When you're in a stall?

Question

when you are in a plane and it stalls you're supposed to pitch the nose down and throttle up to get air flowing over the wings. But my question is, when you're stalling there is no airflow so how do you control the plane's pitch in the first place? There is no airflow over the elevators.

Answer 1

hahaha! uhhuh..that was funny....



Seriously, really the last thing you should do in a stall is pitch the nose down..Technically if you are at altitude you can do it that way and you will more than likely have a successful recovery...do that 50 feet off the ground..and you won't...sorry...All you need to do is reduce the angle of attack...A stall is induced by exceeding the wings critical angle of attack...say for example a Cessna 172 is around 16-18 degrees AOA....all you would have to do is remove a few degrees of AOA....relax back pressure a bit...add power..the airplane will fly out.....



The problem you will run in to by pushing the nose over is that you increase your altitude loss in the recovery...

If you pitch over aggressively to recover slam the power to it and pitch the nose back up..you could induce a secondary stall...



That is the basics of stall recovery....Remember...reduce your angle of attack.....this does not mean nose down....if you do it right..and make a clean recovery...there is no reason you should lose more than 20 or 30 feet of altitude...



Jonathan S

ATP-LRJET,HS-125,G-V

CFI/AGI

Answer 2

No airflow over the elevators … hmm. Have you ever seen a propeller driven airplane perform in an air-show? Starting before take-off, one of my favorite tricks is holding the brakes, adding power and raising the tail (it’s a tail-wheel airplane). The tail of the airplane is flying but the airplane is otherwise motionless. The elevator is ‘flying’ from the airflow from the prop blast. If you are particularly skillful, you can slowly release the brakes and takeoff without lowering the tail. Even in a Cessna 172, you can use the elevator to move the nose up and down during a high power ground run-up with the brakes locked.

Another example is vertical flight. Let’s take the case where you go straight up in … say the start of a hammerhead. The wings are not flying, but you sure have complete control over the elevator.

Don’t generalize stall recovery, but understand it and even more importantly understand avoidance.

Answer 3

Who says there's no airflow over the elevators.



Rick j. Grab your digital vidio cam and point it in any direction. You'll have a panaromic view of the countryside until you auger a hole in the farmers field directly below you. Look up spins. It's under the S's somewhere.



ThereIsN... Raise the elevator and the nose drops? Sure, if your're inverted.



Mr. Tel. I know one condition that causes a stall. What's the other?



Folks, yahoo answers can be fun but somebody's gonna bust there *** if you pay any attention to many of the answers I see here and in other questions. Do not, I repeat, do not take anything you get from anybody here and go try it in an aircraft. If you don't have qualified, certified instruction where you are you should not be asking safety of flight questions here. I'm a pro and I didn't get that way on the internet. Most of this is simple stuff but get it wrong and you'll be worm food, as will your passengers, in no time. There's good people here who know their stuff but if you have to look on the internet for flight instruction you'll never be able to figure out who can help you fly and who can help you into a smokin hole in the ground.

Answer 4

When you are in a stall you are not standing still in the air. Also as you approach stall speed the "feel" of the airplane as well as aural and or light signals in small airplanes and more sophisticated stall warning systems in larger airplanes will alert you in time to avoid the stall. In flight training you'll practice stalls and they are really a lot less frightening than often feared. Take the Cessna 152 one of the popular trainers stalls at around 50 knots. That is plenty of airspeed to lower the pitch of the airplane. Also, when you open the throttle in a single engine or multi engine plane you create direct airflow over the tail surfaces, improving their diminished effectiveness.



Greg W

CFI-I / AGI / Commercial, SEL MEL IFR

Answer 5

On most planes, the wings are designed to stall before the tail, therefore the nose will naturally drop first. The plane will then pick up speed as it rolls 'down hill'. This removes the two conditions that caused the stall in the first place.

Answer 6

ONE IMPRTANT THING TO REMEMBER!! Many people get this wrong. A stall is when the angle of attack is so great that the air 'slips'. Think of it as pushing a wall through the air. One side of the wall has air pushing against it(the bottom of the wing) the other side(the top of the wing) has no 'wind' going ove it. This has **NOTHING to do with speed!!!** Which explains Capt. J's answer. you wouldn't lower the nose because you don't need to pick up speed.

Answer 7

There's plenty of airflow. The wing stalls at a speed much greater than 0 knot.



Many planes lose more than 30 ft in stall recovery. A full-stalled Vought F7 Cutlass would lose many thousands of feet in the recovery.

Answer 8

Some of these answers would be funny if they weren't so sad; and some are outright dangerous. Attention: rick j !!!!! I hope you get this answer before you go flying next time and kill yourself. Who in the world taught you to apply rudder when your aircraft is stalled?? Have you studied spins yet? I hope you have and I hope you know how to recover from them because that's what you're asking for when you apply "hard rudder" in a stall. I hope you were just trying to be funny with your answer......any other beginners out there: completely ignore rick j's answer...PLEASE! "Bored Stiff" and "Captain J" know what they're talking about, Captain Zach......

Answer 9

Generally, wing twist and other aerodynamic features would normally influence the progression of the stall. Are you referring to a tailplane stall? To a "deep stall" and t-tail configuration?

Answer 10

Flight school. OK if your plane stalls your still flying a bad glider.

the rudder is still the rudder . keep it hard right until the drag on it drops the nose. You wont fall tail first because the nose is much heaver. Then try to control the plane

Answer 11

the elevator controls pitch, raise the elevator and the nose drops, lift is reestablished

Answer 12

I thought the question was gonna be, "What do you do if Senator Craig starts playing footsie with you."



Ta da chhhh!