AOA indicator

On Saturday, April 23, 2016 at 3:19:47 PM UTC-7, kirk.stant wrote:
On Saturday, April 23, 2016 at 11:59:42 AM UTC-5, wrote:
We all have stall warning horns/lights in ag spray planes. Almost everyone has disconnected them. Another useless instrument when it comes to flying that is necessarily stick and rudder.
Dan

Dan, while I tend to agree that most stall warning indicators are of marginal use if you are current and have lots of experience in a particular plane, remember we are talking about glider pilots - most do not fly that much each year, and many may fly several different types frequently.

Heck, if you are comfortable in your plane, hardly any instrument is really needed. But if I could only have one - it would be a good AOA indicator :^)!

Kirk
66

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