By all means, five knots below target should alert the pilot. However, my airplane (320) has very honest warning through the control stick. I don't know how you could miss the warning the airplane controls transmit to my hands and brain. It starts with a "tickle" and proceeds to very heavy buffeting prior to the full stall. If a guy could fly past that and miss the impending stall, I'd guess that his AOA is way beyond his grasp. I have a "zero" knot tolerance for slow speed. I like dead on-speed and will accept 1-2 knots fast, but will correct back to on-speed. Slow is not acceptable -- ADD POWER NOW! I don't mean an automatic go-around, just very urgent action. If it's really FUBAR, go-around.
I do have a poor man's AOA of sorts. If I'm on speed, my nose just obscures my aim point. Anything beyond that is way too slow -- ADD POWER NOW!
I am not bad mouthing AOAs. If my EFIS had a provision for one, I'd buy the sensor. I do not feel that I'm taking undo risk flying without one though.
Is my plane the only one that shakes before it stalls/snaps? Do our pilots not recognize what the plane is telling them?
"...upside down at about 45 degree angle" sure sounds like a full stall with a snap roll, just like mine would do if I didn't know how to recognize and recover from the situation before it turned so bad. What else could do it?
To:
lml@lancaironline.net
Date: Mon, 4 Aug 2008 13:41:51 -0400
From:
cfi@instructor.net
Subject: [LML] Re: Clearing up some information about the Legacy accident.
Another article that was circulating said they caught a wing and tumbled on landing. That just isn't true. They impacted the ground totally upside down at about 45 degree angle and slid 140'. The impact zone and debris field was lined up with the runway, so was not a base to final stall spin. The engine was developing power by the look of the prop blades, all control surfaces were intact and the flaps were fully deployed and appeared to be down the same amount. The speedbrakes were slightly deployed the same on each wing, but I suppose that might have been because of the high impact. The wings were still attached, and actually the entire airframe was basically still together. I was at the crash site (with the NTSB guys) with Joe just after the accident. The NTSB will release a preliminary report next week.
Ron Galbraith
>Geez, there is so much dis-information that gets sprinkled around the net,
>it's just amazing.
=