Jim writes:

In his book Gliding, p100, Derek Piggott writes:

"In most modern gliders, the elevator power is not adequate to pull
the wing beyond the stalling angle in a steep bank and it is only just
possible to reach the pre-stall buffet with the stick right back.
This is very different from straight flight and gentle turns where a
movement right back on the stick would definitely stall the aircraft,
requiring a significant loss of height to pick up speed before full
control is regained."

Please be patient with a long-time power pilot attempting to make the
transition to gliders, but I am having considerable difficulty imagining
that any aircraft which can be brought to a stalling angle of attack with
the elevators at a given speed should have so much more difficulty doing so
in one attitude than another. Surely what we have here is a statement by
Piggot the truth of which rests upon some unspoken assumptions and a rather
more specific scenario than we are attributing to him.

I have not read "Gliding" by Piggot, but I am currently reading his
"Understanding Gliding". His explanations of maneuvering flight regimes seem
to suffer from an attempt to explain flight dynamics in layman's terms.
Piggot, for all his vast experience in gliding and teaching, is sometimes as
awkward to read as was Langewiesche with his references to "flippers"
instead of "ailerons".



Jack