91
DB Cooper / Re: General Questions About The Case
« Last post by Robert99 on May 24, 2023, 11:55:58 PM »Turns out an AOA indicator provides very useful info for general aviation pilots. My son owns and flies a two seat carbon fiber Aero Shark with two very up to date glass panels. He not only has an a AOA indicator on each LCD panel but also a voice annunciator that will give a loud verbal warning if AOA increases beyond safe limits given other factors such as airspeed. He bought the plane used from an Air National Guard F-16 pilot. The seller gave him a lot of useful tips about AOA, info that was omitted from my son’s basic flight training. My son told me if you stay on top of AOA you will never have an unintended stall.
377
Glass panels came along well after I retired so I don't have any personal experience with them or with AOA instruments either. But wings do stall at essentially the same angle of attack which depends on the flap/slats configuration among other things. For a specific configuration, the stall speed varies as a function of the aircraft's weight. But as your son points out, if you keep the AOA below the stall AOA for your specific aircraft configuration you won't stall.
As I mentioned previously, the Navy pioneered the use of AOA indicators. I have heard that the Navy tries to keep the wind over the deck at a given value and will adjust the speed of the carrier to maintain that speed. So presumably the deck touchdown speed of an aircraft will vary depending on the weight of the landing aircraft. That is, identical configured aircraft flying at the same AOA will touch down at different speeds depending on their weight.