RIGHT SEAT RULES NO. 25 SLOW FLIGHT

Most of us feel a bit edgy when the ASI creeps down within 10 KIAS of the stall. Jim Davis has some hints on how to be comfortable and in control - even when the airspeed is 20 KIAS below the stall.

- JIM DAVIS

THE NOSE OF OUR Twin Comanche points straight down towards the Cape Recief lighthouse, which is rotating in the windscreen. I advise my student to throttle both engines fully back and recover. He tries. There is a shudder and we are spinning the other way.

“OK, I’ve got her,” I say, and confidently do all the right things to restore sanity to our revolving world. Again she shudders and the lighthouse reverses its rotation once more.

Only it’s getting bigger now.

I am more puzzled than alarmed. Then I remember Mike Van Ginkle telling me that he had suffered an identical disappointment in another Twin Comanche – also with full tip tanks. He recovered by chucking out the gear and flaps – and then doing everything v-e-r-y g-e-n-t-l-y.

Mike’s solution proves effective and we ease out of the dive, still on the edge of a shudder, and with the water barely 50ft below us.

The cause of this idiocy is an instructor who is too relaxed, [me], and a jittery pupe, who is terrified of low speeds.

The only thing we did right was to start our stall at 5,500ft above the sea. Mr Piper, in his excellent handbook, urges you to allow 5,000ft for stall recovery. He knows what he is talking about.

We were practicing full stalls – a thing that seems to be avoided in twins now. I warned the pupe that if we drop a wing – which the Twin Com does willingly – he should use opposite rudder and help it up with a little power on the side of the dropped wing.