AOPA Stall/Spin Study -- Stowell's Review (8,000 words)

"Chris Hoffmann" wrote in message ...
John - Just to be clear, I'm only referring to approaches. I thought that's
what that part of the original post was about - a student learning to land.

Sean-
How can you say that stalls are unrelated to airspeed, when airspeed is
related to your angle of attack? (and John, at the top of a loop at zero
airspeed, where is the relative wind coming from, or at least about to come
from? Good thing a cliff doesn't magically appear under you at that point.)

You aren't (hopefully) coming in to land at Vne. Yes, you can stall an
airplane at any speed, but the point is you don't want to let your airspeed
drop too low on approach. Period.

Maybe I'm seeing this as two seperate training issues, whereas others are
seeing it as one and the same?

Chris, you have a good point. Yes, the stall speed of your plane
changes with a variety of factors but we're talking about a known
situation, landing. Not a 3 G turn or floating a loop over the top at
..5 Gs. While a J-3 cub is easily landed without reference to airspeed,
as you go up in aircraft watching *SPEED* on final becomes more
important, unless you are likey enough to own an AOA gauge. In fact,
in heavy iron flying this *SPEED* is computed for that exact flight,
so each approach may have a different approach speed. For a 172,
things like weight variations aren't as critical as in a 747 so we
provide students with a target number for appoach. Of course, if you
choose to pull a 3 G turn or over gross the plane, that number will
not work. I think people are just poking you here to see how you will
react. As a Mooney owner I can tell you speed is critical. The Mooney
Aircraft & Pilots Association recommends no more than 1.2 Vso for
normal landing since being 10 knots fast sucks up about 1500 feet
extra runway. Yes, weight or G loading will effect this (density
altitude and humidity will effect the TAS of the stall too, but we're
just interested in IAS here). Bush pilots often stall there planes
before coming down to know what indicated *SPEED* their plane will
stall at with the current weight. This allows them to land very, very
short.

-Robert, CFI