Unusual attitude recovery
Recognizing a nose-high or nose-low upset on instruments alone, and the recovery sequence that gets you back to level flight without overstressing the airplane.
14 min read · IFR emergencies
After this lesson you can
- Recognize a nose-high versus a nose-low unusual attitude from airspeed, altimeter, and VSI trends alone.
- Fly the correct recovery sequence for a nose-high attitude.
- Fly the correct recovery sequence for a nose-low attitude, and explain why the order of control inputs matters.
- Name the habits that let an unusual attitude develop in the first place, and how to avoid them.
An unusual attitude is any pitch or bank the airplane has wandered into that you did not put it in on purpose, usually the result of a distraction, a moment of vertigo, or turbulence while your attention was elsewhere. On instruments, with no horizon to look at, the first job is not to panic but to read the pattern the remaining instruments are showing you, decide nose-high or nose-low, and fly a specific, memorized sequence of control inputs.
The two recoveries are opposite in almost every way, which is exactly why recognizing which one you are in comes first. Get the order of control inputs backwards, and a nose-low recovery in particular can turn a survivable upset into a structural or aerodynamic problem.
The rest of this lesson
- 1.Reading the instruments: nose-high or nose-low
- 2.Nose-high recovery
- 3.Nose-low recovery
- 4.The steeper version: recovering from a spiral dive
- 5.What lets an unusual attitude happen in the first place
- 6.You still owe the lookout during the recovery
- 7.The attitude flying underneath the recovery: control, performance, primary, supporting
- 8.What each instrument cannot tell you: limitations and abnormal indications
These 8 sections, their figures, the checks along the way and the end-of-lesson quiz come with the IFR track. Paid once, yours for good.
Key terms
Try to recall each definition before turning the card.