If stalls tighten your stomach, what fixes it is a routine you run identically every time. Before every entry, work one short list: height, airframe, security, engine, location, lookout. Then hold on to the fact that recovery is one action plus cleanup: reduce the angle of attack until the stall warning stops, roll level while rudder cancels yaw, add power, fly back to the flightpath. Do that and the airplane does the same predictable thing every time.
The 90 seconds before the stall is where the calm comes from
Most of what makes a stall feel dangerous gets decided before you pitch up. Too low, and the recovery margin is thin. Nobody cleared below, and you’re about to descend into a blind spot.
The FAA grades exactly this. In the Private Pilot ACS, the first two skill elements for both power-off and power-on stalls are “Clear the area” and “Select an entry altitude that allows the Task to be completed no lower than 1,500 feet above ground level (AGL).” Neither one involves your stick and rudder. Appendix 2 adds that you’re evaluated on checklist use throughout the test, and that if reading one would be unsafe single-pilot, you review it once conditions permit. A pre-maneuver card sidesteps that, because you run it straight and level with your hands free.
A HASELL-style stall practice checklist
HASELL comes out of UK and Commonwealth training rather than FAA doctrine, but it’s the tidiest pre-maneuver mnemonic going and it maps neatly onto what the ACS wants. Six items, six letters (a five-item HASEL variant is also taught, dropping the second L). Adapted for a 172 or a Cherokee in a US practice area:
- Height: entry altitude high enough to finish no lower than 1,500 ft AGL, or higher if the POH says so. Know the ground elevation under the practice area, not just the altimeter.
- Airframe: configuration for the stall you’re about to fly. Landing configuration for power-off, takeoff or clean for power-on. Carb heat per the POH, fuel on the fullest tank, mixture set.
- Security: harnesses snug, doors latched, iPad and water bottle stowed where they won’t end up under the rudder pedals.
- Engine: temps and pressures green, no roughness, full power available if a recovery goes sideways.
- Location: clear of built-up areas and airspace boundaries, and not over an unfamiliar ridge where the terrain is 800 feet higher than you assumed.
- Lookout: two 90-degree clearing turns or one 180, scanning at and below your altitude. Below matters, because the recovery descends.
Six checkpoints, one glance each. That fits the 5-to-9-item chunk rule from how to build a checklist, and it belongs on its own page rather than buried inside your before-takeoff section.
Worth being precise about what this is: a configuration and briefing check, not the maneuver. You read HASELL off the card, then fly the entry and recovery by hand from a trained flow. Keeping those two modes separate is the idea behind flows first, then checklists, and it matters here more than almost anywhere, because your eyes belong outside during the entry.
What the wing is doing at the entry
A lot of stall anxiety is unfamiliarity with the physics. The Airplane Flying Handbook (FAA-H-8083-3C), Chapter 5 is blunt: a stall happens when the angle of attack exceeds the wing’s critical AOA, and “it is possible to exceed the critical AOA at any airspeed, at any attitude, and at any power setting.” Airspeed is a proxy. AOA is the thing.
The handbook splits practice into two levels, which matters because students often think they did it wrong when they only got one:
- An impending stall is when AOA has triggered a warning but hasn’t reached critical. Buffet, horn, stick shaker.
- A full stall is when critical AOA is exceeded. The telltale is that “an uncommanded nose down pitch cannot be readily arrested,” sometimes with an uncommanded roll.
Both levels are in your required training on purpose. 14 CFR 61.87(d)(10) lists pre-solo training in “Stall entries from various flight attitudes and power combinations with recovery initiated at the first indication of a stall, and recovery from a full stall.”
In a power-off, 1G stall the cues are quieter than most people expect. The handbook notes the dominant cue may just be full up elevator against the stops plus a high descent rate. Controls go soft first, you need bigger inputs for the same response, and the airplane answers slower. That feel is what repetition buys you.
Power-on stalls: the yaw is the part to respect
Power-on stalls are the ones that scare people, usually for the wrong reason. The nose-high attitude looks alarming and feels worse. The actual hazard is yaw.
The ACS asks for at least 65 percent power, bank not to exceed 20 degrees in turning entries, and coordinated flight throughout. High power at low airspeed means a strong left-yawing tendency, so the handbook has you moving the elevator progressively aft while “simultaneously adding right rudder,” holding the climb attitude until the full stall. Get lazy with the right foot and the nose yaws while a wing is stalled. Those are the two ingredients for a spin.
