Week 11 Period: Abnormals

Deep stall, manual pitch override, and the altitude below which the correct action is to leave the aircraft

3 May 2027

Before you arrive#

Your written account from week 10 of the point at which you were furthest behind the aircraft.

In this period#

There is a region of the envelope — very high angle of attack, very low airspeed, nose high and going nowhere — where this aircraft is stable. That is the problem: the wing is not flying, the control surfaces sit in disturbed air, and the flight control system, working exactly as designed, holds the aircraft there. The normal control law will not recover it, because the input that would is one the limiter exists to prevent.

A switch handles this: manual pitch override removes the limiter and hands back the authority the system has withheld all course. The recovery it enables is not easy — rock the aircraft in pitch, in time with its own oscillation, building amplitude until the nose falls through and the wing starts flying again. It costs altitude, sometimes more than is available.

Below a certain altitude the recovery does not fit, and the correct action at that altitude is the one practised in week 1, on the ground, with the aircraft switched off.

You state your decision altitude today, in front of the class, with your reasoning. It has been revised twice since week 1; this version goes on your card.

Afterwards#

The written judgement is due at the end of this week. It is not a report on the simulator session — it is the argument for your number.