Dropping the airplane out of the sky I had been a pilot for almost two decades. From time to time I dropped the planes from the sky and then flied them straight and level again. This sounds like a magical act to someone on the ground, but in reality it’s not as difficult a maneuver for many pilots. Many Air Force pilots I know who actually fought in wars have never attempted such a move. They are not required to perform this so called “stall and spin – and recovery” maneuver in order to get their licenses and to also be commercial airline pilots. But this maneuver is mandatory for a certified flight instructor (CFI) and is a requirement for the license to teach people to fly. While I had been under flight training, I had been told by my instructors that to perform this maneuver is optional, but “to save your ass”, as I was told, when I inadvertently get the airplane into the stall conditions, I have to know how to perform it so that I can get the plane out of those conditions, or else the plane will continue to drop all the way to the ground and you know what will happen in such a case. Furthermore, many small planes used to train pilots are prone to these stall conditions, and I guessed I should try out the act. My instructors had experienced that during this maneuver many of his students in the past had passed out, and therefore he prepared a bag for me just in case. We used a small Cessnar that was approved to perform the stall. Many other types of small airplanes are almost stall-proof and can not be used. The idea was to also find a relatively new plane to do it since older planes may snap off with structural damages and recovery will be impossible. We flew the plane up to a good altitude of approximately six thousand feet above ground level (AGL) and there was almost nothing and no one on the area on the ground as we were required by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) because you do not want to hit someone and bring with you to the other world when the maneuver fails. I was told that we needed good height just in case we do not recover while the plane is “dropping” down in the first attempt, we will have enough height to try again the second time. Sounded good! There are two types of stalls called power-on stall and power-off stall. We tried the power-off stall for the experiment as the power-on stall will be more “dramatic” for recovery. Throttle was pulled back all the way to idle at the point when the plane was considered “powered-off”. Next we pulled the control wheel or control yoke almost all the way until when the stall alarm was activated to alert us that the plane was in danger of getting into a stall. At this point it looked like the plane was hung in the sky by an invisible rod. My instructor then used his right foot to press the rudder which controlled the vertical stabilizer at the top end of the plane to put it into an unbalanced condition. By pressing down on either rudder while the alarm was on, the plane started to nose-dive or spin. Right after my instructor pressed the right rudder with his right foot, he immediately pulled it away from the right rudder pedal because to recover the plane now he needed to press the other rudder. The rule of thumb is to pull back your foot so that you will not use it again during recovery as the other foot is required to push the rudder in the other direction for the plane to fly straight and level again. We let it spin for about three loops in the sky and dropped down for approximated a thousand feet. We were almost upside down at some points and were seeing the ground the way some theme park goers see them while being upside down in a roller coaster. Except that we were in a small plane. We did not let it spin more as we did not want some parts of the plane to snap. My instructor then used his other foot which he did not pull back to press on the other rudder. We then added some power to the plane by pushing the throttle forward and at the same time pushing the control wheel forward gently. We could see that the plane, all of a sudden, straightened itself out and with a small addition of power continued flying straight ahead. As I continued the maneuver many more times, I felt more confident and liked to do it even more. I was sure the maneuver will help me to save my life just in case I get into a spin. To play with the planes and to enjoy it, one needs to know how to safeguard himself as much as possible. Knowing the procedure to get me out of a spin was the good thing that I later had performed numerous more times. Steve Dinh, aka Vo Duc Dien San Jose, July 10th, 2009
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 19:29:50 +0000
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