Today, we’re going to look at some flight maneuvers from one of our favorite books, the Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge. Critical load factors apply to all flight maneuvers except unaccelerated straight flight where a load factor of 1 G is always present. Certain maneuvers considered in this section are known to involve relatively high load factors.
Stalls
The normal stall entered from straight-and-level flight, or an unaccelerated straight climb, does not produce added load factors beyond the 1 G of straight-and-level flight. As the stall occurs, however, this load factor may be reduced toward zero, the factor at which nothing seems to have weight. The pilot experiences a sensation of “floating free in space.” If recovery is effected by snapping the elevator control forward, negative load factors (or those that impose a down load on the wings and raise the pilot from the seat) may be produced.
During the pull up following stall recovery, significant load factors are sometimes induced. These may be further increased inadvertently during excessive diving (and consequently high airspeed) and abrupt pull ups to level flight. One usually leads to the other, thus increasing the load factor. Abrupt pull ups at high diving speeds may impose critical loads on aircraft structures and may produce recurrent or secondary stalls by increasing the AOA to that of stalling.
As a generalization, a recovery from a stall made by diving only to cruising or design maneuvering airspeed, with a gradual pull up as soon as the airspeed is safely above stalling, can be effected with a load factor not to exceed 2 or 2.5 Gs. A higher load factor should never be necessary unless recovery has been effected with the aircraft’s nose near or beyond the vertical attitude, or at extremely low altitudes to avoid diving into the ground.
Spins
A stabilized spin is not different from a stall in any element other than rotation and the same load factor considerations apply to spin recovery as apply to stall recovery. Since spin recoveries are usually effected with the nose much lower than is common in stall recoveries, higher airspeeds and consequently higher load factors are to be expected. The load factor in a proper spin recovery usually is found to be about 2.5 Gs.
The load factor during a spin varies with the spin characteristics of each aircraft, but is usually found to be slightly above the 1 G of level flight. There are two reasons for this:
- Airspeed in a spin is very low, usually within 2 knots of the unaccelerated stalling speeds.
- Aircraft pivots, rather than turns, while it is in a spin.
High Speed Stalls
The average light plane is not built to withstand the repeated application of load factors common to high speed stalls. The load factor necessary for these maneuvers produces a stress on the wings and tail structure, which does not leave a reasonable margin of safety in most light aircraft.
The only way this stall can be induced at an airspeed above normal stalling involves the imposition of an added load factor, which may be accomplished by a severe pull on the elevator control. A speed of 1.7 times stalling speed (about 102 knots in a light aircraft with a stalling speed of 60 knots) produces a load factor of 3 Gs. Only a very narrow margin for error can be allowed for acrobatics in light aircraft. To illustrate how rapidly the load factor increases with airspeed, a high-speed stall at 112 knots in the same aircraft would produce a load factor of 4 Gs.
We’ll be back on Thursday for our regularly scheduled CFI Brief!
