On Jun 5, 3:46*pm, Bob Whelan wrote:
wrote:

Sensible stuff snipped...
* What is amusing is that pilots who have never had the opportunity to fly an AOA-indicator equipped aircraft seem to be reluctant to accept
it's advantages and cling to their old ways, while pilots who have
used AOA gauges love them.

Apologies for not re-titling this thread, but I've gotta second Kirk's
observation, and, generalize it to include (for example) landing flaps
and 'anything else abbie-normal.'

I haven't flown an AOA-equipped glider, but I'd sure like to. Meanwhile
since 1981 I've been flying a genyoowinely abbie-normal sailplane:
American racing glass (Strike 1!); w/o spoilers (Strike 2!!); and a
side-stick (Strike 3!!!) Oh yeah...while I'm at it, it never had a
chance at obtaining an approved (non-experimental) type certificate,
either. (You're not only out...you're outta the GAME!!!!)

Writ smilingly, with a rueful shake of the head, we pilots as a group
tend to be: a) relentlessly conservative/sheeplike in our 'common
wisdoms'; b) vocal in our (often not-factually-supported) opinions; and
c) 'too-often guilty' of passing off the latter as matters of fact.

Regards,
'Asbestos Bob' W.

Every book on airfoils from the venerable Abbot's "Theory of Wing
Sections" to more modern treatises on aerodynamics show graphs of an
airfoils coefficient of lift vs. angle of attack. The other graphs
have the Cl on the X-axis so everything about a wings performance goes
back to angle of attack. You won't see any airfoil section graphs
showing airspeed. Angle of attack is THE key to knowing what a wing
is doing.

Renowned books on flying from "Stick and Rudder" by Wolfgang
Langewiesche to "Fly the Wing" by James Webb hammer home precisely
that point - angle of attack is everything. Airspeed, while useful,
doesn't come close.

The situation where jets which spend 99% of their time flying fast
have found AOA indicators essential and gliders which spend up to half
their time flying near stall don't have them has always puzzled me.