So I solicited the help of a friend by the name of Ken Terry. Ken was an avid aerobatic [ilot and instructor and a person whom I trusted. He had a beautiful Decathlon that was perfect for stall/spin training. It always has amazed me how a good instructor can pass on his knowledge in such a non-threating way. Ken had a great way of breaking through the com-plexity with simplicity. He taught the inverted stall/recovery, where you can climb to 5,000 feet, power back and stall the aircraft, then recover with a little stick forward to recover, stall, stick forward, stall, repeat, all without adding power. I've done it before upright, but never inverted, and I could feel that my own lim-itations were being expanded even further. I thought that it could be done, but to actually experience it was a different story. When Ken felt that I was up to speed with the straight-ahead stalls, we then progressed to the inverted stall/spin recovery. I'm not saying that the average pilot needs to learn how to recover from an inverted stall/spin. What I am recommending is that unusual attitude training and upright stall/spin awareness training will make you a safer and more confident pilot. As I mentioned earlier, fear comes from the lack of knowledge, experience and practice. By incorporating stall/spin awareness training into your annual or at least your biennial flight training, you not only will exercise your limits but also expand them. Many of us go through proficiency training as an insurance requirement. Once each year for three or four days we sit in the classroom and review systems, then take our turn in the simulator only to have our zealous instructor toss everything at us that the computer can dish out. For your own safety and confidence, find a competent school and spend one day reviewing stalls and spins. Flying doesn't come naturally to me. I have to work at my skills and practice them to stay current. I need to visit my own limits regularly and become comfort-able under pressure. That goes for my professional flying as well as my aeroba-tics. So if I can learn the basics of a stall/spin, I have all the confidence that you can too! The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that I would rather visit my own limits than my in-laws. Any kind of flying is more fun. Don't worry, they live in Kansas. No blackmailing, please. Dirty side up!
	by Mike Wiskus
Visiting your own limits is like visiting your in-laws. It's not something that you really want to do, but you know that if you don't go, you may end up paying for it with your life. Some of us stumble upon our limits totally by accident, while others make reg-ular visits and exercise them only to have them expand even further. The less that we travel to those ragged and unsettling fringes, the more that we fear them and the more that we find ourselves unprepared. As a professional pilot, I've experi- enced a couple of unsettling moments where I thought that I was right on the edge of the limits of my abilities. Where luck and fate take control and you're left sitting there at the end of the ride trying to figure out what happened and if maybe it might be time for a career change. It's often been said that fear stems from the lack of knowledge. I would like to add that I believe that it also stems from the lack of experience and practice. That's why we practice instrument approaches, crosswind landings and emergency procedures. During a multi-engine checkout or biennial, you will experience a simulated engine-out. What will your response be to that particular emergency under pressure? In real life, who knows? But you can bet that the pilot who has practiced the emer-gency over and over again has a better chance of recovery than the pilot who put in enough time just to pass. I have flown with a few pilot friends and have found that even the most experi-enced and seasoned pilots, while executing an intentional stall/spin maneuver with an immediate recovery, will bury their finger-nails deep into the armrest or steel tubing. Even just a straight-ahead stall-full stall, burble and break-recovery is something that they haven't experienced in years. Today, most stall recoveries are initiat- ed at the first indication of a horn or air-frame burble. In many cases, by the time that these indications surface, the pilot has little or no time, speed and altitude for recovery. When I first started practicing aerobat- ics, the idea of rolling upside-down, throt-tling back and initiating a straight-ahead stall and recovery (inverted) scared me to death. I wanted to learn the maneuver, I trusted my airplane and, in my mind, I knew that it could be done. But to physically try it was a different story.
				Mike Wiskus is the president of the Cloud Dancers, the Minnesota chapter of the
		International Aerobatic Club. To find out more about the group, check out its website at www.isd/chapter78 or call (952) 943-2182. Chapter meetings usually are held the third Saturday of each month at Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie.
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