Flight instructor describes student's fear during stall training

A chief flight instructor writes that questions about handling different students come up often, and that every student struggles with something during training. A non-senior instructor recently raised a concern about a student pilot who was afraid to perform stall manoeuvres. In the conversation that followed, the chief instructor realised the instructor was also uneasy about trusting the student to take an aircraft into a full stall, which the writer describes as not uncommon.

The account then turns to a similar experience from 2020. Newly certificated as a flight instructor and working at a Part 141 school, the writer had taught stalls in the Cessna 152 and 172 in both takeoff and landing configurations and had grown confident flying with student pilots.

One student changed that. On a clear, calm day in Florida, the pair flew to a practice area for private pilot manoeuvres including slow flight and stalls. The student had performed the manoeuvres before and had shown good ability, was quiet and seldom voiced concerns, and gave no indication anything unusual would happen.

The plan was to climb to 3,000 feet MSL and begin with slow flight. The student ran the pre-manoeuvre checklist, confirmed position and altitude, reviewed airspeed and emergency landing options, and announced the aircraft's position on frequency. The extract ends there.