Definition
A training maneuver in which the pilot intentionally reduces engine power to idle, raises the nose, and slows the aircraft until the wing exceeds its critical angle of attack and stalls, simulating an inadvertent stall during the approach-to-landing phase of flight. The pilot then applies a recovery procedure to restore normal flight.
Plain English
A practice exercise where the pilot pulls the throttle to idle, holds the nose up until the wings stop producing enough lift to fly, and then recovers. It mimics the kind of stall that could happen while slowing down to land.
Context Anchor
You will meet this term in ground-school lessons, flight lesson briefings, and in-flight training when practicing stalls related to approach and landing conditions.
Derivation
‘Power-off’ describes the engine condition (throttle at idle). ‘Stall’ in aviation comes from the older mechanical sense of something coming to a halt — here it refers to the wing’s loss of lift, not the engine quitting.
Why Pilots Care
Builds the ability to recover from stalls that commonly occur in the landing pattern or during a power-off glide.
Grounding Statement
Picture the airplane slowed with the throttle pulled back, nose raised enough that the wing can no longer keep lifting normally, followed by an immediate recovery.
Intuition Check
Do not assume “power-off stall” means the engine has failed or stopped. In this maneuver, the engine is usually still running, but set to very low power while the pilot practices a wing stall and recovery.
Example Sentence 1
During the lesson, the instructor demonstrated a power-off stall maneuver to show the learner how the aircraft behaves when slowed in a landing configuration.
Example Sentence 2
Instructors use the power-off stall maneuver to show how quickly airspeed decays when power is removed on final approach.