Margins of Safety: Avoiding Traffic Pattern Stalls

pilots begin practicing stall recognition and recovery before their first solo flights they have to demonstrate those skills repeatedly on check rides and subsequent flight reviews but year after year unintended stalls are among the leading causes of fatal aviation accidents why one major reason is that the stalls we practice in training don't look or feel much like the ones that catch pilots off-guard also pilots often fail to understand the implications of being close to the ground every time we fly a portion of that flight is being spent in the red zone basically an altitude that may not offer enough time or height above the ground to recover from a stall or spin let's look at the standard wings level power off stall the deliberate entry and recovery that's taught to students is the most docile of all the stall maneuvers in the curriculum easy-peasy and yet this procedure is meant to prepare us for flying in the traffic pattern where things can be very different compared to practice maneuvers actual stalls in the traffic pattern are outright dangerous and they come as a surprise the shock slows a pilots reaction when it's already at low altitude powers not likely to be all the way back to idling a lot of these occurred during turns if the banks not coordinated the airplanes likely to spin from an altitude that doesn't leave room to recover even with perfect technique traffic pattern stalls usually result from some combination of distraction for pattern discipline and sloppy stick and rudder flying the eventual loss of control arises from an earlier loss of command discipline precision and awareness are needed to disrupt that chain of events the lower the airplane the more the pilots attention should be focused on the fundamentals of flying it knowing the causes helps define the Cure's there are a few simple things we can do that will help us keep command so we don't lose control the first is enforcing a sterile cockpit this means minimizing distractions during the high workload phases of flight or a special approach and landing the airlines prohibit all non-essential activity or discussion below 10,000 feet the equivalent for GA is the last 10 minutes before arrival and below 2500 feet above ground level once you're in the sterile cockpit zone have your passengers keep quiet unless you can enlist them to your call out traffic turn right around and come back the other way and then you should also stow any loose items you won't need before landing think of it as mentally decluttering the cockpit so that once things get busy you'll be able to give full attention to flying the aircraft the second thing the pilots can do to help eliminate lapses and airmanship is a stabilized approach that means having the airplane correctly configured and at its intended altitude airspeed and descent rate so that only small adjustments to course and power are required you cross the threshold with the airplane ready to land but stabilizing the approach begins long before you turn final typically at each checkpoint end of descent pattern entry abeam the numbers base and short final you should have precise targets for airspeed altitude descent rate and spacing from the runway make configuration changes at the same points every time and preferably wings level keep turns to a maximum of 30 degrees of bank and pay attention to coordination keep in mind that there may be times when a one-size-fits-all pattern procedure doesn't apply where you'll need to rely on using good judgment based on the surrounding environment for example flying into a mountain strip in any case find the specific values that work for your airplane the goal is to aim small and miss small anything more than a modest divergence from those standards means that the approach is no longer stable if there's any doubt power up go around and try again quite a few pattern stalls happen while the pilots trying to slow the airplane for spacing from traffic ahead any need to slow below normal approach speed or attempt s turns 360 s or other non-standard maneuvers is a clear sign that the approach isn't stable if it's at the towers request don't hesitate to tell them unable plan to go around with a sidestep if that's necessary to keep traffic in sight even after crossing a threshold you're not home free come in too fast and you might hit the nose gear first and bounce back into the air this carries a real risk of damaging the aircraft flare too high and too aggressively and you'll stall too far above the runway once the nose drops is a good chance it will touch down before the mains the higher the altitude the harder the impact you might escape with just a hard landing but botched landings have the potential to do damage to the aircraft the good news here is that most hard landings are survivable especially when everyone's wearing a seat belt with a shoulder harness stalls from altitude aren't nearly as benign the extra energy collected during a 50 or 100 foot fall vastly increases impact forces more than half of these accidents are fatal compared to less than 2% of landing stalls the traffic pattern is not the place to worry about things other than flying the airplane and maintaining an adequate margin of safety avoiding low-power stalls isn't difficult but it requires awareness and management of the airplanes energy state just like every other phase of flight understanding the interplay between airspeed angle-of-attack altitude bank angle and descent rate enables you to maintain control throughout the approach strive for precision attend to the details and focus on flying the machine until it's down and stopped do it consistently and the only stalls you'll ever see are the ones you practice deliberately

Channel: Air Safety Institute

Views: 194,454

Rating: 4.9493465 out of 5

Keywords: airplane, airport, pilot, safety, risk management, decision making, flight plan, vfr, ifr, air traffic control, flight safety, safety tips, flight training, aviation safety, general aviation, aerodynamics, stall, disorientation, wing

Id: M8scVzLX9l8

Length: 6min 42sec (402 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 15 2016