The numbers make the margin concrete: the handbook notes the first turn of a spin costs roughly 1,000 feet, each subsequent turn about half that, and says spins should begin high enough to recover at or above 1,500 ft AGL. That is why Height on your card is not paperwork.
One technique detail cuts the drama a lot. Slow to normal liftoff speed before you advance the throttle, which the handbook recommends specifically to avoid holding an excessively steep nose-up attitude for a long time before the airplane stalls.
The recovery is one action, then cleanup
The handbook’s recovery template runs six steps, but it states outright that the most important action for an impending or full stall is to reduce the AOA. In a trainer with no autopilot and no speedbrakes, four steps remain:
- Push until the stall warning stops. Hold that input as long as it takes.
- Roll wings level with aileron, coordinated with rudder to cancel yaw.
- Add power as needed, promptly but smoothly.
- Return to the desired flightpath, smoothly enough to avoid a secondary stall.
Order matters. If a wing drops and you reach for opposite aileron before reducing AOA, the down-deflected aileron increases that wing’s angle of attack and can deepen both the stall and the roll. Step four is where the secondary stall lives: yank the recovery, or try to break the stall with power alone, and you exceed critical AOA again with less altitude in the bank.
Getting over stall anxiety: the thinking is worse than the doing
This is one of the most repeated threads in general aviation. Pilots of America has run it for years, with titles like “Help me get over stall anxiety” plus a long tail of posts about nerves during stalls and landings. The advice from veteran pilots is consistent and boring: fly a lot of them, fly them the same way, and get your CFI to spend a session in slow flight with the horn going so you learn what the airplane feels like near the edge before you go over it.
Practicing east of Livermore in a 172, the first few felt like an event. By the tenth, the entry was a pitch attitude and some right rudder, and I was watching the altimeter instead of my stomach. The card compresses that timeline, because running the same six items removes the small decisions you were quietly dreading.
Put the card where your hands are
Keep the pre-maneuver check in the same document as your normal procedures, on its own page, in type you can read on a kneeboard in bumps. Half-letter or A5 works. If you fly a common trainer, start from the C172 or PA-28 template, add a maneuvers page in the editor, and print it. Paper wins here for the reasons in paper versus EFB: you don’t want to be unlocking a tablet with a clearing turn half finished. The same page earns its keep later in a checkride binder.
Cross-check every item against your aircraft’s current POH/AFM, then walk the sequence through with your CFI. AC 61-67, Stall and Spin Awareness Training, and the ACS are the references they’ll be working from, so bring the card to a ground session and let them mark it up. Next flight with your instructor, fly six of them.
Common questions
What is a HASELL check?
HASELL is a pre-maneuver mnemonic from UK, Canadian, and Australian training: Height, Airframe, Security, Engine, Location, Lookout, which is where the six letters come from. You will also see a five-item HASEL version that drops the second L. The FAA doesn't teach either one, but the six prompts line up closely with the ACS skill elements for stalls, which is why it works well as the spine of a homemade stall practice card.
How high do you need to be to practice stalls?
The Private Pilot ACS requires you to select an entry altitude that allows the task to be completed no lower than 1,500 feet AGL in a single-engine airplane, and the Airplane Flying Handbook makes the same recommendation, or higher if your POH says so. Most instructors pick an entry well above that so a secondary stall or a dropped wing doesn't eat the margin.
What is the first thing to do in a stall recovery?
Reduce the angle of attack. The Airplane Flying Handbook lists up to six recovery steps, but it says plainly that the most important action for an impending or full stall is to reduce AOA: push until the stall warning stops, before you deal with bank, power, or altitude. Pilots who prioritized power and holding altitude instead have lost control doing it.
Why does a power-on stall want to drop a wing?
High power at low airspeed produces a strong left-yawing tendency, and if you let the nose yaw while the wing is stalled you have both ingredients for a spin. That's why the ACS asks for coordinated flight throughout the maneuver, and why the recovery uses rudder to cancel yaw rather than aileron to pick the wing back up.
Is a pre-maneuver checklist required for stalls?
No regulation names a HASELL-style check. But clearing the area and selecting a safe entry altitude are graded ACS skill elements, and the ACS says you're evaluated on appropriate checklist use throughout the practical test. A short pre-maneuver card is the clean way to make both happen every time.