Stall series, part two: cross-controlled, elevator trim, secondary

The candidate demonstrates the cross-controlled stall, the elevator trim stall, and the secondary stall from the right seat, and teaches each one as the situation it represents rather than as a maneuver. At the end they can set up a demonstration safely, narrate what the Student should be noticing, and recover it before it becomes something else.

These three are the highest-stakes flying in the program. Every one of them is deliberately uncoordinated, badly trimmed, or mishandled on purpose. The intervention threshold in this lesson is the tightest in the phase and it is the reason this is one of the four recorded lessons.

These three tasks are instructor demonstration maneuvers. The ACS titles say so: cross-controlled stall demonstration, elevator trim stall demonstration, secondary stall demonstration. A Student does not practice them. An instructor shows them, once, so that the Student recognizes the situation from the ground up.

The four-part cycle in standards/MANEUVER-LESSON-SHAPE.md assumes part 3 is the Simulated Student flying the maneuver while the candidate talks them through it. That is wrong for this lesson and running it anyway would be unsafe, since it would mean handing a deliberately cross-controlled stall entry to somebody role playing a student pilot.

The adaptation. Part 3 becomes: the Simulated Student flies the entry conditions and stops short of the stall, and the candidate teaches recognition and prevention. The candidate performs every actual stall demonstration themselves.

Parts 1, 2, and 4 are unchanged. This is the only adaptation in phase 3, it is recorded here and in standards/MANEUVER-LESSON-SHAPE.md, and it exists because the tasks are demonstrations rather than because the lesson is difficult.

They are the three ways an ordinary flight becomes a stall without anybody deciding to stall.

None of them is an exam item and all three are somebody's accident. Teach them that way, and say so.

Element 10 is the thread that ties the three together. Taught as three procedures they are three things to memorize. Taught in angle of attack terms they are one idea arriving three ways:

The secondary stall is the clearest case and it is worth saying plainly. A rushed recovery lowers the nose enough to look right and not enough to unload the wing. The Student did the shape of the recovery without doing the thing the recovery is for.

If the airplane has an angle of attack indicator, brief the Student to watch it through all three, per lesson 14. Watching one indication behave the same way in three different situations is worth more than three explanations.

Element 9 is the teaching content that is unique to this lesson. Everything else in the program has been demonstrated in order to be copied. These three are demonstrated in order to be recognized and never repeated, and that changes how the demonstration is framed. A candidate who demonstrates a cross-controlled stall the way they demonstrate a steep turn has invited the Student to go and try one.

Element 6 matters more here than anywhere. A demonstration nobody was told to watch is an aerobatic maneuver with a passenger. Before each one: what you will see, what you should notice, and what I will do about it.

Ground 48 minutes, flight 90 minutes. Reconciles with the declared 0.8 ground and 1.5 dual.

Instructor: FAA-S-ACS-25 at Areas IV and X. FAA-H-8083-3C. AC 61-67C. The airplane. Cockpit recording equipment, per P7. The candidate's lesson 31 and lesson 32 assessments.

Candidate: headset, the flight manual for the airplane being flown, their written preflight ground lesson, their altitude budget for all three demonstrations.

Airplane: normal category, dual controls, functioning stall warning, and weight and balance confirmed for these demonstrations specifically. The candidate does the calculation and states the result out loud. An aft-loaded airplane is a different airplane in this lesson.

Cockpit recording: required (parameter P7) Recording title convention: CFI Flight Lesson - L33 stall series part two - <YYYY-MM-DD> What is recorded: the flight portion, parts 2 and 3 of the cycle Candidate critiques their own recording before the instructor's review Coverage maps to: AI.IV.A, AI.X.F, AI.X.G, AI.X.H Retention: Review Video, 30 day Promotion Window, then deletion (ADR 0002) The written assessment is the record. The footage is not (Decision 37) Fallback if capture fails: instructor attests from contemporaneous notes; the lesson is not lost and is not re-flown for the sake of a recording

Why P7 names this lesson. It carries the highest intervention-threshold stakes in the program, and it is the lesson where a camera's presence is most likely to be mistaken for a reason to let something run a second longer so the recovery looks better.

