By Zofia Zaborska 

I don't quite know what it signifies that I'm deathly afraid of stalls and spins or anything 'fun'. Does it make me less of a pilot?

Listening to others describing all the times they ‘inverted this’ or ‘barrel rolled that’ still makes my stomach churn. Whereas this is many pilots’ idea of fun, I would just rather stay safe and boring.

It all started after one particularly disconcerting incident during the beginning of my flight training. Something I was totally unprepared for. Now, I am at best an over the top worrier, so thinking I was going to die was kind of hard to get over.
 
It was about my second or third week (my memory is a little hazy now), at my new flight school when the fateful day arrived. Up to this point it was all about enjoying the pretty views and exciting takeoffs, when we came to my next lessons. Stalls.

Even the thought of it sent a chill up my spine. Why would anyone in their right mind slow a big hunk of metal down to the point where it would practically fall out of the sky on purpose? As I realised later, you have to practice those kinds of things; cover all your bases just in case, as they say. Me, I would rather just not put myself in that situation in the first place. Of course, what I want and what happens is often not the same thing.

I signed out that day with nervous anticipation. As we walked out to the plane my instructor turned to me with a mischievous look and said, "we're doing stalls. Remember to keep the plane straight with rudder." As I strapped myself in I wondered why it would matter if the plane wasn't perfectly straight - I decided it was just a pedantic detail, like 'buckle up the seat belt and place in across the seat neatly after each flight', or 'don't taxi over the dead koala by the runway' (yes that's a true story, but for another time).

We flew out into the training area and I was given a quick run down of what we were doing. It seemed simple enough. Hold back pressure, wait till the nose slightly drops, then recover. What could go wrong? Piece of cake.

After our pre-stall checks, my instructor began the demonstration. Pulling back the power, he slowly raised the nose and the speed started to drop off. Looking out the window at the ground beneath me, it didn't seem like we were moving at all but precariously suspended on a few molecules of air. He made it seem so easy. As we came below stall speed, the Cessna began to shudder and the stall warning went off. The nose dropped slightly and, with a quick increase of the throttle we were off again, flying like before.

We climbed up a little higher and my instructor reluctantly handed over control of the plane to me. I slowly pulled back the throttle as I had been taught and the little plane began to slow.
 
 "Now hold back the control column gently. Just enough so we are straight and level," he said.

 I fought all my instincts to push the nose down and did as he asked. The small plane began to shudder once again, coinciding with the feeling going up my spine.

 My brain, forever my own worst enemy, started to visualise the many fantastic and imaginative patterns a plane spinning to the ground might make. I wondered where we might 'land' and if I would attempt to miss innocent bystanders. Would a crash landing in the relatively softer surface of the water give me a greater chance of survival? Maybe if I aimed at some thick shrubbery the crash would be cushioned? Somehow I doubted it. I shook myself out of the horrific daydream and concentrated on holding my attitude. Attitude. Heh heh. It was all I could do on my first day at flight training to restrain myself from making some really 'bad attitude' jokes. Concentrate! My airspeed indicator was just on the start of the green arc and it was taking most of my strength to keep the plane straight and level. Wait, what was it he said about the rudder again? 

Before I had time to think, the faint yet piercing stall warning resounded through my skull like the scream of a fat kid who had dropped his cake: my whole world dropped and tilted sharply to the left.

As the unusual attitudes following a wing drop were still unfamiliar to me, I was, to say the least, quite surprised to find sideways trees growing out the spot where the sun was a second ago.

 At that moment panic set in. I let go of the controls and grabbed hold of the back of my seat. My field of vision was suddenly dominated by green and brown vegetation spiralling towards me at quite an objectionable pace. I tried to pull myself out of my seat and into the rear of the plane, hoping to gain valuable inches between my skull and the hard ground. Looking back now, I don't quite know what that would have achieved but it seemed like a smart thing to do at the time.

Not being able to make it through the small gap between the seats that the tiny cockpit afforded, I completely froze up, trying to hold in the contents of my stomach.

Out of the corner of my eye I could see my instructor frantically grab the controls and, after a few frightening seconds, the spinning finally subsided and the sun returned to its rightful spot. Gaining back control, he pulled the plane up, his knuckles white over the control column. Composing himself, he casually looked over at me and said;"S***, you're the first student to put me into a spin!"

I was speechless, still trying to process what had happened. I realized later that we must have only been in the spin for maybe four or five seconds, although it seemed like forever to me! All I wanted to do now was go home and curl up on the couch with a nice mug of Ovaltine. Maybe after I had calmed down I would do what seemed like the appropriate thing and finally draw up that will (I didn't want my entire fortune of a $200 1979 Nissan falling into the wrong hands after I ended up a smudge on the hillside).

"You can't quit now" he said, "Lets do some more".

I pulled myself together and accepted the fact he was not going to let me off easy. Putting on a brave face I pushed in the throttle and we climbed, once again, to 4,000 feet.

We ended up practicing four more stalls that day and, needless to say, I paid a lot more attention to keeping the plane straight with rudder.
Maybe an unexpected wing-drop wasn't the best experience to throw in during my first stall lesson. Maybe it would have been better to warn me that situation was a viable possibility before we went up that day, more so how to get out of it. Maybe if I had been better mentally prepared, I would not have been so scared of stalls and any sort of aerobatic manoeuvres on my first outing.

For the next few weeks after that, I went to bed each night whispering my mantra: 'Power back, ailerons neutral, opposite rudder all the way', and I don't think I will ever forget it!