Angle of Attack Indicators

Ken S. Tucker wrote:

Referring to sims, I found the AoA indicator of scientific interest
to measure airfoil performance, but in shooting landings I relied
on the IAS (knots/hr) and vertical airspeed indicator(feet/minute),
those together give a rough idea of angle of descent, and one
then gets a feeling of AoA from pitch.

Yes, you can get a "feel" of AOA from all that, but not enough to fly
AOA with the accuracy required in modern carrier operations. A half
degree of pitch or a decel/accel trend that you don't see in time could
be the difference between a safe landing and a bolter or worse.

BTW, IAS is measured in knots, not knots/hr. A knot is a nautical
mile/hour, so "knots/hour" would be an acceleration, not a velocity.


What might be considered is an instrument that can provide all
that info in nice clear form on single gauge at a glance, let's
design it.

Can't do it; there are too many different types of measurements to be
made and displayed. While a velocity vector pointer on a HUD may give
a good portion of it, speed is missing...