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by the__alchemist
686 days ago
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Whoever is downvoting this: Stop. It's the key point here. Planes don't need to know their weight to produce a stall warning; AoA is a great metric, and GA planes not having an indicator or warning based on it is astonishing. |
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That is the case since, in unaccelerated flight, we need weight == lift, so
with m = mass, g = earth gravitational acceleration, 1/2 rho v^2 = fluid dynamic pressure which is measured by the pitot tube and displayed as indicated airspeed (well, a function of it), c_L = the coefficient of lift, and S = wing area.Now, weight is constant (for given airplane mass, in unaccelerated flight), and so is the wing area. The coefficient of lift depends on the AoA, and dynamic pressure has a monotonic one-to-one relationship to IAS. Thus you have the relationship between IAS and AoA.
[1] Unless you get to "the back of the power curve" (the coefficient of lift increases with AoA, then decreases again, until it drops off in a stall). Let's not go there.