My mum.
Was a flying instructor.
She used to build up her flying hours and get a free fly (no hiring the plane or paying for fuel) by giving instruction at the local flying club. As she was a single mum and I an only child that basically meant I spent a good portion of my weekends sitting in the back seat/luggage compartment of a single prop Cessna feeling queasy whilst watching my mum put some novice pilot thu their paces.

My mum as an educator (she ended up getting a doctorate based in education) was a great believer in "hands on learning". As an instructor this meant putting the student pilots in real situations to make sure that they knew what to do if certain things eventuated. She had flown everything from DC-10's to gliders and ultralights in all sorts of circumstances. To her, experience was the greatest teacher.
This meant that many of the scenarios other instructors might gloss over, she made the hapless students experience 1st hand.

Forced stalls - mostly done with forced landings maybe less than a hundred feet off the deck. Mum made them do it at several thousand feet. Your plane isn't always going to stall on the level, with flaps on full at stall speed is it now? So when you start to drop out of the sky and lose altitude rapidly it kinda makes finding a solution to the problem somewhat more of a sweat-breaker than it does when you have the runway in front of you and you were coasting in for a landing anyway.

CAT or clear air turbulence. Until you've experienced it you have no idea what it's like.
You're flying along happily when all of a sudden your plane drops up to a couple of hundred feet in a few seconds, leaving your stomach and anything you haven't evacuated out of it stuck to the roof of the aeroplane.
This was a fave of mums. In Mt. Isa, Queensland the wet season usually has daily thunderstorms in the afternoon. Fly thru 1 of those thunderheads and there's a good chance you'll get a taste of an air pocket. Scary as fuck but there's a good chance that sometime a pilot will get caught in bad weather (no amount of planning can cover that) so my mum would make the student pilots face the situation head-on by finding a thunderstorm and flying thu it.
At best we'd go through some rough and choppy air and get bounced around the cabin a bit, at worst we'd do the CAT dance and at least one of us would lose our lunches. Usually me.

As you might conclude from this tale I have a healthy aversion to getting my feet too far off the ground unless I absolutely have to.
Christ knows how many airsickness bags I chucked my nuts up into during the 70's and 80's but I reckon the highest points of distribution would've been where-ever my mum was training.

In the spirit of Juan Quar's post - my mum wasn't winging it so much as she didn't mind not being totally in control and certainly knew how to enjoy herself when the shit did hit the fan...

tl;dr - My mother tortured me and many student pilots by putting us in very serious predicaments whilst flying an airplane in the name of teaching the students how to deal with something first-hand.

EDIT: Despite the fact that my mum and grandfather both got their pilot's licenses at Biggin Hill (albeit 40 odd years apart - I think my grand-dad did it out of shame and competitiveness against his daughter) I have no desire whatsoever to learn how to fly.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 6:06, 52 replies)

Unless this is turning into a "post random shit" thread
could we please have this shit mod edited as with the others that have appeared this week.
Please.
( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 9:19, closed)

Oh.
Touche.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 10:07, closed)

wall of text. didn't read.
posting to remind you that you are a dull cunt.
( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 10:48, closed)

Cheers lovey. :-)

(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 11:21, closed)

luv u babez xxx

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 11:28, closed)

Got the Cliff notes for you my dear.
tl;dr - My mother tortured me and many student pilots by putting us in very serious predicaments whilst flying an airplane in the name of teaching the students how to deal with something first-hand.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 11:31, closed)

still too long
for Janet. Can you write it in edible crayon?
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Mon 1 Apr 2013, 16:52, closed)

Hang on a minute...
A stall means you basically stop flying, and the plane drops with no lift. If you're going to stall, then surely it's a hell of a lot better to stall when you're high up. That means you have a lot of altitude through which to fall while you're working to get out of the stall (by pointing the nose down and increasing power if necessary).
If you stall when you're close to the runway, then it's a lot more dangerous because you have so little altitude through which to fall to correct the stall. I'd be shitting myself if I were in a plane which stalled on final approach.
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 12:20, closed)

shut up.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 12:26, closed)

Ask nicely and I will.

(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 12:40, closed)

Fuck off you dull cunt who has me on 2.0 like a flouncing baby.

