Whether you are a student pilot or an experienced flight instructor, you know that stalls are practiced over and over again during flight training. But did you know that, year after year, unintended stalls – including power-on stalls – are among the leading causes of fatal aviation accidents? Mention that at a flying club meeting and it will no doubt lead to lively conversation as your fellow members discuss the reasons why.
Perhaps the main reason for the high number of fatal accidents despite all that practice is that during training, for safety reasons, stalls are practiced in a controlled, coordinated scenario at a high altitude. In addition, student pilots are even taught to set up the stall and then recover from it with a minimum loss of altitude. This means that in training and during a check ride or flight review, they know precisely what’s coming as they’ve just deliberately set up the scene to demonstrate that they know how to stall the aircraft and then calmly recover from it.
But when it’s not deliberate, it’s a different story. During an unexpected power-on stall during takeoff or go-around, the pilot will experience something that is sudden, sharp, and frightening. In that situation, at low altitude, even a brief loss of aircraft control may be unrecoverable.
Margins of Safety: Avoiding Power-On Stalls is the Air Safety Institute’s latest safety video and is intended to help you recognize how vastly different training and real-world scenarios can be.
Watch the short, 8-minute long video with your flying club members to see how a power-on stall may occur during a takeoff and go-around and learn about techniques you can use to prevent it from happening.
Safe pilots are always learning, and the Air Safety Institute’s goal is to ensure pilots have a wealth of information to keep flying safely. Our educational programs are funded through donations from pilots dedicated to forwarding that mission. Show your support by donating to the AOPA Foundation today (www.aopafoundation.org/donate).
