Whittle... :-D

Dan - 5J

On 4/30/2016 8:01 AM, kirk.stant wrote:
On Friday, April 29, 2016 at 6:18:00 PM UTC-5, 2G wrote:

Gliders are flown substantially differently than most other aircraft: we circle just above stall speed at high bank angles. A stall warning would be going off continuously and would be more annoying than anything. Above 30 degrees bank angle I find it impossible to stall the glider anyway; a stall will usually occur because of a gust. I don't know what an AOA indicator would add because AOA varies from the inner wing tip to the outer wing tip. The MOST important thing to do is to maintain coordinated flight. Maybe you could put an audible warning on the yaw string!

Tom
Tom, in many respects gliders are flown just like fighter planes - either fast or hard turning, at varying g loads and weights. Which is why AOA is often used instead of airspeed in those conditions. This is not a stall warning system, but an indication of what the actual AOA of the plane is. It can be an averaged indication - the critical AOA will be the same once calibrated. Momentary excursions due to gusts are handled just like on the airspeed indicator - you ignore them!

Amazing how almost everyone who actually hasn't used a real AOA system dismisses the concept out of hand. Kinda reminds me of the Brits before WW2 who totally dismissed Frank Whittle's ideas about jets (after all, he was just a lowly Flight Lieutenant) and as a result missed out on possibly having jet fighters during the Battle of Britain...

Cheers,

Kirk
66

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Dan, 5J