"I also think that we need to stop telling people the elevator makes the plane go up. The elevator changes the attitude of the plane in the pitch axis, but thrust makes the plane go up."

Cafeenman, I dont' understand your logic here. I'm glad you were not my instructor. I agree that it's not nuclear fission, but it is common sense. The control surfaces on the rear of the plane are commonly referred to as the horizontal stabilizer and the "elevator". I wonder why they call it an "elevator"? Hmmmm, what does a real "elevator" in a building do? Why, it goes up and down doesn't it? Maybe the elevator on an airplane should be called the "thruster"?

Let's see.........how should I take off with my plane? According to your theory, since thrust makes the plane go up, to take off you would just keep advancing the throttle until the plane leaves the ground? Wouldn't it be a little easier to just ease back on the elevator by giving it a little "up" input? And how do you do your loops? More throttle? I do mine by managing the "elevator". Is it changing the pitch? Certainly. But it is also making the plane go "up", unless you've got a different definition for what up is.

Let's say that you're flying along nice and level at half throttle. Without touching the throttle you put in a little "up" elevator. What's the plane going to do? My guess would be that it would go "up" or climb. Taking the same scenario, without touching the elevator, you put in a little thrust by advancing the throttle. What's the plane going to do? Maybe go up a little, but come on................is that how you would teach someone to fly?

I agree that stalls present an entirely different concept and one that should be taught routinely to beginners. As part of my learning process, my instructor used to get me up nice and high and tell me to cut the throttle to idle and then have me work on keeping the plane nice and level and not stalling. That's a lot of work for a beginner, but it's a great learing drill. Once you learn how to keep the plane level without any throttle, you understand much better how to recover from a stall. A plane in a stalled condition is different from one that is flying, and that is not nuclear fission either.