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  #105  
Old June 15th 05, 10:42 PM
Neil Gould
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Recently, T o d d P a t t i s t posted:

There are a couple of points I'd like to make in this
thread.

"Neil Gould" wrote:

None of the a/c flown by most of us can be 'flown' while stalled no
matter how much engine power is applied.

Then what am I doing when I practice stalls at altitude, holding the
aircraft at the stall buffet?

You're holding the aircraft at just above the stall speed.


That is indeed what he's doing.

When you're stalled, you're falling, not flying.


This is a matter of semantics. I consider myself to be
flying even when practicing spins with both wings stalled.

I thought one could only maintain a spin where *one* wing is stalled, and
the other not? If both wings stall, the spin should stop and the plane
should fall.

First point:
I also consider aerobatics pilots to be flying when using a
powerful engine to supplement reduced lift and fly with both
wings stalled.

Well, they're "flying" by power lift, in the same sense that a Harrier is
"flying" when hovering. The wings are irrelevant in those situations. So,
in the context of "greasing on" a full-stall landing in a typical SEL,
those scenarios are irrelevant to the OP.

[...]
The
point I'm making here is that a stalled wing still produces
lots of lift. In fact, near stall, it's producing nearly
the maximum lift that the wing is capable of producing.

Is that like saying, "Even those that don't have an income can purchase
the most expensive plane they can afford"? ;-)

Second Point:
It is exceptionally difficult to actually get to a full
stall attitude for landing. What is often called a "full
stall landing" or "3 point landing" does not actually have
the wing at stall AOA. Many aircraft would hit their tail
if they were low enough to safely land and the wing was at
stall AOA.

I completely disagree with this notion. The AOA is a vector of the
relative direction of travel through air. There is no requirement that
there be a nose-high attitude in a stall, only that the wind traveling
over the wing is lower than what is required to produce lift. It isn't
difficult to hold a typical SEL aircraft in a nose-down stall, and in
fact, a descending turning stall is a required manouvre in the private
PTS.

Neil