( BraynDedd Natasha Kaplinsky's labia majora, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 12:37, closed)

Not by the hair on your chinny, chin, chin?

(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 13:00, closed)

A forced stall and forced landing is usually
done as you are basically coasting in to land - your flaps are fully extended, the plane is level, oriented towards the runway and your airspeed is low - so essentially when you stall you just glide in, open the throttle, start the ignition and hopefully the engine roars into life and off you go.
When you stall at height you're at the mercy of wind currents and other effects (torsion, wind shear etc.) and of course if the engine doesn't restart it's a long way down rather than just a scary landing.

Bear in mind I am not a pilot and am reminiscing about stuff I went through 30 odd years ago.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 12:57, closed)

shut up.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 13:14, closed)

Oh Janet.
If I gave a flying fuck about you and what you have to say that comment might've hurt my feelings.
A little bit.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 13:24, closed)

i'm glad you took the time to notarise that.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 13:26, closed)

Roger that.
Foxtrot uniform charlie kilo oscar foxtrot foxtrot charlie uniform november tango.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 13:28, closed)

oh wow, the phonetic alphabet? amazing.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 13:36, closed)

inorite?

(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 14:07, closed)

Hmm?
Just glide in? But the thing about a stall is that either the airspeed is too low to sustain flight, or the angle of attack is too high - so that instead of flowing over and under the wings, the air just buffets the under-side of the wing ineffectively. The point is that when you stall, you're no longer gliding, you're falling. The only way out of a stall near landing is to push the throttle to max and hope that the engines have enough power to get you up to flying speed before you hit the ground - as the "nose-down" tactic is no longer an option.

Or am I missing something :)
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 14:09, closed)

shut up.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 14:18, closed)

gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
(TheManHimself Beer Drinkin', Breath Stinkin', Sniffing Glue, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 15:24, closed)

Are you this charming in real life?

( 4Q just lurking, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 16:56, closed)

what is your point here, please?

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 18:20, closed)

You're a charmless hag.
No wonder your husband pushed you down the stairs while you were sleepwalking.
( 4Q just lurking, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 18:34, closed)

OH ZING!!!

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 21:50, closed)

Quoting things from profiles = internet victory.
imjussayin
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 22:21, closed)

Haha, yeah.
I should have typed them all out myself, that would have illustrated the point so much better.
( 4Q just lurking, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 22:35, closed)

yabu
imjussayin
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Mon 1 Apr 2013, 0:26, closed)

I envisage her and shambolina being perfect partners.
Having furious internet sex to produce snarling, angry cyber-succubi.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 22:52, closed)

I think we're both coming at it from slightly different angles.
When she was getting her instructors license the only stalls my mum had to do were what I call a "forced stall" which can then become a forced landing if the engine fails to catch. We've both described this fairly well separately. She also used to make her students practise these as well as stalling higher up.

I think my mum's reasoning for cutting the engines much higher up (don't know what the ceiling was but I'm guessing over 1500 feet) was that you don't have that margin of error whereby you can simply land (albeit fairly roughly) if you stall just off the ground - once you commit to a course of action at a greater height there is less of a "plan b" than just a rough landing.
Thanks for the input - you a pilot?
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 22:49, closed)

I see your point
And no - I'm no more of a pilot than a Microsoft Flight Simulator enthusiast ;)
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Mon 1 Apr 2013, 11:09, closed)

I think..
...that you are maybe using 'stall' to mean 'the engine stopping' (as you might use the term in a car).

In aviation, 'stall' is only really used to describe an aerodynamic phenomenon i.e. the loss of lift over an aerofoil (normally the wings). You can have stalls in jet engines due to the loss of lift in compressor blades, but it doesn't sound like this is what you mean.

