Breaking a stall

Stall occurs when pilot mishandles his plane, is callously careless with essentials of the flight

One of the first lessons that most potential aviators receive at the hand of their flying instructors is to know, understand, recognise and then break a stall. A stall is when a flying object — in this case an airplane — is unable to keep flight and function normally, literally falling off uncontrollably in the air. The pilot then resorts to remedial actions to help the craft restore flight. When such a stall occurs at critical phases of flight there may not be enough time to recover, at which point the aircraft crashes to the ground with catastrophic results. A very crude example is in kite-flying when for various reasons a kite in flight would collapse in sideways motion and fall off to the ground uncontrollably. If I am not wrong the term used in Lahore for this behaviour of the kite is chupp khana.

A stall occurs when a pilot slows his plane down to a point where it cannot produce enough lift to sustain flight and altitude. Lift, which keeps an aircraft in the air, is a function of speed or a desperate attempt by the pilot to hold its height with engine thrust unable to produce the speed which will sustain flight. Eventually this desperate attempt at holding the same height without assisting lift from forward speed gives way to the heavier-than-air craft to snap down, uncontrollably hurtling the aircraft towards the ground. A stall also occurs when a pilot mishandles his plane and is callously careless with essentials of the flight to keep it in the air normally. Engines rarely give up unless those are mishandled — a bad day too can ruin your lunch but then there are other remedies. One of those is to get the hell out of a dying plane if it was equipped with an ejection system. In most planes without the ejection facility or with passengers on board it is only a fatal drop down.

The trainee is taught to recover from such a state and regain normal flight. It is an emergency manouvre taught for the trainee to know, recognise and thus avoid. But if, despite all, he still stalls out, saving the plane and its passengers remains his prime duty and a responsibility. For it he will first need to release the pressure he is holding on the control column to forcibly keep height on a failing aircraft with malfunctioning or ceased engines losing height at a rapid pace; build speed at the expense of the lost altitude; attempt to restore the engines; and help regulate and streamline the airflow through the engines and over the wings as the craft regains the speed slowly rebuilding lift to return the craft to a level flight from a nose dive. A catastrophe is averted and the airplane and the passengers both survive. They will slowly regain their altitude which they lost in the stalled state and cruise to their destination. If, however, he lets a stall deepen because of a failure to recover or incorrect technique the aircraft may enter a spin which can be fatal.

In it there are lessons. In life when things go wrong and events turn out unexpectedly, and a machine or a system or life seems to come to a stop, or at a dead-end, and all seems to be unravelling before you, few essentials help: one, accept that things aren’t normal and an abnormality has crept in and is threatening to scatter your world; recognise it and don’t defy the obvious, don’t be hard-headed about it; begin a recovery process before you run out of time and opportunity to save the situation. A recovery process entails undoing what had caused the anomaly even if it means accepting that mishandling caused it. When you feel it isn’t your mistake, but someone fed you a sorry state it is still you at the helm and must make all the necessary moves to recover both your craft and its people. When recovered and safely returned you may initiate remedial and retributory actions you envisage will help set the system right including learning lessons to avoid recurrence.

But, to return the craft and its passengers back in one piece remains the responsibility that has fallen in one’s share under one’s watch. If you complicate it further or just be obstinate or least judicious about it depending instead on forcing your way out, you shall be fighting the laws of physics which carry a finality. Anyone running against those laws does so only at his/her peril. Miracles too are based on physical logic and reason in their occurrence. Elements may conspire in one’s favour creating conditions for an unexpected turnaround, yet certainty exists only in physical logic. That’s the rule under which the universe exists and functions. There is no escape from this truth on which is based belief and its accompaniments.

We as a nation are a nation stalled. Our systems are in hibernation while the economy and society are on a slide-down. Leadership is either subdued or muted, and at worse, confused and unclear if that was indeed where they would rather not be. Hence, the allegations of being controlled from the shadows and the system being chaperoned. The combination or collation of these disabling factors is paralysing which stalls the entire system into animated suspension. Just as in a stalled plane, the recovery must begin with taking the pressure off the control column before the whole body of the plane falls out of the air uncontrollably. We might trade height, but we will regain stability and flight, which is the key to safer existence for any entity with a promise that a normal flight will slowly recover lost height too. It all though must begin with remedial actions, of which the first is to release pressure and let the craft return to its own flight.

I have barely stated what was taught decades ago to me before I could handle a craft on my own, and what is taught to every individual who one day hopes to fly and control an airplane by himself. Safety of flight entails the highest level of responsibility entrusted to the captain of an aircraft. I could neither afford to be callous nor oblivious of the limitations that each aircraft carries because of its characteristics and behaviour patterns. All stalled crafts though have a universally standard remedy to recover and resume normal flight. Perhaps it is time to take a leaf from what is taught in basic flight training and recover the state from a deepening stall. Aircraft and statecraft may not be the same yet exhibit remarkable similarities in their idiosyncrasies. We need to break the stall before full recovery begins.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 31^st, 2024.

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