Aviation Safety: Angle of Attack Awareness

In the past, monitoring an aircraft's airspeed was taught as the way to avoid a stall. Now, even General Aviation pilots have access to Angle of Attack Indicators.

Excluding the intro and the outro, this video covers that device... in 57 seconds.

In the early stages of flight training, student pilots in GA aircraft have been taught to rely solely on airspeed and the published 1G stall speed to avoid stalls. The concern, however, is that this speed is only valid under the following conditions:

1. Unaccelerated flight (a 1G load factor)
2. Coordinated flight (inclinometer centered)
3. At one weight (typically maximum gross weight)

In truth... an airplane can stall at ANY speed and without an AOA indicator, the current actual Angle of Attack is effectively invisible to the pilot in command.

An AOA indicator can help avoid a stall because for a given configuration, am airplane will always stalls at the same AOA... known as the Critical Angle of Attack... and

This Critical AOA does NOT change with:
1. Weight
2. Bank angle
3. Temperature
3. Density altitude
4. Center of gravity


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