I can't believe I spun a Cessna 172 twice! Now I'm checkride shy.

At low speed and high angle of attack you use your feet a lot more.. aileron at that point may just do more harm than good

STEP ON THE HIGH WING is really all you need to remember
 
The freezing thing worries me, what are you going to do when you have a real life emergency on your hands and the CFI is not there?
 
Tantalum said:
The freezing thing worries me, what are you going to do when you have a real life emergency on your hands and the CFI is not there?
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You don't know. Period.

Part of emergency handling is training and the development of confidence. Part of it is what is inside of us. The mix can vary. Pilot A might well handle everything perfectly knowing SuperCFI is there to rescue it, but freeze when the pilot encounters an emergency alone. Pilot B might freeze when the CFI is there, but take charge when the going gets tough.

How any of us might react in a real emergency is unknown until one actually happens.
 
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Tantalum said:
The freezing thing worries me, what are you going to do when you have a real life emergency on your hands and the CFI is not there?
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Freezing to him might have felt like forever, but it seems like he was conscious enough to know to ease up so the CFI could recover. I bet his freeze was a moment or two in reality and only bad inside his head.
 
Freezing was just a reaction to an unfamiliar situation. Do a few and your muscle memory will kick in before you can think what you should do next. No, you're not a crash test dummy waiting for the big event. Now, what would be REALLY dangerous is if you didn't think about it and address it like you are.

And in reality, if you were alone, you might not have acted as fast as your CFI did, but I'd bet a million you'd be doing something to correct it a few seconds later. You weren't permanently frozen. You just didn't have the chance to kick in because your CFI was quick to correct.
 
Salty said:
Freezing to him might have felt like forever, but it seems like he was conscious enough to know to ease up so the CFI could recover. I bet his freeze was a moment or two in reality and only bad inside his head.
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Might be good to practice those stalls over and over again until they're easy peasy.. my CFI had me do falling leaf stalls and that was a great way to teach coordination, etc. I was *TERRIFIED* of spins!
 
It was a Citabria years ago, and my CFI had me do a spin during initial training. The ground looked just like the picture in the flight manual. All I had to do was reduce power, neutralize the yoke, step on the high wing with the rudder, and when the spin stopped ease back on the stick. I guess it didn’t scare me because I kept hoping to do it again, but didn’t.

Yeah, get enough spin training to at least feel comfortable about recovery. Then your power on stalls will seem like a piece of cake.
 
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Op, you can turn this in to a positive. My first solo flight after the initial solo, and I was to go to the practice area and work on stalls and whatever else I wanted to. I hated departure stalls, so I decided to do that one first.

And of course I was surprised at how much it didn’t want to stall with just me in it. Full power, left bank, pitch up. And up, and up, and it won’t stall. So, more pitch up. And by this time I have it so fouled up it broke to the right. Surprised that crap out of me, nothing but green out the windshield, felt to me like I’m going straight down and turning right! But I learned a few things about coordination, and just getting the power out and neutralizing the yoke solved most of the problems, then like said above, steer with my feet, and recover the dive.

And hopefully I learned the priceless lesson - to deal with the situation . It actually turned into a confidence builder.

My advice is to grab your CFI and do a few correctly. Then, do a few uncoordinated so you understand the causes, and the corrections. I promise you’ll learn to respect, but not fear it, and you’ll be confident you know what to do it you mess up.
 
Volitation said:
Op, you can turn this in to a positive. My first solo flight after the initial solo, and I was to go to the practice area and work on stalls and whatever else I wanted to. I hated departure stalls, so I decided to do that one first.

And of course I was surprised at how much it didn’t want to stall with just me in it. Full power, left bank, pitch up. And up, and up, and it won’t stall. So, more pitch up. And by this time I have it so fouled up it broke to the right. Surprised that crap out of me, nothing but green out the windshield, felt to me like I’m going straight down and turning right! But I learned a few things about coordination, and just getting the power out and neutralizing the yoke solved most of the problems, then like said above, steer with my feet, and recover the dive.

And hopefully I learned the priceless lesson - to deal with the situation . It actually turned into a confidence builder.

