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Comment by eduardordm | Hacker News Reader

Not really, what could happen is a wing stall on single engines, but chances are that wont happen. :D That's a procedural recovery that fits most airplanes, put the nose down on a king air and depending on your altitude, you are doomed.

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No, this definitely isn't the appropriate procedure for most airplanes, and the few situations where it was taught as a standard are now being reevaluated.

http://www.avweb.com/avwebflash/news/FAAProposesStallRecover...

Those are class heavy, not light :D

Yes. So we've now covered the range of cases and in each of them your suggestion is wrong. Light aircraft pilots should pitch down first, then add power, regardless of CG. Heavy aircraft and jet pilots were previously taught to add power first, but are now taught to pitch down first, then add power.

That's it - you always need to pitch down first, and then add power. The airplane doesn't care where your nose is pointed, and CG really doesn't matter here.

So, if you're saying that if you're descending through 80 feet AGL and you hear the stall-warning horn, you're going to pitch the nose down _first_ ?

Sorry - if I'm throwing in full-power first and doing whatever I have to do do to get leveled out and stabilized. Adding power in a single-engine will immediately increase airflow over the wings and thus _reduce_ the angle of attack.

Yes - you will have to fight the tendency of the nose to come up, but low to the ground there aren't really too many options.

It's basically a go-around, and the go-around procedure is power-first.

ATCs might be able to recover from a stall while only losing 100 feet, but most private pilots will need much more and an untrained pilot would not even get close.

I'm ABSOLUTELY pitching down first. Especially when you're on final approach, it's always attitude (pitch) to control your airspeed, and power to control your rate of descent, not the other way around.

If you're really on your toes, you'll end up doing both at almost the same time anyway, but pitching down is what'll get you out of a stall, not adding power.

This is seriously dangerous advice.

Well, every situation is different so it's hard to say what the procedure is, but generally what I outlined above is the correct way of preventing / mitigating a stall. I should've mentioned that what I wrote above is for single engines, I'm not rated on multi-engine aircraft and can't say anything about the procedure for those. Keep in mind I'm not suggesting putting the airplane in a dive to recover altitude, the nose should perhaps be just a little above or at level attitude. Pilots who have their airline transport pilot certificates(basically, the people who fly commerical for FedEx or United, etc.) are trained to recover within 100ft or less during a stall.

I will say though, if you're close to stalling in a King Air such that putting the nose down will cause imminent danger, you're already in a lot of danger if a stall about to occur.

When flying gliders at low altitude, we usually think about the angle of attack first and airspeed second. When circling a thermal, I often cross below the stalling speed due to turbulence etc.

But if you don't try to force the glider to maintain altitude by pulling on the stick and just let it fall through, maintaining the same angle of attack, you'll quickly fall a few meters and gain enough airspeed to resume level flight. So you've been below the stalling speed, but you haven't actually stalled the airplane. This maneuver makes you lose a minimum of altitude, but obviously you don't want to be forced to do it at very low altitude.

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