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Some Thoughts on Stall Warning…

Piper J3

Well Known Member
I have been flying solo all summer because of COVID. Today I took my long-time flying buddy up with both of us wearing masks. No political statement – just wearing masks to stay safe from virus and enjoy flying together in same airplane.

So, all summer long I’ve been landing with pronounced nose-high full-stall landing in order to get stall warning to annunciate. When I’m flying solo, I don’t have siren blaring in my ear – just how I like it.

Today, with two people (340#) and half fuel the stall warning comes on earlier in the landing flare and sings its song for several seconds. Perfect – it reminds me to be cognizant of higher gross weight and higher stall speed.

 
Interesting. . . When I fly solo, I can takeoff without triggering the stall warning. Then when I fly with my wife, and really want a no-warning takeoff, I get a stall horn every time.
 
Jim, do you have AOA installed? The D-180 can be set up to give "ON Speed"
audio tones related to the AOA. That allows spending more time looking
outside and less time looking at the instruments while on final approach.
 
No AOA here. A friend has a two-year old 12 with dual HDX and AOA. I get the concept, but the audible beeping, in combination with stall warning, is enough to make a person want to climb overboard.

If you set stab trim for stabilized approach speed (I use 63mph/55KIAS) and then fly the pattern using very slight fingertip on the stick everything remains hunky dory right up to the landing flare. Very easy to glance the large airspeed window on the EFIS several times especially on final as you get closer to terra firma.
 
The advantage of AOA is that wings only stall at one AOA (assuming constant flap setting).
Whereas wings can stall at any airspeed, depending on wing loading.
 
... The D-180 can be set up to give "ON Speed"
audio tones related to the AOA....

Do you know if there's a way to configure the D-1000 and HDX units to give an On Speed tone? I've fiddled around with my D-1000 off and on for 5 years and have never been able to get a real On Speed tone. Same with my HDX. I've been doing it using Dynon's standard AOA configuration procedure, using various flap positions and attitudes that I identified as the stall point in that procedure but I've never been able to get a resulting configuration that worked real well as an On Speed tone.
 
Would be interested what type stall warning device OP has and how it is set up. What trip speed /angle value does it set off? For it to be tripping on take off, what speed do you rotate? Climb out?
 
It sounds like you are using the same rotation and approach speeds solo as with a passenger. You shouldn’t. If you want the same margin to stall in approach with another 180 or 200 lbs in the airplane then the approach speed should go up with the square root of the & weight increase. So if the gross weight goes up by 10% with a passenger then the approach speed should go up about 5%. If not you will be flying at a higher aoa if you are at the same speed at heavier weight.
 
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