Stalling

When one hears the word "stall" what do they automatically assume? My number 1 guess would be a cease of engine function, unless of course they are a pilot. Overall the loss of engine function in a car isn't such a scary thought, but if the engine stopped working in an aircraft? That sounds quite detrimental. However, thankfully, that is not a stall in an aircraft!

So what is a stall? Simply explained, stalling is the term used to explain a loss of lift. Scary? Not as you may think! Flight is generated through application and understanding of the four forces; lift, weight, thrust and drug. These forces counteract to produce flight. Lift is the most prominent force to understand when we refer to stalling, lift is generated using an aerofoil (commonly referred to as the wing). The aerofoil contains increased curvature on the top, with decreased curvature below it, essentially allowing Bernoullis theorem to materialise as it creates a significant difference in pressure generating an upwards forces referred to as... LIFT!! Lift generation occurs on numerous different elements of the wing, however for simplification we refer to lift in theory as acting through the centre of pressure (COP). The COP is the point where the average of most lift produced appears to act.

Now we can FINALLY get onto the actual stalling element, yay! So, as you may know aircraft fly with a reasonable angle of attack (angle between relative airflow and chord line). With each aircraft, there is a corresponding "critical angle". The critical angle is the maximum angle of attack that a particular aircraft can achieve without... stalling! For example, the C152 has an AOA of ~15 degrees (in theory). When the nose reaches this angle, the critical angle, the centre of pressure will move forward on the aerofoil and the perfect laminar flow (smooth airflow over the wing) will be disrupted, and even replaced with turbulent flow! To flights detriment, the turbulent flow now produced over the wing will not be sufficient enough to support the weight of the aircraft... so the aircraft will sink. AOA isn't the only factor that contributes to stalling, other factors such as power setting and flaps will contribute!

So now we know how an aircraft stalls and what a stall is, do you believe it is detrimental? You could easily assume yes.... but NO! A stall won't kill you! They are really quite easy to recover from. Just like riding a bicycle! When you steer it in the wrong direction, just correct it! The method for recovering from a stall is simple, full power setting is required n addition to easing forward on the control column! The pilot may also have to use rudder in order to handle a wing drop!

Stalling is nothing to be afraid of! Student pilots learn how to stall and recover from it! I remember my first stall recovery attempt as a student pilot, I accidentally pushed forward on the control rather than "easing forward" in addition to full power. As a result the aircraft dived towards the ground and we were kind of coming out of our seats a bit due to gravity... ops hahaha :)