talk about stalls

[AJ88V]

Hi Folks - New to this forum, but long time Mooney owner (1970 C, "April"), and, long hiatus from flying - full introduction posted on the General Mooney discussion if you're curious.

I'm about to launch back into flying.  April is scheduled for annual early next month.  In the meantime, I've been studying up and watching a lot of great videos to refresh my memory before doing a BFR.

Stalls don't scare me (10+ hours aerobatic training - highly recommended!), but my question is about coordination with rudder.  Specifically, if you're not coordinated, the wing will snap to one side or another.  My recollection is that this was pretty easy to control (as in no snap) in something like a C152 (most of my training days) or a Cherokee 180, but my Mooney always seemed to drop more than those planes, especially for an aggressive power on stall. Not like it's hard to recover or anything close to entering a spin, just that I pretty much always got some decently strong wing drop compared to the other planes.  That's only my recollection since I haven't done a hard stall in a few years (not flying! :().  

My plane is an easy hands-off flyer and easy to trim up in a long flight, so I'm sure she's rigged properly.  So maybe it's the nature of smooth laminar-flow wings entering a stall, maybe the rudder/aileron interconnect, or just crappy pilot technique. Yeah, I know what the answer is with that setup, but....

What's your experience?  [over]

Edited August 17 by AJ88V

[N201MKTurbo]

When I bought this Mooney, I needed a BFR and my flight instructor buddy was only available at night. So we did the BFR at night. I hadn't stalled this plane before. We were out south of KCHD at about 5500 feet and he wanted to see a departure stall, so I did one. HOLY CRAP the plane almost snap rolled inverted! I looked at him and said we weren't doing any more stalls and he agreed. 

The rigging of the wings was all screwed up. The yokes were canted when you flew level. So I adjusted the ailerons and flaps and got it to fly straight with the yokes centered. Now it stalls nice and straight with no wing drop.

[PT20J]

Different wings have different stall characteristics. It’s not laminar flow per se - the Cherokee has a laminar flow airfoil yet very gentle stall characteristics. The Mooney wing uses a different airfoil at the root than the tip to provide aerodynamic washout to ensure that the root area stalls first. Manufacturing tolerances create variation between the left and right wings and these are compensated for during factory test flights by adjusting the placement of the stall strips on the leading edges. Certification requirements allow up to 15 degrees of roll or yaw. The factory test pilot made sure that the airplane met this requirement, but did not attempt to get it perfect. So, some drop a wing more than others. But, you should be able to prevent it from rolling more than 15 degrees during recovery unless the wing has been damaged and repaired. My right wing had some minor damage to the leading edge somewhere in its past and the bondo job isn’t perfect and it always drops the right wing in a full stall, but not enough to exceed the spec. Wing drops during stalls are usually perceived by most pilots as being much more abrupt and of greater magnitude than the actually are. The only antidote for this is to practice them often.

[Hank]

When I do power-on stalls in my 1970 C, I back the power off to 65% or a little less, otherwise the deck angle can be somewhat extreme. 

This was at the DPE's recommendation on my IFR checkride. 

Welcome back, and good luck with your (re)training!

[bcg]

Accelerated stalls in a Mooney are exciting.  Power on and power off are pretty benign if you stay coordinated.

[GeeBee]

If you want to scare yourself, have someone stall the airplane while you look at the horizontal stab. You'll wonder who it stayed attached.

 

[dkkim73]

@AJ88V as mentioned above, the adjustments at the factory play a big role. My stall strips (FIKI'ed) were re-bonded at the factory right before I took possession, and they went over rig exhaustively (and adjusted a number of things), so I'm a bit spoiled as it's pretty clean and true. I still get very alert stalling at high deck angles... I'm told some planes can be fairly asymmetric. 

So... if there's significant doubt, you might want to get an experienced Mooney instructor/pilot who is familiar with the variations in stall rigging to fly the plane. 

As far as practical technique: 

- what seems to work for me is to be very alert on the rudder, watching the nose yaw ("walking" the rudders as necessary, not just booting in a lot of right rudder and calling it good)

- have heard from others to set up the power-on stalls slowly, to get a saner deck angle, not just pitch up and firewall it

HTH

[Ragsf15e]

Just to be clear…

Stall with the ball centered, power on or power off, maybe a little roll but controllable with coordinated inputs.  Probably a bit more noticeable with power on, highly recommend doing ~60%.  They are worth doing, as departure stalls kill.

