Air Facts magazine has recently posted an interesting question for readers regarding stall training that has already attracted nearly 60 comments. Specifically, Air Facts magazine asked:
Question: Most inadvertent stalls that result in serious accidents occur at an altitude too low for a recovery. Do you think this means that practicing stalls at altitude is a waste of time?
Student pilot Joseph Chambers responded by writing that he thinks stall training is worth it because it gets future pilots out of their comfort zone and lets them know whether they can calmly react when a flight goes outside of the normal flight parameters. He also added that you do not know how you will react the first time in a stall as it will be “quite a ride” if you were not “raised on airplanes.”
ConcernedPilot posted that if a student pilot is learning how to fly an aircraft but is never taught the full capabilities of an aircraft, he or she is being set up for failure because flying will never be an ideal situation every time. Moreover, ConcernedPilot noted that in more advanced flying situations such as bush flying, a pilot will often need to fly right at stall speed.
However, CFIChuck was one reader who disagreed with much of the prevailing wisdom that other commenters had posted. Specifically, he wrote that he thought that stall training is a hold-over from the World War II mindset and it isn’t worth practicing. CFIChuck pointed out that:
We don’t practice crash landing, after all–we simply learn not to do it. Same for stalls–there is no reason to ever stall, period, and practicing it is just checking the box. If you ever stall for real, it’s too late, you won’t recover.
He did add that its also important to learn what types of flying scenarios will make you more susceptible to a stall and how to avoid them but he feels it’s a bad investment to go up to 3,000 feet for “feeling the break.”
Hence, we want to ask you our readers what you think: Is stall training a waste of time? Moreover, are stalls something that every pilot needs to experience in the cockpit rather than just learn about in the classroom?