Building an electronic Angle of Attack indicator

"Peter Dohm" wrote in message news

Also, the issue of whether the string(s) can be easily, accurately and
safely read in flight is open to question--and certainly must be resolved
under conditions other than ridge lift. IIRC, you were amoung the
participants, a number of months ago, in a human factors discussion
regarding the effects of head movement while circling and the relationship
of that to an otherwise unexplained glider crash into a mountain side. The
issue is not one that I would take lightly, and anything that requires a
head movement up or down while also turning the head to either side should
probably be avoided; but a cheap and dirty solution could conceivably work
if peripheral vision, or an eyes only glance, is truly sufficient.

OTOH, a true AOA system that can be calibrated over the full reasonable
range of angles is far from trivial--and probably well beyond my design
capabilities.

Peter


The old A-3D and A-6A AOA required a lot of maintenance in order to keep them calibrated.

Speaking of ridge soaring, there is a current video on YouTube that may be enlightening to those who have not explored soaring flight.

Most of my soaring is thermal flight; however, once a year a group of us head to Logan, UT to fly the ridge up into Southern Idaho. The YouTube video is from near the Idaho border heading south toward Logan. Here is the link.
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xo6N6_9rNQ)

Wayne
http://www.soaridaho.com/