Stall without the ball centered gets much more interesting.  Especially with a high power setting.  You may quickly find yourself in a very steep bank, very nose low, feels like inverted.  By the time you level the wings (and hopefully pulled power), you might be well above maneuvering speed, so pull carefully.  Obviously we’re not going to try to spin or anything, but seeing it stall uncoordinated once or twice with an instructor might be worthwhile to convince us that coordination is really important!

[AJ88V]

So I'm not the only one.

Definitely less than 15* bank (from recollection) in power on stall in my bird.  Was just watching these videos of aggressive stalls and people keeping wings nice and level with nary a wing drop, and recalling I never got that good in my Mooney, but had in other planes.

My plane's stall characteristics are not at all worrisome, but my recollection was I always got a wing drop.  My 1970 C model has wing root fairings which may also keep the inner wing from stalling as early, but I don't recall much change in stall characteristics after installing them. The root fairings did make landings easier, but that could just be more experience.

[MikeOH]

Yeah, long ago I used to hold a C-150/C-172 in a stall and keep the wings level with just the rudder.  I won't try that in the Mooney!

Also, for power on stalls I make sure I'm on the backside of the power curve; pulling into a full power high-deck angle stall is too exciting for this old man

[Ibra]

3 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

Yeah, long ago I used to hold a C-150/C-172 in a stall and keep the wings level with just the rudder.  I won't try that in the Mooney!

You can try but when it bites, and it will, it's 120deg wing drop and 1/4 turn, always scary, reminds me of high performance gliders 

Edited August 17 by Ibra

[EricJ]

22 minutes ago, MikeOH said:

Yeah, long ago I used to hold a C-150/C-172 in a stall and keep the wings level with just the rudder.  I won't try that in the Mooney!

Not long after I bought my airplane a friend who used to own a Mooney (and now owns a number of different aircraft) was describing to somebody how to do a falling leaf, and then looked at me and said, "DON'T TRY THIS IN YOUR AIRPLANE!" 

[AJ88V]

46 minutes ago, EricJ said:

Not long after I bought my airplane a friend who used to own a Mooney (and now owns a number of different aircraft) was describing to somebody how to do a falling leaf, and then looked at me and said, "DON'T TRY THIS IN YOUR AIRPLANE!" 

Hah!  Really enjoyed falling leaf in a Super Decathalon.  Def would not try that in a Mooney.

[donkaye]

Background: 32 Years Mooney M20M Ownership.  Instructing for 30 years.  For Detailed Flight Background See PDF Attached.

I do stalls in all transition trainings and Commercial ratings.  Every new Mooney was test flown before sale and the stall strips adjusted for straight ahead power off stalls.  I do the first stall per the Commercial standards.  I establish approach speed and a 500 ft/min descent rate, then reduces the power to idle and raise the nose at approximately 1° per second until the stall break.  I've never experienced a Mooney that "snapped" into any stall.  The Mooney will let you know close to the stall if it is going to drop a wing.  If so, we won't go to the break.  Since it stalled straight ahead when it was new, that means that something is out of rig and should be fixed.  In my airplane I can hold the yoke full back and the nose will bounce up and down stalling and unstalling without dropping a wing.  Yours should, too.

Power on stalls should be done at no greater than 65% power to keep deck angle reasonable.  Turning stalls at 20°, if coordinated, should present no more difficulty than straight ahead stalls. 

The only time I got into an unintentional spin was in a Mooney 231 and has been documented on my website.  It occurred many years ago at the stall break doing cross controlled stalls.  Do not go out and practice cross controlled stalls in a Mooney.  See my writeup at https://donkaye.com/useful-aviation-articles.

Bottom line; From my experience the Mooney stall characteristics are superior to those of other aircraft like Cessnas and Pipers that I have flown and in which I have taught. 

Background Flight Summary for Donald E. Kaye as of 8:17:2024.pdf

[AJ88V]

19 hours ago, donkaye said:

Background: 32 Years Mooney M20M Ownership.  Instructing for 30 years.  For Detailed Flight Background See PDF Attached.

