How does a pilot cause the engine to stall?
(I am curious because I have a terrible fear of flying and dread my kids to go in small planes for joyrides...)
I meant the pilot most likely caused the airplane to stall. I don't know what cause the engine to fail . . . if it did.
I'm guessing they were between 500' and 1000' feet. If the engine failed, the normal reaction would be to put it onto the beach or just into the water along the beach but not to stall it and crash. Just think of the engine and the airplane as two different things. A perfectly good airplane can stall with a perfectly running engine.. By "Stall" I mean the wings quit providing lift.
http://adamone.rchomepage.com/index6.htm
I believe this is the kind of stall leadpenny was talking about.
A stall is dependent on airspeed, angle of attack (the angle of the wing to the relative wind over the wings), the aircraft configuration, and weight. A stall is not the big a deal--every landing in any aircraft is a controlled stall.
What makes a stall "bad" is that you need altitude to recover the aircraft. If you stall too close to the ground.....then bad things can happen.
Honestly, if you want to try to get over your fear, see if an airport near you has a flight school that is giving "discovery rides". We had one near my old place in Columbia, SC, that was doing that; they were $99 and they'd take you up for a bit under an hour, fly over town, fly over a nearby lake, show the plane off, let you take the controls for a bit. I'm kicking myself for never taking one.
The airplanes themselves are extremely safe and extremely reliable. It all boils down to the pilot, really. The vast majority of aviation accidents are, directly or indirectly, human error.
}:-)4