A camera changes nothing about the intervention threshold below. If this lesson's threshold and the recording ever appear to be in tension, the threshold wins and the recording is worthless anyway.

1. Confirm lesson 31 and lesson 32 are both complete, and read the lesson 32 assessment before briefing. A candidate whose yaw correction at the power-on break was slow should have flown that again already.
2. Do the weight and balance with them, not near them. Loading matters more in this lesson than in any other.
3. Take the brief as a Student. Ask "why are we doing something you are telling me never to do?"
4. Grade the brief before the airplane.
5. Brief the part 3 adaptation explicitly so the candidate is not waiting for you to fly a cross-controlled stall. You will fly the entry conditions and stop.
6. In part 2, watch the setup, not the stall. The demonstrations are where a well-briefed candidate is safest. The setup is where the mistakes are.
7. Be ready to take it early and without apology. The one second yaw rule from lesson 32 applies and this lesson is where it exists for.
8. Part 4, candidate first, then their review of the recording separately.

Simulated Student script notes

Not in the study guide. The Simulated Student flies entry conditions only and never a stall.

1. Teach the preflight ground lesson on the three demonstrations.
2. Do the weight and balance and state the result out loud.
3. Demonstrate the cross-controlled stall, the elevator trim stall, and the secondary stall from the right seat, narrating each, with the Student briefed beforehand on what to watch.
4. Teach the entry conditions for each while the Simulated Student flies them to the first indication and stops.
5. Take the airplane at the threshold, out loud, three-way, including from a Student who does not release.
6. Critique, self-critique, then listen. Then review the recording and self-critique again.

Identical wording in the study guide.

1. The candidate delivers the preflight ground lesson on the three demonstrations, covering all seven items of the brief, and states for each one the situation it represents rather than the procedure for producing it.
2. The candidate states the altitude budget and the entry altitude for all three demonstrations, and the recovery altitude each will be complete by.
3. The candidate briefs the Simulated Student before each demonstration on what they will see, what to notice, and what the candidate will do, and does so before the entry rather than during it.
4. The candidate demonstrates the cross-controlled stall, the elevator trim stall, and the secondary stall to the tolerances the current tasks specify, from the right seat, while narrating continuously, recovering each promptly.
5. The candidate teaches the cross-controlled entry as three inputs acting together, and does not attribute it to a single control.
6. The candidate teaches the elevator trim recovery as forward pressure first and trim second, in that order, and names why.
7. The candidate names the rushed recovery as the cause of the secondary stall, rather than the pull itself.
8. The candidate frames all three as situations to recognize rather than maneuvers to practice, and declines the Student's request to try one with a reason the Student accepts.
9. The candidate takes the flight controls using the three-way exchange, out loud, in both directions, including from a Simulated Student who does not release on the first statement.
10. The candidate delivers a critique naming the error, its probable cause, and the correction for at least two of the entry-condition errors flown.
11. The candidate delivers a self-critique before hearing the instructor's, and a second self-critique against the recording before the instructor's review of it.

Standard 3 is the safety-critical teaching standard. An unbriefed demonstration of a cross-controlled stall is not instruction. It is a surprise, and a Student who is surprised by it learns to be afraid rather than to be careful.

Falling short does not block lesson 34. No proficiency gate (Decision 9). It triggers policy/REMEDIATION-VISIBILITY.md. This is a lesson worth repeating on a low bar, because it is demonstrated in front of real Students for a career and because a shaky version of it is genuinely hazardous rather than merely unimpressive.

Verbatim in the study guide.

The instructor takes the airplane when:

• Yaw at any stall break is not corrected within one second.
• Roll exceeds 30 degrees at or after any break and is not stopped immediately.
• Rotation continues past 90 degrees of heading change at any point.
• The nose is held up after any break for more than two seconds.
• Recovery is not complete by 3,000 ft AGL on any demonstration.
• The Student's hands are on the controls during a demonstration and do not come off on the first statement.
• Either pilot is unclear about who is flying the airplane.

