Freefall...

Well not quite, but stalling practice today. So after the pre-flight, paperwork and briefing were completed, we climbed (or should I say 'origami-ed' myself) into JFY, one of the clubs C-152's. Checked the ATIS, made a radio check with UNICOM and headed towards the holding point for 03.

Not a whole lot of room here, and with a twin doing run-up checks there is even less! But we squeezed ourselves in, completed our checks and proceeded to wait for the aircraft on late finals before lining up for take-off on 03 seal. After take-off it was a climbing turn to head out via Waterworks, up the Hunia valley and out towards the Training Area near the Thames.

After climbing up to 3000', my instructor asked if I wanted a demostration first, and seeing as I hadn't done any stalling for years, thought it would be a good idea, so we ran through the HASELL checks:

• H - Height, enough to recover by 2500ft Above Ground Level (AGL)
• A - Airframe, declare airframe configuration (ie. no/full flaps, undercarriage retracted or down etc.)
• S - Security, hatches/harnesses secure, no loose objects floating about the cabin
• E - Engine, Temps & Pressures (T&P's) all in the green
• L - Location, not over a built-up area. The reason for this is not so that we're not going to crash into a house if it all goes wrong (as I originally thought), its because the dramatic changes in engine pitch from power to idle to power again can freak out people on the ground who make think the aircraft is in trouble!
• L - Lookup, first up a minimum of 180° to confirm no conflict with any other aircraft (then a minimum of 90° for subsequent HELL checks)
  

Then Carb-Heat On, Power to Idle and maintaining Height, Direction and Balance. Basically keep pulling back on the yoke to maintain altitude, and use rudder to maintain co-ordinated flight.

So, at 65Kts Carb-Heat cold (as we need full power for recovery), and notice the symptons of the stall eg. Low airspeed, high nose attitude, stall warning, buffet (as the turbulent air catches the elevator) and then the nose dropping at the onset.

Recovery is quite simple:

• Check the control column forward to unstall the wing
• Apply full power
• Balance with rudder
  

Now, I have done stalling before in a PA-28 Piper Cherokee, and it was a number of years ago, but I certainly don't remember that Angle of Attack (AoA) being so high. It felt like we were almost vertical before the onset of the stall!

We did a couple more, adding in some Power On/Flap Stalls (basically the same thing but with power at 1500 RPM and full flaps). Good fun! Although, as my instructor pointed out, the only time we should ever have a fully developed stall is when doing it on purpose. The idea being that you notice the symptons (stall warning, buffet etc.) and take corrective action before onset.

Then it was back to NZAR to try an overhead join. I've never actually done this before as most of my flying was at a controlled airfield (NZPM), so was quite interesting. We'll be covering this again next lesson.

And time for a couple of circuits. This week, got my landings. I have been visualing them at home and remembered the old 'Eyes to the end of the runway' advice one of my old instructors gave me. Much improved effort and made some sweet landings.

Next week, more circuit bashing, while I wait for my medical to get sorted before I start looking at going for my (second) first solo ;)

This flight: 1.1 Hours Dual
Total Hours: 38.0 (34.9 Dual, 3.1 Solo)