Todd Pattist wrote:
"Steve House"
wrote:

So the whole debate is about whether the instructor in question
should have used the words "adequate lift" instead of just "lift."
So how many angels was it you said could dance on that pinhead?

The difference is like the difference between your bank
saying they just charged you 5 bucks for being overdrawn and
the bank telling you they zeroed your account for being
overdrawn. It is a common and fundamental misunderstanding
(that many CFI's share) that lift goes to zero when the wing
stalls. Going to zero is not the same as beginning to
decrease any more than being charged 5 bucks is the same as
having your bank account wiped out.

In the B-58 Huster, due to its swept wing it didn't really stall. Once the
angle of attack became too high it entered high sink rate. You could still
adjust the bank, pitch, etc but if you looked at your vertical speed it was
descending at thousands of feet per minute. In it's "stall" condition the
only was you could get out of it was to lower the nose with full military
power. If altitude didn't permit that you'd have to try lighting all four
afterburners. If one didn't light you were dead (or ejected) but when the
option is crashing anyway it's certainly worth the chance.

At Little Rock I seem to recall we had 4 TB-58s which were early production
test models converted by removing the Navigator station and building an
intructor station behind the pilot. So I actually agree with everybody.
With a straight wing aircraft it is usually taught that lift goes away
during the stall and, while that's an exageration, for practical purposes it
has some value as a teaching tool. But we turn around and teach them stall
recovery technique that acknowledges some lift still coming from the wings
even though in a spin the aircraft is also in a stall. So, in a stall,
there is still some lift although it's somewhat like a group of prostitutes
arguing about their relative virginity.


--

Darrell R. Schmidt

B-58 Hustler History: http://members.cox.net/dschmidt1/