"Moose stall" aka cross-controlled stall

[Squeege]

Flyers,

Has anyone attempted a cross-controlled stall in a Peterson modified plane?

There was much discussion on my Cardinal Flyers Online group & I recently found a Cardinal owner/CFI that I did my BFR with that [had me] demonstrate the stall. First we slowed to an IAS 60kts, then applied full left rudder and full right aileron. We could fly along like this at that speed, but when just a short application of throttle is added, the nose rapidly snaps down and to the left, the emmpenage rising up over towards the right. Apparently, all Cessnas act this way, however, this Cardinal CFI wanted to impress how violently the Cardinal handles this. [The thread was precipitated by a Cardinal crash in Hawaii, the folks surveying some of their land probably flying low, slow, and possibly cross-controlled].

Louise

[kwmoore]

Did you & he CFI do this in the cardinal or in your 230se? It wasn't clear to me from your post (I have been known to have grammatical blind spots, however...).

[Squeege]

Sorry about that Kevin,

We performed the stall in my Cardinal.

I did have the comment that it is a severe cross controlled input that I had never experienced before. I could however, see that if a pilot were turning the plane, yawing for a passenger, getting a little too slow.... it could develop if the pilot were not paying attention.

Louise

[Mike Sullivan]

Your description of what you did confuses me too. When you say cross-controlled, do you mean you were "slipping" the airplane and then added power in the slip and the nose snapped down?? Did the airplane spin? I slip the airplane all the time on final when either trying to lose altitude in a hurry or counter-acting a x-wind. So if I add power while "slipping" , I'll spin the airplane???? Not a good place to spin, on final, I would say!!! I'm going to go experiment at a higher altitude and see if I do spin; I love to do 'em anyway.

Mike

[Squeege]

Mike,

That's exactly it, only when I slip an airplane, I keep the speed up [70 in the Cardinal].

Full rudder to the floor, full opposite aileron [we were up around 3500' to practice] slowed to 60kts, maybe even further. Then added the shot of throttle and the nose of the Cardinal pretty violently snaps down & towards whatever side rudder is applied. We did not let the spin fully develop; pulled power back, level wings and flew up and out.

This has been a thread on Cardinal Flyers Online. Other CFIs including the one I did these maneuvers with state that all planes will act this way; the particular CFI I had says that although all planes will, the C177 does so most abruptly. It was an eye opener for me.

I am just wondering if anyone has done one in a modified plane, the stall recognitions I did with Todd were most docile.

Louise

[Mike Sullivan]

Just thinking out loud.... I'll bet if you did it exactly the opposite, that is, left aileron and right full rudder and increased the throttle, it wouldn't snap down. The cessna naturally wants to drop to the left during a stall, and of course the remedy is the right rudder which, in this case, you'd already have in. Right?? What do ya' think?

Mike

[Squeege]

Mike,

I can see where you are coming from. If I am applying my aerodynamics properly, I believe the left rudder, right aileron, shot of power is so abrupt because of the flow of air initiated from the pull of the propeller down around the plane and hitting the left side of the rudder. I remember a picture of this; maybe Kershner's; maybe Jepp text.

[Todd Peterson]

I don't have enough time right now to go into a lot of detail but I will try to answer your questions about cross controlled stalls in our airplanes.

During the mid 1980's I had some people interested in the 260SE for trainers down in South/Central America. The airplane had to be able to do loops, rolls and spins. During my flight testing of the airplane the only thing it would not do was the spin. As for loops and rolls it actually flew better than some of the aerobatic airplanes I had flown. The problem is that the safety margins do not exist if a maneuver is "blown" like a full up aerobatic airplane. As for the spins if during a stall full rudder was applied it would go over the top in a classic spin entry but it would not stay in a stalled condition. No matter what I did in terms of control/power setups it would not stay in a stalled condition. It consistantly flew out of the stall in one half of one turn. If the controls were held in it would then go into a high speed spiral.

Strange as it sounds coming out of the stalled condition and going into a spiral is almost worse than staying in the spin. A spin is a steady state affair with the speed stablized at some point as the airplane descends. As long as a normal spin recovery will work there really isn't any problem. With the airplane coming out of the stalled condition however (while this is a good thing) if the controls are not neutralized it will then continue to descend with the airspeed rapidly increasing (this is not a good thing). The good point about this is that as soon as the airplane leaves the fully stalled condition you can just fly it away without any problem. The only problem that will occur is if you are trying to do spins (not certified for the C182) and continue to hold the control inputs in.

The real advantage of our airplanes is that you can get away from the high angle of attack during the approach and in slow flight which then gives you much more stall resistance. This is why I tell everyone that if you cannot see the runway during the final segment of the approach you are doing something wrong.

Let me know if you have any questions and I will try to answer them.

[kwmoore]

"...if you cannot see the runway during the final segment of the approach you are doing something wrong."

Or you're too short and need a booster seat. :p