Julian Scarfe wrote:
Pretty much without exception GA aircraft are stable in pitch and unstable
in the spiral divergence mode. If displaced in pitch a Mooney will take
more phugoid cycles to get back to equilibrium when you release the
controls, but it *will* get back there.

Sydney Hoeltzli wrote:
*if* you keep the wings level, right?

But how about if you're struggling to figure out what "level" is?

If the only thing you've got is a GPS, you have no way to directly know
what "level" is. All you know is what your course over the ground is,
and you can see which way it's changing. Here's the emergency control
strategy:

Use opposite rudder to keep the course from changing.

That's it.

There's a fun exercise I do with some more advanced students. Take your
hands off the yoke and fly with just rudder, power, and trim. It's
ugly, it's sloppy, and it's uncomfortable, but it works. Most can
actually get the plane over the runway and in a position to make a
survivable landing after a few trips around the pattern (I don't
actually let them land like that, just get close enough to demonstrate
that it's possible). The biggest key is to make very small power and
trim changes and then be patient and wait for the fugoids to damp out
before deciding if you got the descent rate you were looking for.
Go-arounds can be kind of exciting too!

I've done another exercise with people who insist on trying to use
aileron to pick up a wing drop in a stall. I take control of the yoke
and they get the rudders. The game is for them to keep the plane on a
constant heading while I try to turn us. The rudder wins every time!