My advice is to grab your CFI and do a few correctly. Then, do a few uncoordinated so you understand the causes, and the corrections. I promise you’ll learn to respect, but not fear it, and you’ll be confident you know what to do it you mess up.
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Just wanted to mention...that first part of your post I bolded is the biggest thing to learn I think. I get that you understand it well, and do the same.
I’ve been a guitarist most of my life, that anything else I ever tried to learn at some point in life I realized the technique or part of something I avoided, either consciously or subconsciously is the exact thing I needed to work on most.
Also in most cases when meeting that challenge, it almost always turned out to be not such a big deal to learn, and often turned out to be quicker than I was thinking to learn.

So when learning something, I try to notice what I’m dreading or avoiding. That’s the thing I need to face head on. Also notice that it is human nature, we often practice the things we are already good at because it is rewarding to do things well.
 
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Back in the early 90s at Howell Airport south of Chicago - we weren’t allowed to do departure stalls solo . . . Period. Same with night flight. No rental after sundown without a CFI even after the PPL.

I wonder why I accumulated the same hour 500 times . . .
 
Terry M - 3CK (Chicago) said:
Back in the early 90s at Howell Airport south of Chicago - we weren’t allowed to do departure stalls solo . . . Period. Same with night flight. No rental after sundown without a CFI even after the PPL.

I wonder why I accumulated the same hour 500 times . . .
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I remember dropping a wing as a student and freaking out about it because we were taught that an uncoordinated stall meant instant flaming death. Bare minimum solo flight (only xc and pattern, no airwork, no night). It was only after I got my ticket that I did falling leaf stalls and spins, actual grass fields, solo night flight, etc.

Timid flight schools are a disservice to pilots.
 
GeorgeC said:
Timid flight schools are a disservice to pilots.
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I've known places which didn't allow any solo stalls, which doesn't help. If anything it helps convince a student they are dangerous and something the student is not equipped to handle.

One of my strongest student memories is the lesson after my post solo "practice area" phase check. My CFI and I took the Tomahawk to 5000 AGL. He said he wanted to show me something about stalls.

He had me do a power off stall but instead of affirmatively recovering, he told me to let go of the yoke completely. Just make sure I used my feet to remain coordinated. The result was as we would expect. The nose dropped, the airplane descended, the AoA and speed increased, and the airplane leveled off, flying itself out if the stall. "Maintain coordination and you'll be ok," was the lesson he wanted to teach.

It's been 30 years since that lesson. Still with me.
 
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Either shortly before or after my first solo, I forget exactly, I asked my instructor to do spins. He obliged, and we worked on 3 turn spins with recovery on the same heading as the entry. Then, "Don't do these solo," with a smile. He no doubt figured (correctly) that the 16 year old kid I was would do them anyway, so he might as well teach me to do them right.

The school had one particular older C-150 that somebody must've bent, no matter how well coordinated you were in the stall, it always broke to the same side, sometimes violently.
 
I'm reminded of one of my student solo flights out to the practice area. I was practicing a few stalls...power on I think.... and I had a wing drop on me. I wasn't expecting it so it woke me up! I think at that point I'd already done some spinning so I wasn't completely rattled, but it was different when it comes on as a surprise like that.

I can't really add anything else to all the previous advice. I hope your insturctor will get you up and practice through it ok. He/she knows you're ready...so you just have to know it!
 
FlySince9 said:
In a Skyhawk(or c150/152) I’ve found that in a power on stall the best way to avoid that wing from dropping on you is to keep your ailerons neutral and focus on the front of the cowling keeping it from rotating left or right with your rudders ONLY...
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This proved to be very valuable to me. Good advice!
 
Volitation said:
Op, you can turn this in to a positive. My first solo flight after the initial solo, and I was to go to the practice area and work on stalls and whatever else I wanted to. I hated departure stalls, so I decided to do that one first.

And of course I was surprised at how much it didn’t want to stall with just me in it. Full power, left bank, pitch up. And up, and up, and it won’t stall. So, more pitch up. And by this time I have it so fouled up it broke to the right. Surprised that crap out of me, nothing but green out the windshield, felt to me like I’m going straight down and turning right! But I learned a few things about coordination, and just getting the power out and neutralizing the yoke solved most of the problems, then like said above, steer with my feet, and recover the dive.

And hopefully I learned the priceless lesson - to deal with the situation . It actually turned into a confidence builder.

