Originally posted by Karash
btw, what causes a "snap stall" anyhow?
It's actually called a snap-roll.
When you stall one of a few things can happen.
If the wing opposite the direction of engine torque stalls you'll typically go into a flat spin. This happens because you're trying to drop that wing, probably to bank and turn at stall speed. At that low a speed engine torque won't allow you to drop the wing, thus it stalls and the other keeps coming around causing the spin.
The opposite of this is a snap-roll. If you're begining to drop the wing to the side of engine torque at to low a speed, engine torque will effectively help drop that stalled wing for you but much faster than you anticipated because the other non-stalled wing keeps coming helping to accelerate the effect.
The final regular stall happens when you're nose high and stall both wings. The nose will dip and the plane will begin to spin in the direction of engine torque nose down until it gains enough airflow over the wings for you to re-gain control.
In any spin recovery consists of cutting throttle, ruddering hard in the direction opposite the spin, pushing the nose down and recovering from the dive once the plane stops spinning.
Recovery can be difficult at times and, as most stall fights happen on the deck this is a common cause of augering when in one but learning to walk that fine edge of an unrecoverable stall while out-manouvering an opponent is one of the most rewarding types of fighting in my opinion.
I also found this tidbit at:
http://www.aopa.org/asf/publications/topics/stall_spin.htmlMany pilots believe that an airplane won't stall until it reaches the stall speed (Vs) published in the POH. Stalls and spins both result from a disruption of airflow over the wing. It is important for all pilots to know that a stall or spin can occur at ANY airspeed and at any attitude. If the wing reaches its critical angle of attack, it will stall. A spin will result when one wing has a lower coefficient of lift than the other.