Hard floor: recovery complete by 3,000 ft AGL, and no demonstration entered below 5,000 ft AGL. North Aero policy, not regulation (US-3.4). Both are higher than lesson 32's floors, because these three demonstrations are deliberately uncoordinated or mistrimmed and their recoveries are less predictable.

Rotation past 90 degrees of heading change is the hard stop. Past that point the airplane is doing something this lesson does not cover and the candidate has not been trained to recover, and the correct response is the instructor's hands, immediately, without discussion.

Positive exchange of controls, both directions, every time.

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

• FAA-S-ACS-25, tasks AI.X.F, AI.X.G, and AI.X.H, in full. Note that all three are titled as demonstrations, and think about what that means for how you teach them.
• FAA-H-8083-3C, the chapter covering stalls, on cross-controlled and trim stalls.
• AC 61-67C with Changes 1 and 2, the sections on the base-to-final accident and on the go-around.
• Your lesson 14 notes on angle of attack, and whether today's airplane has an indicator.
• Your lesson 31 spin awareness work and your lesson 32 debrief.

Deliverable: Three things. First, write the preflight ground lesson you will teach on these three demonstrations. Second, for each one, write the sentence you will say to the Student before you begin it: what they will see, what to notice, and what you will do. Third, your altitude budget for all three, with entry and recovery-complete altitudes.

VS-33-1

Type: Exemplar | ACS task: AI.X.F | Status: empty What it should show: a cross-controlled stall demonstration properly briefed and set up, with the roll toward the inside of the turn visible and the recovery prompt Reference Critique: not applicable for an Exemplar

VS-33-2

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.X.G | Status: empty What it should show: a go-around with approach trim left in, the pitch-up developing, and the pilot reaching for trim before applying forward pressure Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

VS-33-3

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.X.H | Status: empty What it should show: a rushed recovery from a power-off stall producing a secondary stall, with the rush visible in the timing rather than in the control input alone Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

Tagged by ACS task. These serve every lesson touching AI.X.F, AI.X.G, and AI.X.H. Also relates to VS-31-2, tagged AI.X.I, which shows the same geometry from the spin side.

This lesson is complete and deliverable whether or not its Video Slots are filled.

Grade the briefing of each demonstration, separately from the flying of it. Standard 3 is the one that transfers, and it is the one a candidate is most likely to skip when they are concentrating on flying a maneuver that makes them slightly nervous.

Say out loud, at the debrief, that the recording did not change the threshold. Say it even if it did not come up. The candidate is going to spend a career in cockpits with cameras in them, and the principle is worth stating while it is concrete.

This is the last stall lesson. Everything from here is takeoffs, landings, instruments, and emergencies. If the candidate's stall teaching is not where it should be, this is the last cheap place to say so, and the mock flight at lesson 41 is the expensive one.

Tracker Status set by the instructor, named, dated. Coverage proposed from the recording, confirmed by the instructor under US-12.5.

• ✓Traces to a story. US-5.2, US-5.4, US-6.3, US-12.2
• ✓Carries ACS tasks and Part 61 references
• ✓Completion standards are observable behavior, naming flying tolerance and teaching quality
• ✓Common errors listed, each with the instructor's response
• ✓Intervention threshold stated explicitly, with the phase's highest floors and a hard stop
• ✓Student preparation named, in the student half
• ✓FAA references verified current, 2026-08-13
• ✓Passes the design system check
• ✓Appears in the program structure and coverage matrix, hours reconciling
• ✓Both halves exist
• ✓Video Slots named and ACS-tagged, and the lesson states it is deliverable with them empty
• ✓Vocabulary matches CONTEXT.md
• ✓No em dashes, no POH performance numbers, no pricing
• ✓Falling short does not block progression (Decision 9)
• ✓Runs the four-part cycle, with the part 3 adaptation stated rather than fudged
• ✓Carries no spin content beyond the connection to lesson 31 (US-6.3)
• ✓Sequenced after lessons 31 and 32
• ✓Recorded, per P7, with the threshold sentence on both halves