Falling leaf

The maneuver is performed by purposely stalling the airplane and then carefully using the rudder to try to hold the aircraft on a steady course.

This is opposed to a flat spin, where the aircraft constantly rotates around its yaw axis in only one direction, similar to a Frisbee.

With the exception of landing, plus a few exotic maneuvers, stalling an aircraft is typically avoided in most conventional maneuvers, both because the plane is no longer flying normally, making the control surfaces sloppy and sluggish to react, and also because the aircraft is balanced on the edge of losing control.

If the pilot can maintain a level attitude (nose position in relation to the horizon) and keep the wings level, the plane should theoretically float downward at its terminal velocity, which is partially determined by the shape of the plane in the direction of the relative wind.

However, the slightest bit of variation in any of a number of factors, such as control surface inputs or air turbulence, will generally result in the aircraft beginning a rotation around both the yaw and roll axes, referred to as "incipient spin."

To disengage from the maneuver, while simultaneously using the rudders to stop rotation, the pilot releases back pressure on the elevator in order to lower the nose and allow the plane to gain speed.

Once the stall speed is passed, the pilot can pull back on the stick to return to normal flight.