I do stalls in all transition trainings and Commercial ratings.  Every new Mooney was test flown before sale and the stall strips adjusted for straight ahead power off stalls.  I do the first stall per the Commercial standards.  I establish approach speed and a 500 ft/min descent rate, then reduces the power of idle and raise the nose at approximately 1° per second until the stall break.  I've never experienced a Mooney that "snapped" into any stall.  The Mooney will let you know close to the stall if it is going to drop a wing.  If so, we won't go to the break.  Since it stalled straight ahead when it was new, that means that something is out of rig and should be fixed.  In my airplane I can hold the yoke full back and the nose will bounce up and down stalling and unstalling without dropping a wing.  Yours should, too.

Power on stalls should be done at no greater than 65% power to keep deck angle reasonable.  Turning stalls at 20°, if coordinated, should present no more difficulty than straight ahead stalls. 

The only time I got into an unintentional spin was in a Mooney 231 and has been documented on my website.  It occurred many years ago at the stall break doing cross controlled stalls.  Do not go out and practice cross controlled stalls in a Mooney.  See my writeup at https://donkaye.com/useful-aviation-articles.

Bottom line; From my experience the Mooney stall characteristics are superior to those of other aircraft like Cessnas and Pipers that I have flown and in which I have taught. 

Great answer, Don, and I remembered your name the second I saw it. 

Obviously the Mooney is not a snap-stall monster or there'd be a lot fewer of us left to fly them.  That said, I do recall that my C  model is more difficult to balance perfectly than the other aircraft I mentioned, but recovery has never been a problem.

Will try out your methods, since this is one area of flying I do want to perfect when finally get airborne again.

Thanks, and nice to see you again.  - AJ

 

[Shadrach]

On 8/17/2024 at 6:47 PM, MikeOH said:

Yeah, long ago I used to hold a C-150/C-172 in a stall and keep the wings level with just the rudder.  I won't try that in the Mooney!

Also, for power on stalls I make sure I'm on the backside of the power curve; pulling into a full power high-deck angle stall is too exciting for this old man

I am very comfortable with falling leaf stalls in my F in the clean configuration. I’ve held full aft elevator for over 1000” of descent with minor rudder inputs to keep roll deviations less than 20°. However, things are quite a bit more dramatic with the gear and flaps down.

[M20F]

My primary recommendation to any Pilot is do some stalls at max weight and max aft CG.  The scenario is probably one of the more likely ones for a departure stall.

[Teddyhherrera]

My instrument CFI spun my mooney by accident. 

 

It was my first instrument lesson with him and he wanted to see what i knew by doing PPL stuff. i did power on/power off stalls and then he wanted and accelerated stall at a 25 degree bank. I told him i did them in training but my transition training for the mooney prohibited it. He was like "i read the poh, my controls..."

 

No warning, no shudder, nothing. we went over and entered a full spin immediately. lost 1500 ft in just over 1 rotation and recovered at around 800' agl. That was my first and last outing with him.   

[Hank]

1 hour ago, Teddyhherrera said:

My instrument CFI spun my mooney by accident. 

No warning, no shudder, nothing. we went over and entered a full spin immediately. lost 1500 ft in just over 1 rotation and recovered at around 800' agl. That was my first and last outing with him.   

You were lucky! My Owners Manual says to expect a minimum 2000' altitude loss to recover from a one-turn spin. Right before it says "SPINS ARE PROHIBITED IN THIS AIRCRAFT."

Another CFII is the only choice.

[kortopates]

My instrument CFI spun my mooney by accident. 
 
It was my first instrument lesson with him and he wanted to see what i knew by doing PPL stuff. i did power on/power off stalls and then he wanted and accelerated stall at a 25 degree bank. I told him i did them in training but my transition training for the mooney prohibited it. He was like "i read the poh, my controls..."
 
No warning, no shudder, nothing. we went over and entered a full spin immediately. lost 1500 ft in just over 1 rotation and recovered at around 800' agl. That was my first and last outing with him.   

The big mistake was apparently doing stalls at only approx 2500’ agl. The minimum safe altitude for doing Mooney stalls is 5000’ agl - which is what we use at MAPA PPP’s.

Falling leafs and any stalls shouldn’t be feared. A recent J model private student got very good at doing the falling leaf - so much so when he was practicing for the practical exam stalls he kept going into the falling leaf and i had to talk him out of it.

But by pushing on the yoke aggressively till you feel light in the seat on any stall gets it’s flying again right away - just avoid a secondary stall by trying to aggressively to minimize altitude loss.