In any case, if you replace "stall" with "simulated engine failure" in your post, then both your and EuroSong's post make total sense.
(silene, Mon 1 Apr 2013, 12:05, closed)

Actually
I think you're right. Re-reading the OP in the context of engine cutting out makes a lot more sense.
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Mon 1 Apr 2013, 15:05, closed)

Anyway
I'm off to play Portal 2. See you later.
(EuroSong I love horse meat: best of all the animals, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 14:09, closed)

'Flaps'
Pfffft.
( The Cat's Mother Not a People Person., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 21:53, closed)

feeling queasy whilst watching my mum put some novice pilot thu their paces.
"hands on learning"
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sun 31 Mar 2013, 22:41, closed)

Hmph, my kids moan because I used to scare them by taking them shopping on the kiddy seat on the back of my bike!
What wimps. I'll be showing them this.
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Sun 31 Mar 2013, 20:31, closed)

Forced stalls
We live near Jandakot airfield, so hear planes' engines cutting out all the time. It took a while to get used to and now we no longer look up expecting a light aircraft to come tumbling out of the sky.
( SteamedCleaner, Mon 1 Apr 2013, 2:23, closed)

Another Perthian!
Howdy from the Norther 'burbs - looks like it might be time for another bash. If I can just convince BeatsWork to take me off 2.0...

It's actually quite un-nerving when the engine cuts out - all you can usually hear is the wind and knowing the prop should be turning when it isn't isn't such a good feeling.
Fucking magical sound in a glider tho! If I was going to do any flying it would be in a glider again.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Mon 1 Apr 2013, 4:19, closed)

I grew up by RAF Shawbury
One of the main military helicopter training centres in the UK.

They teach engine stall/autorotates, amongst other things, and truly you do get a tiny loss of sphincter control the first time you watch a happily hovering helicopter drop out of the sky like a stone and keep falling past the horizon. But the bang and the flames never come, and slowly and shakily the helipoter reappears.

Mind you, I imagine the trainee pilot shits themselves much more.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 2 Apr 2013, 9:46, closed)

I think the most out-of-control my mother ever felt in a plane was this tale she told me.
Her and a boyfriend of hers had taken a plane up for the day, she was building up her hours towards becoming an instructor, he was a retired commercial airline pilot so was mostly along for the ride and the eye-candy (apparently my mum was not un-attractive to look at by the opposite sex). Me, I was in the back fiercely clutching a sickbag with my usual grey/green pallor I attained once onboard a plane.
Half way thu the flight at some thousands of ft. my mum's paramour all of a sudden, with no warning what-so-ever cut the engine and turned off all of the electrics (including the ignition and fuel pumps).
As you can imagine this is not a good thing to happen, especially unannounced. With no power to the fuel pump it doesn't matter how much you open the throttle all you're going to do is flood the engine - imagine someone taking the keys out of the ignition of a car and putting it in neutral at full pelt down the freeway.
Mum managed to get the electrics and fuel system up and running, dropped the nose, got the prop turning and the engine restarted, then berated the fuck out of the fellow.
About 3 mths. later he managed to accidentally stumble into a running propeller after shouting "Clear Prop!" and starting his plane.
Neither my mum nor myself missed him particularly but I think that's where she got the idea for a mid-flight stall. AFAIK she never did it to any of her students without prior warning and them having been trained for what to do in such a situation.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Mon 1 Apr 2013, 6:38, closed)

I'm glad the MODS are doing something about this dreary fucking troll.
Good job, MODS.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 1 Apr 2013, 12:10, closed)

I have really enjoyed your input for this weeks QOTW
I found it both interesting and informative.

Thank you.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Mon 1 Apr 2013, 12:39, closed)

Why the flip don't people who a talking as if they're knowledgeable on the subject know the difference between stalling and losing engine power.

(Brigadier an old boot sitting on a man's face - forever, Mon 1 Apr 2013, 21:04, closed)

Why the flip indeed!?

(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Mon 1 Apr 2013, 22:43, closed)

Indeed.
I used to have to recover stall turns when I was learning to fly. fun fun fun.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 2 Apr 2013, 9:48, closed)

Wing tip stall is the king of stalls.

(Brigadier an old boot sitting on a man's face - forever, Tue 2 Apr 2013, 16:29, closed)

Never had the pleasure of that one.

( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Tue 2 Apr 2013, 17:19, closed)

I personally much prefer the
local fete cake stall.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Tue 2 Apr 2013, 22:52, closed)

Not one 'your mum' / 'mile high club' joke made in this thread
B3ta. You're dead to me.
( The Great Architect is still waiting for his account to be deleted on, Tue 2 Apr 2013, 15:41, closed)

Cheers.

(dozers, do fuck off ur a nob m8, Wed 3 Apr 2013, 7:25, closed)