What are you doing?

It's funny what people will do when they are scared out of their mind or when they have no idea what they should do. I had a student once who was both scared out of his mind and didn't know what to do. He was my very first student (maybe the fact that we were both scared out of our minds had something to do with it?...Just saying...). I could tell from the start that he was scared - scared of this one maneuver - stalls. That's basically when the wings aren't producing lift anymore - that's not as bad as it sounds, at least when you're five thousand feet above the ground in a controlled environment. When practicing all you need to do to recover is lower the nose, sometimes all it takes is releasing a little bit of back pressure, and wait until you gain airspeed to return to normal flight. I can't remember anymore exactly which type of stall we were practicing, whether we had power-on or off, but I do remember his reaction. The first few stalls we did were a little nerve-wrecking for him, and I was ready to call it quits to give him a breather, but he insisted on doing a couple more.

We set the airplane up for a stall, slowly raising the nose, letting the airspeed drop off. All of a sudden, as if he had lost patience, he yanked the nose back quickly - which caused an immediate stall. He was so abrupt he shocked himself. As the nose quickly fell down through the horizon, he let go of everything and gave out a little bit of a shriek. Before I knew it we were pointed nearly vertical towards the ground.

I was never far away from taking control - but I also wasn't expecting him to let go of everything. Always watch closely when someone is scared or apprehensive about doing something. You really don't know how they will react. I couldn't expect my brand new student to recover from a situation he put himself in when he doesn't know what to do. If he doesn't know how he got there, he definitely won't know how to get back. That's the same for everyone in life.You can't fix something that you don't know how to fix, and you won't fix it until you know how to. Sometimes the best course of action to take is letting go, let go and let the person you trust handle the situation, or whatever it is that needs letting go. My student trusted in me, trusted that I could help him when he had no idea how to help himself . Sometimes we all need to do that. If we pay attention, we can eventually learn how to handle even the toughest situation.

Back to my student. Will my student need to learn how to recover from a situation such as the one he put us in? Of course. I don't want anyone whom I've taught get a pilot's license if I don't know how they'll react in a tough situation. Did my stomach twist a little when all of a sudden the nose of the airplane was pointed towards the ground? Yes, I was a little shaky until the end of the flight, but I didn't let go of the controls. At some point in my flying career, I'm sure I would have done the exact same thing - but that point is in the past, at a time when I wouldn't have known how to recover either.

To clear skies,
Up in the Air