Undoubtedly true. However, most planes, even 172's when more heavily
loaded, will break and then drop nose first into the trees after stalling.
My plane, loaded as it was today with just me in it, will break and drop
nose first if you pull quickly back on the yoke as you might panicking when
a taller tree suddenly looms out of the fog or the pilot instinctively pulls
the nose up to postpone the impact.

What I was doing today is a very controlled maneuver in which you bleed off
speed while gradually pitching up until you are so slow that the elevator
not longer has enough authority to push the plane into a full break stall.
It then starts mushing down in a fairly stable state. I'm not sure I would
try this in just any plane. Ours is very well rigged. If yours drops a
wing in the break, it might bite you trying this maneuver.

I don't advocate mushing as an emergency maneuver. The circumstances I
would foresee using it would be pretty narrow, maybe trying to get down in
the dark or murk over heavily forested terrain where you were pretty sure
you would feel the ground before you saw it. I stop adding trim when just
before I get to the bottom of the white arc so that the plane will want to
return to a safer flying speed if I just release the controls. If you roll
in full up trim slowly with power off in a properly rigged 172, it will
adopt an attitude fairly close to this mush and be very stable in roll. It
puts you at maximum endurance airspeed and is a good way to free up your
hands for things like trying to get an engine restarted or pulling out coats
and duffel to pad your face and head against an imminent off airport
landing. This would also probably be a good way for a VFR only pilot to let
down through a cloud layer to VFR below.

--
Roger Long
"Ben Jackson" wrote in message
news:W3gmc.37062$0H1.3285873@attbi_s54...
In article ,
Roger Long om wrote:
Still, it demonstrates that flying a conventional plane in distress all
the
way to the ground provides lots of options for impact reduction. If I'd
gone
into treetops in the dark like that, I think I would have had a good
chance
of walking home.

There are lots and lots of NTSB reports that contradict that. Stalling
and dropping into the trees vs maintaining flying speed into the canopy
seems to have a much higher fatality rate.

--
Ben Jackson

http://www.ben.com/