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[Echo]

On 8/20/2024 at 5:05 PM, Teddyhherrera said:

My instrument CFI spun my mooney by accident. 

 

It was my first instrument lesson with him and he wanted to see what i knew by doing PPL stuff. i did power on/power off stalls and then he wanted and accelerated stall at a 25 degree bank. I told him i did them in training but my transition training for the mooney prohibited it. He was like "i read the poh, my controls..."

 

No warning, no shudder, nothing. we went over and entered a full spin immediately. lost 1500 ft in just over 1 rotation and recovered at around 800' agl. That was my first and last outing with him.   

His nose would of been broken immediately upo exit of the aircraft.  Some are slow learners and apparently need to have a "moment" to learn.

[Will.iam]

On 8/20/2024 at 5:05 PM, Teddyhherrera said:

My instrument CFI spun my mooney by accident. 

 

It was my first instrument lesson with him and he wanted to see what i knew by doing PPL stuff. i did power on/power off stalls and then he wanted and accelerated stall at a 25 degree bank. I told him i did them in training but my transition training for the mooney prohibited it. He was like "i read the poh, my controls..."

 

No warning, no shudder, nothing. we went over and entered a full spin immediately. lost 1500 ft in just over 1 rotation and recovered at around 800' agl. That was my first and last outing with him.   

yea after my statement of accelerated stall was prohibited in my transition training and some instructor blows that off and says my controls I would have have said my aircraft get your hands off my controls and we are done here. go practice accelerated stalls in your own aircraft.

Good for you not flying with him again.

[Vance Harral]

I'm sure I haven't performed/coached as many stalls in Mooneys as @donkaye, but I've done many, including - though I know Don will scold me for this - cross-controlled stalls for CFI training in my own M20F and a friend's 252.  Based on that experience, and the stories I read here every time this comes up, I'm convinced the Mooney wing isn't less-well-behaved in a stall than others, as designed; but that it's less forgiving of mis-rigging and minor "dings" than other airframes.

Lots of us report benign experiences with power on, power off, accelerated, and cross-controlled stalls in varying M20 airframes.  All the stalls I've ever encountered in the M20 platform - including those cross-controlled stalls - have been benign.  It's true that in a skidding stall, the airplane will roll - as expected - toward the wing that is already lowered, and therefore can seem like quite the E-ticket ride if you don't know what to expect.  But with reasonably prompt forward yoke, neutral ailerons (don't pick up the low wing with aileron input!), and rudder correction, neither is it particularly "scary".

Having said that, I certainly don't think Don's hard line on cross-controlled stalls is unwarranted for him, nor am I inclined to say that pilots who report their Mooney "snapped hard over" are fibbing or confused about it.  It's true that without aerobatic time or at least commercial steep turn training, anything greater than 45 degrees of roll can seem like knife edge when it's not, and that may be part of the story.  But not all of it.  I don't have any explanation for my experience being different than others, except to guess that slight mis-rigging or minor leading edge dents in a Mooney deliver a lot more devilish behavior than the equivalent mal-adjustment in a fat-wing airfoil.

[donkaye]

Each to his own, but the short cross controlled stall practice I did with 5 students in the mid 1990s was a non aggressive skidding left turn with right aileron smoothly added until the the left wing would start to drop.  Recovery for the first 4 was unremarkable. The cross controlled stall that convinced me to stop that training was when the stall was carried to the "break" with the last student in his 231.  The plane didn't "snap" into a spin, it just rolled over and entered it before I said "I have the airplane".  Luckily were were, I think, at 6,000 feet.  Applying normal spin recovery technique, the rotation didn't stop for several rotations.  We lost several thousand feet and there was a moment before the rotation stopped when I thought recovery may not be assured.

[phxcobraz]

I've really found the stalls to be quite benign, especially power off. Pull power idle and stay coordinated, pull up and it starts flying again almost immediately after the stall. 

Power on was a bit more dramatic at full power and I agree with others doing it at less power seemed more manageable. Though my first time doing power on I was pretty timid with how fast I pulled back, and it was hard to get it to drop in pitch, it kinda just lost altitude in a high angle of attack, letting off the elevator brought it back down and recovered.

Overall much less dramatic than even Cessna 172, 170, and 182s I've flown.