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

What this lesson is for: demonstrating the cross-controlled stall, the elevator trim stall, and the secondary stall from the right seat, and teaching each as the situation it represents rather than as a maneuver.

This is the highest-stakes flying in the program. All three are deliberately uncoordinated, mistrimmed, or mishandled. The intervention threshold today is the tightest in the phase.

This lesson is recorded. See below.

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.

All three of these are demonstrations. The ACS says so in the task titles. A Student does not practice a cross-controlled stall. An instructor shows it, once, so the Student recognizes the situation.

So part 3 of the cycle changes today. Normally your instructor flies the maneuver badly and you talk them through it. Today they fly only the entry conditions and stop at the first indication. You fly every actual stall demonstration yourself.

Parts 1, 2, and 4 are unchanged. This is the only place in phase 3 where the cycle is adapted, and it is adapted because of what the tasks are, not because the lesson is hard.

None of them is an exam item. All three are somebody's accident.

1. The cross-controlled stall: the geometry, the roll toward the inside, and why it surprises people.
2. Setting one up safely, at altitude, with the recovery briefed.
3. The elevator trim stall, and trim as a control input nobody is holding.
4. The go-around as the highest-risk configuration change your Student makes.
5. The secondary stall, and why it is a teaching failure rather than a flying one.
6. What the Student should be watching, said before each demonstration rather than during it.
7. Recovery from all three, and the thread they share.
8. Where this connects back to lesson 31, and where that connection stops.
9. Demonstrating something you do not want the Student to copy.
10. All three as one idea in angle of attack terms, which is how a Student remembers them.

Everything you have demonstrated so far was demonstrated to be copied. These three are demonstrated to be recognized and never repeated.

That changes how you frame them. A candidate who demonstrates a cross-controlled stall with the same energy they demonstrate a steep turn has effectively invited the Student to go and try one on their own.

And a demonstration nobody was told to watch is not instruction. It is an aerobatic maneuver with a passenger in it. Before each one: what you will see, what to notice, what I am going to do.

1. Teach your preflight ground lesson on the three demonstrations.
2. Do the weight and balance and state the result out loud. Loading matters more today than in any other lesson.
3. Demonstrate all three from the right seat, narrating, with the Student briefed beforehand.
4. Teach the entry conditions while your instructor 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 let go.
6. Critique, self-critique, then listen. Then review the recording and critique yourself again.

1. You deliver the preflight ground lesson on the three demonstrations, covering all seven items of the brief, and state for each one the situation it represents rather than the procedure for producing it.
2. You state the altitude budget and the entry altitude for all three demonstrations, and the recovery altitude each will be complete by.
3. You brief the Simulated Student before each demonstration on what they will see, what to notice, and what you will do, and do so before the entry rather than during it.
4. You demonstrate 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. You teach the cross-controlled entry as three inputs acting together, and do not attribute it to a single control.
6. You teach the elevator trim recovery as forward pressure first and trim second, in that order, and name why.
7. You name the rushed recovery as the cause of the secondary stall, rather than the pull itself.
8. You frame all three as situations to recognize rather than maneuvers to practice, and decline the Student's request to try one with a reason the Student accepts.
9. You take 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. You deliver a critique naming the error, its probable cause, and the correction for at least two of the entry-condition errors flown.
11. You deliver 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 one. A Student surprised by a cross-controlled stall learns to be afraid. A Student who was told what to watch for learns to be careful. Those are different pilots.

Falling short does not block lesson 34. No proficiency gate. It triggers the visibility rule in policy/REMEDIATION-VISIBILITY.md. This is a lesson worth repeating on a low bar, because you will fly these in front of real Students for a career.

• Demonstrating without briefing what to watch. The most important error in this lesson.
• Demonstrating these like a steep turn. It reads as an invitation.
• Blaming the cross-controlled stall on the rudder. It is three inputs together. That is exactly why it catches experienced people.
• Reaching for trim before applying forward pressure. That is the accident sequence itself.
• Letting go of the yoke to reach for the flaps during the trim demonstration.
• Teaching the secondary stall as a pull rather than as a rush. Better still, say what actually happened: the angle of attack was never reduced. The recovery looked like a recovery and the wing never agreed.
• Teaching the three as three procedures. In angle of attack terms they are one idea arriving three ways, and that is how a Student will still have it a year later.
• Saying yes when the Student asks to try one.
• Entering without stating the altitude budget.
• Letting something run a second longer because the camera is on.
• Doing the weight and balance from habit. An aft-loaded airplane is a different airplane today.

• 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.
• Your Student's hands are on the controls during a demonstration and do not come off on the first statement.
• Either of us is unclear about who is flying the airplane.

Hard floor: recovery complete by 3,000 ft AGL, and nothing entered below 5,000 ft AGL. Both higher than lesson 32, because these three are deliberately uncoordinated or mistrimmed and their recoveries are less predictable. North Aero policy, not regulation.

Rotation past 90 degrees of heading change is a hard stop. Past that the airplane is doing something today's lesson does not cover. My hands, immediately, no discussion.

Positive exchange of controls, both directions, every time.

Three slots, all currently empty: VS-33-1 Exemplar on AI.X.F, VS-33-2 Error on AI.X.G, VS-33-3 Error on AI.X.H.

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

This flight is recorded, and it is named in the program structure as one of four for a specific reason: it carries the highest intervention-threshold stakes in the program, and it is the lesson where a camera is most likely to tempt somebody into letting a recovery develop one second longer so that it looks better.

The camera changes nothing about when I take the airplane. If the threshold and the recording ever seem to be in tension, the threshold wins, and the recording was worthless anyway.

You review it and critique yourself before your instructor does. The written assessment is the record. The footage is deleted after 30 days.