article thumbnail

Mastering Stalls: How to Recognize, Prevent, and Recover Safely

Flight Training Central

Depending on design, airfoils used in general aviation, stall at angles of attack between 16 to 18 degrees. Recovery is made by lowering the nose, simultaneously applying full power while maintaining directional control with coordinated use of aileron and rudder. The recovery procedure is the same as for all stalls.

article thumbnail

Tailless Aircraft: How Airplanes Fly Without a Tail

Pilot Institute

Use of Reflex Airfoils Ever notice how many tailless aircraft have wings that curve at the trailing edge? This type of design is a reflex airfoil. The reflexed shape of the airfoil usually causes a positive (nose-up) pitching moment coefficient at its aerodynamic center. They combine the functions of elevators and ailerons.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Trending Sources

article thumbnail

Wingtip Vortices and Wake Turbulence

Pilot Institute

When air flows over the aircraft wing, the shape of the airfoil creates low pressure above the wing and relatively higher pressure below the wing. When the aircraft encounters a vortex and its strong enough to induce roll, the pilot counters it by using the ailerons against the roll and tries to fly out of the wake as soon as possible.

article thumbnail

Flight Test Files: Grumman F-14 Tomcat

Vintage Aviation News

Photo by NASA The impetus for the program came from issues the Navy had encountered with inadvertent spin entries, which were traced back to the aircrafts aileron rudder interconnect system. These glove modifications served to smooth the wing surface and alter the airfoil to achieve specific pressure distributions.

article thumbnail

Chord Line in Aviation? What It Is and Why It Is Important

Pilot Institute

Wing Control: Flaps, slats, and ailerons change the chord line, impacting lift and control. In general, the chord line is used as an easy-to-understand reference when referring to the properties of a wing or airfoil. Basically, the mean camber line is meant to indicate the midpoint between the top and bottom surfaces of the airfoil.

article thumbnail

Flight Test Files: Convair XF-92A Dart

Vintage Aviation News

The delta wing’s large area (425 square feet), thin airfoil cross section, low weight, and structural strength made a great combination for a supersonic aircraft. It was controlled by a conventional rudder and full-span elevons that functioned as elevators and ailerons. The XF-92A was then used to test the delta-wing concept.

article thumbnail

Mach Number Explained: What It Is and Why Pilots Use It

Pilot Institute

Making the wing relatively flat on top with a blunter leading edge and more curvature on the bottom gives you a supercritical airfoil. Ailerons can suffer from a phenomenon called “aileron buzz” or control reversal at high Mach. Even the wing cross-section can be designed to redirect shock waves. roughly) up to about Mach 5.0.