A wild ride teaching angle of attack
An airplane’s wings can stall at any airspeed and any pitch attitude: We learn the lesson in ground school, but how well does it sink in? Editor at Large Dave Hirschman pointed a Socata TB30 Epsilon’s nose straight down with full engine power and stalled the airplane for a dramatic video demonstrating the concept of angle of attack. The video was played more than 440,000 times on Facebook and really got people talking.
Alan Walker: Very early on in my training for my PPL, I asked to get unusual attitude training and we went up in a Super Decathlon—I got to stall at all attitudes and speeds. It was some of the best training I ever received—I recommend this type of training for every pilot.
Fred Webster: Sadly, far too few private pilots understand the difference between angle of attack and pitch attitude. Also the notion of a stall speed versus stall AOA leaves a lot to be desired, especially in aircraft that are fairly maneuverable.
John Peter Chmiel: The AOA should be defined as the angle between where the airplane is pointed and where it is going. That’s a definition a pilot can understand. One hundred years of the FAA definition has failed to have the proper impact on a double-digit percentage of the pilot population.
See the video for yourself at www.aopa.org/ft/attitude
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