AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2021 - 94

P&E 

PROFICIENCY

Looking for moose
Mastering stalls and turns around a point
B Y C AT H E R I N E C AVAG N A R O

94 | AOPA PILOT February 2021

the relative wind and the chord line of the
wing-exceeds the critical value. At that
point and with increased angle of attack, the
air across the top of the wing separates from
it and lift decreases dramatically. Paired with
a lack of coordination, a spin lurks around
the corner. A spin requires both those ingredients, so pushing forward on the yoke when
near a stall will lower the angle of attack and
ensure the worst doesn't happen.
The way we introduce and practice
stalls in training often bears little resemblance to the way they occur in nature. It's
not to say that such practice isn't appropriate; rather, it's just not enough. Without
incorporating realistic scenarios, one might
be left with the impression that stalls and
spins happen with plenty of warnings that
prompt us to recover, or even that we could
never find ourselves in such a situation. But
the NTSB aviation accident database tells a
different story.
Despite the inadequacies of my residences in preparing me for the moose stall,
a quick internet search brought me up to
speed. The moose-stall scenario involves a
pilot who flies at low altitude and becomes
so preoccupied with tracking wildlife that

TAYLOR CALLERY

HOW COULD I TURN DOWN a weekend filled
with aircraft emergencies? Several years
ago, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's aviation manager invited me to present on loss
of control situations at its national training
symposium. In addition to flying airplanes,
learning the science of flight, and best practices for emergency situations, sharing LOC
with others is among my favorite activities.
Stalls, spins, and crazy attitudes are right up
my alley. Any gathering of pilots features
that special camaraderie and swapping aviation stories, so I readily agreed. We ironed
out the details and just as I was about to sign
off the call, he added, " Oh, make sure your
presentation includes the moose stall! "
" Absolutely! You got it on the moose
stall, " I said before I hung up.
Truth be told, I had never heard of a
moose stall. You see, while unusual and
emergency aircraft situations are in my
wheelhouse, moose have never been. I've
lived the entirety of my life in California,
Illinois, and Tennessee-regions of the
country in which moose are in short supply.
Aerodynamically, of course, stalls have
nothing to do with wildlife. A wing stalls
when the angle of attack-the angle between

she fails to notice and correct for an imminent stall. It is amazing what we can ignore
when we are distracted, nervous, or overloaded. Such pressures serve as a catalyst
that allows an emergency to occur when
otherwise it wouldn't.
Every now and then I find myself in a
situation that betrays how these accidents
can happen. I flew Stephen, a local photographer, in my Cessna 152 to collect aerial
images of Sewanee's campus. The sandstone buildings glowed in the late afternoon
light, but the sun would soon set. After circling a couple times, the view of the chapel
was perfect except for the aircraft's strut in
the way. So, I input right rudder and executed a slip to provide a better camera angle.
As Stephen exclaimed, " That's perfect! " it
hit me that this is exactly how an ordinary
photo shoot can go wrong. Had I not been
careful to maintain a low angle of attack, the
flight may not have been a success. Moose
stalls can happen anywhere.
In the private pilot syllabus, the turn
around a point is a ground reference maneuver that can provide a scenario in which a
moose stall can occur. During the maneuver on the practical exam, I typically ask,
" So why do you think the FAA wants you to
master a turn around a point? " Candidates
are busy enough, but providing realistic distractions is part of my job, and I'm always
curious to hear the answer. I rarely hear a
compelling reason. It's a low-altitude, constant-radius turn flown at a constant altitude
around a ground reference. To properly
compensate for wind means both the bank
and crab angles continuously change. While
fixating on the reference might be tempting,
looking out for other traffic or obstacles in
the area is imperative. There is a lot going
on with the maneuver, and setting up the
moose-stall scenario is the best reason to
include it in training.
Mastering turns around a point yields
benefits in other phases of flight, too. In
the pattern to land at an airport, we are low
to the ground and need to compensate for
winds in order to execute each turn onto the
next leg of the pattern. Flying each corner of
the pattern is modeled on some 90-degree
arc of the turn around a point. The maneuver helps with planning and executing a
rectangular pattern for landing.
AOPA Pilot Magazine - February 2021

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