Luc,

I'm a big fan of using AOA (ever since my days long ago in F-4s, that relied heavily on AOA!) and would be interested in your instrument. My problem is I fly an LS6 with a small panel and there is absolutely no place to mount such a display. In the past I have tried yaw stings on the sides of the canopy and as you say, they work but are extremely sensitive to yaw (and not in your field of view when thermalling, anyway).

I have thought about how I would like AOA displayed and concluded that what I want is an indication that I am at the optimum thermalling AOA (for the flap setting) and that I am at the correct approach AOA.

When thermalling, once the proper AOA is determined, it is pretty easy to maintain that by reference of the nose position on the horizon, so an occasional check of the AOA indicator would be sufficient. For that I think just 3 lights would be sufficient - Red for too fast, Green for on-speed, and Yellow for too slow (with transitions lighting the adjacent light, while extremes would flash the appropriate light). This could be 3 bright LEDs on top of the panel, or on each side - taking up no panel space. To use, just roll into the turn, slow to the approximate speed you want, check the lights, adjust your AOA until the Green light is on, then stay at that pitch angle/airspeed.

For landing, I would want an aural cue so that I could fly the whole pattern concentrating outside the cockpit. Based on how AOA tones were used in the F-4, as you approached "on-speed" (say 1.3 Vstall) you would get a slow interrupted tone, increasing to a steady medium frequency tone when on-speed.. Too slow and a rapid higher frequency interrupted tone would blend in, transitioning to a steady high frequency tone at the stall. This could be setup to only come on when the landing gear (or air brakes) was extended, cutting out any vario tones to avoid confusion.

Once used to an audio AOA system, it becomes extremely easy to fly a pattern without ever looking at the airspeed, adjusting nose position as needed to maintain the desired AOA by how the tones change.

Anyway, put me down as seriously interested in your AOA system, probably as a full device (option 3, I believe).

Cheers,

Kirk
66