My advice is to grab your CFI and do a few correctly. Then, do a few uncoordinated so you understand the causes, and the corrections. I promise you’ll learn to respect, but not fear it, and you’ll be confident you know what to do it you mess up.
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This advice also worked. Did just that. I now feel more confident but also maintain a respectful and controlled fear for spins.
 
RingLaserGyroSandwich said:
Although I have yet to enter a spin, it was something I was/am concerned about practicing power on stalls. I'm not sure how helpful an acronym is for the recovery actions in such an intense situation. I'm not a CFI but I think the most important thing is to remember the first action without having to think. Unintentional spin = power back. In most training planes, if you pull back the power you are 80% of the way to recovering. If you aren't confident you can get yourself through a 4 step checklist the moment you are jerked into a spin, at least convince yourself you can cut the power by pulling back on the throttle. While you are doing that you are hopefully reducing your control inputs so you are working your way towards step 2 automatically. By the time you have pulled the power back and have stopped pushing the yoke in any particular direction, you've had enough time to start to interpret how the world is turning around you. As is the case with other extreme maneuvers, use your feet to make the bad stuff stop.

You need confidence that if it happens again you will know to pull the power back. If you do, you'll likely succeed in moving the controls towards neutral. At this point you don't have multiple steps to worry about... you just need to steer with your feet which you can obviously do. Once you have started pressing on the correct rudder pedal, you will be out of the spin and will just need to recover from the stall which you should be able to do instinctively when coordinated.
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This advice was the most helpful. Remembering to pull power to idle as soon as the windshield was green. It made remembering the other steps less stressful because I accomplished step 1 successfully and didn’t feel overwhelmed. I also noticed the aircraft starting to recover already so it boosted my confidence as well. Thanks so much for this!
 
Ryanb said:
Work on coordination and get the maneuver down pat. If you spin it during the check ride, it’s over, at least that’s how mine was.
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Back in the day, a certain local CFI/DPE (who has since departed this earth, and has had the local field named after him) always taught spins. When I was taking my practical, and he called for a power-on stall, I looked over at him and grinned, and he said, "Go ahead!"
So I spun it a couple of turns, and recovered. I did pass. (Yeah, I practiced spins quite a lot prior, due to an event that occurred early in my training.)
 
Mtns2Skies said:
I've found that poorly rigged aircraft are far easier to spin than those rigged correctly.
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Interesting.

I learned to fly in the mid-'70s. At that time Cessna and Piper were churning out airplanes like Chiclets. Most flight schools didn't keep airplanes that long before replacing them with new. The Cessna Pilot Center where I was training had 5 near-new 150s (the plastic parts hadn't cracked yet :p ). I flew them all and they all entered and recovered from fully developed spins consistently the same; which looking back is what I would expect from a factory rigged plane.

Fast forward to today. The FTU in our flying club has 12 172s. All but one are 'N' models. The instructors tell me some "won't spin" and others will, but not readily. I have to believe differences in rigging of these decades old planes are the primary reason.
 
GRG55 said:
Fast forward to today. The FTU in our flying club has 12 172s. All but one are 'N' models. The instructors tell me some "won't spin" and others will, but not readily. I have to believe differences in rigging of these decades old planes are the primary reason.
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Seems odd. How many have had their wings off?

If ailerons are neutral and only rudder and elevator are involved (assuming nobody has messed with the wing angle of incidence adjustment on one side), how dumb is it to not have those rigged right?

Even then, only limiting the rudder travel in one direction wouldn’t cause that. It would spin the other direction. And elevator up travel limits on that many would be being complained about by someone with their ability to flare reduced.

I don’t think the theory stands up too well.

Skyhawks always tended to not want to go to the right. You really had to exaggerate the climb a bit and force them “over the top”, usually. Left was always easier but super docile loaded to Utility category.

Perhaps tell them to load them nearer the aft CG limit of Utility category? Bet they spin just fine then.
 
Lightly loaded, in cold weather, full power, you REALLY need to put in a lot of right rudder. Maybe try doing your departure stalls at 2300 RPM until you get the feeling back. The plane will bite a lot harder in the cold air. I know in HP planes, I typically do 75% power for power on stalls or we have to exceed 30 degrees in pitch and parachutes are uncomfortable.
 
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