happens on cruise flight or normal flight.

The next practise is the SISR or Standard Incipient Stall Recovery. On the verge of stall, usually when the stall horn starts to make the anoying 'screeching' sound, full power is being apply and right rudder while maintaining the the level attitude to avoid the aircraft from loosing any height. Hell yeah, it kindda stayed at the same altitude which is damn good enough for me.

Once I managed to handle all of the stalls situation, we did a tour around the city for the good friend of mine behind whom I almost forgot his existence throughout the practice. We landed roughly, well considered a safe landing due to my amateur skills (mind you, without any bouncing up and down), just a rough smack down landing which keeps us on the ground for sure.

Once shutdown process had been done, chokes in, control surfaces locked, suddenly Billy asked me, "Can I follow again tomorrow? That was great!"

Mr. Billy