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What the Heck??? (stalls) - Stall Anxiety

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spacer:
After a period of financial ground-boundedness, I have enough money scraped together and in my account to finish up my PPL. Went through my night cross country without a hitch...
though there was a 40kt wind at 1000AGL, and six on the ground. Woot!
Didn't bother me, though. Got through the flight, all the landings including a couple at LIT with the tower, no problem. All I have left now is .7 of hood time and a couple hours pre-checkride
prep. Landings are good, ground reference maneuvers are good, slow flight is good, procedures and navigation, check.

Minor problem. A new development has turned up with me, and that's a sudden fear of stalls. Didn't have the problem before, during the earlier stages of training, and even had no problem with
unusual attitude recovery. But, recently, on my first pre-checkride flight, we practiced a couple simple stalls, one approach and a departure. The approach stall kinda caught me by the throat a little, but it was over soon and I had no real technical problem recovering. The departure stall, with full power (in a C172M), had my heart jumping up into my throat. I completed the recovery fine, but felt that
I was within a hair's breadth of freezing up. Why in the world would I suddenly be afraid of what is probably one of the safest maneuvers during training? That's partially a rhetorical question, as I know that an airplane is most comfortable when it's actually *flying*, and any deviation from that can be somewhat nerve wracking, but I don't remember ever having that particular reaction to stalls before.

spacer:
I do have one theory, though. My instructor has a habit of hovering over the controls, and while I intellectually know that what we're doing is
perfectly safe, his hands and feet are telling my subconscious otherwise. Does that sound valid?

G-man:
Find another instructor---my guess is he/she is not 100% confident or comfortable with stalls hence the "hovering on the controls". Go fly with someone who can put you in, and get you out of a stall in their sleep. I suspect sub concioulsy you have adopted your instructors fear.....

spacer:
Well that sucks. I've always loved flying, couldn't get enough of it, but I've found myself casting about for excuses not to go.
When I'm going solo, I'm fine. But, everything I have left is dual, the pre checkride prep.

Since we're moving to Alabama, if I'm going to change instructors anyway, I think I'll want to just get my stuff together and pick up
with someone else in Bama. I understand there are a couple guys at the Bessemer airport with their own planes who have a good
bit of experience behind 'em.
 
Ol' Mike Nelson, formerly of Central Flying Service, was a peach. When I replaced the engine in one of the Katanas, he went with me on
the required checkout flight, and had his arms crossed the whole time. I had almost no time at all, but felt like I could take on the world.
Unfortunately, he moved.

tundra_flier:
If at all possible, find an instructor that speciallizes in Aerobatics or unusual attitudes.  After and hour of doing stalls in every possible variation, departure, approach, turning, accellerated and even spins, you'll learn to love them and go out and practice them for fun.   ;D

I did a young eagles flight once, and the little girl I took up tuned out to have lots of time in the back of cessna 207's going to visit grandma in the village.  So she wanted to do "wHoop de doo's".  so I pulled the power and did a gentle stall.  She loved it!  So pushed the power in, pulled the nose up 45 degrees, pulled the power and just let it hang there for a moment before the nose dropped in a free fall.  Again, she loved it.  Since that old straight tail 150 was rated for them, I was sorely tempted to do a spin next, but aerobatics are forbidden on YE flights.  In hind sight I wish I'd done it anyway.   :-\  Stalls are fun.   ::wave::

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