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Old December 26th 04, 03:01 AM
Paul Tomblin
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In a previous article, "Ramapriya" said:
If my understanding is correct, an aircraft stalls beyond that AOA
which, when increased any further, produces no (further) lift. If
correct, would it be logical to infer that an aircraft's stalling AOA:

a. is dependent on its airspeed, and is independent of its weight and
weight distribution, and


Close. The AOA required to maintain altitude at a given airspeed varies
with the aircraft's weight, so a more heavily loaded aircraft will reach
the stalling AOA at a lower speed than a more lightly loaded one.

Also, the tail produces a downforce which is used to maintain stability in
the plane. If you load the CG further forward, the downforce needs to be
greater to counter balance it fore and aft, so you need more upforce from
the wings as well to put the up and down forces in balance, so that
increases the AOA required to maintain lift.

There are good diagrams of this in any decent aviation text book.

--
Paul Tomblin http://xcski.com/blogs/pt/
"GNU is not Linux - Linux has a kernel that boots" - Chris Thompson