Does an airplane stall feel like an amusement park thrill drop ride?

[LSLGuy]

@Machine_Elf

Rare, but it does happen. there have been cases of people on commercial flights who sustained severe (even fatal) head injuries during clear-air turbulence; they weren’t wearing their seat belt, and ended up slamming their head on the ceiling.

Here’s the aftermath of an incident that randomly redistributed everyone’s dinner.

Turns out there is a smartphone app for measuring turbulence (basically a g-meter). Would be helpful for some folks to understand that even when it feels awfully bouncy, the actual g level is, in most cases, nowhere near the aircraft’s limits.

Agreed 100% sever turbulence happens. Occasionally. And when it does, it makes the news. Not like the myriad of reports folks give of scary “air pockets” on their routine flight from A to B.

[Enright3]

@Velocity

Oh - is it because the body quickly becomes accustomed to the rate of fall and therefore after a few seconds it doesn’t sense freefall anymore?

No. I’d say it’s because the plain still has wings and you are falling slower than an amusement park ride. If the planes I have been in (where I experienced a stall) were to aim straight down, I suspect the feeling wouldn’t be quite as gentle.

[Llama_Llogophile]

Depends on the plane and the type of stall.

I estimate that I’ve done something like 3000 stalls in airplanes, mostly as a flight instructor. There are a lot of ways to do it, and usually they’re quite gentle. A planned stall in a Piper Warrior is pretty much a non-event. Slightly more interesting in a Cessna 172 because, depending on the rigging, some Cessnas will drop a wing slightly in a stall.

But accelerated stalls can definitely feel like an amusement park ride. I would show students entries, but not a full stall unless they really wanted to. One time I was flying a Piper Colt solo and decided to see if I could get it to fully stall (it was really forgiving, and would mostly just mush). After a few attempts I worked up to pulling back as abruptly as possible following a climb and succeeded. The nose dropped sharply and dramatically and scared me a little. Not a big deal, but it’s weird to see such a docile plane do something startling. Sort of like teasing a tame, friendly dog to the point where he suddenly growls.

I’ve also stalled an aerobatic plane from the inverted position - several times intentionally, once not. That got my attention.

[RedSwinglineOne]

@Xema

Not really - they were descending at a roughly constant speed of around 108 kts. But this certainly was the “direst” type of stall: a “deep” stall that persisted for over 3 minutes.

I agree with your main point, but AF 447 was not in a “deep stall” as normally defined. A “deep stall” is when a plane is flying so nose high that the elevators are in the “shadow” of the wings. In this condition the pilot is unable to lower the nose because the elevators are ineffective. The pilots (and autopilot) on AF 447 were confused by their instrument readings and were pulling back on the stick (raising the nose) commanding up elevator the entire time. If they had better indications of their actual situation and lowered the nose they would likely have been fine.

[wolfpup]

For the record, my description of what a stall feels like came from my recollections of stall maneuvers in a Piper Cherokee – it’s probably quite different in a high-wing Cessna.

@Xema

It should perhaps be noted that there’s no such thing as an “air pocket”. Or perhaps more accurately that this is an awkward and misleading term for turbulence or vertical gusts that produce brief negative Gs in aircraft that encounter them.

True, there’s no such thing literally, and it’s misleading if it makes one think of a “hole” in the atmosphere. But I’ve heard pilots use the term in the context of clear air turbulence (and it can apply to other forms of wind shear, like wake turbulence), and I think one can make the distinction that normal turbulence will typically not cause altitude changes of more than 20 to 40 feet or so, whereas some forms of wind shear have the potential to drop an aircraft a lot more.

[Johnny_L.A]

@wolfpup

For the record, my description of what a stall feels like came from my recollections of stall maneuvers in a Piper Cherokee – it’s probably quite different in a high-wing Cessna.

I’ve recently had my BFR in a Cherokee. Virtually all the rest of my fixed-wing hours are in Cessna Skyhawks and a Skylane. The various stalls felt the same to me.