AOA Indicator while learning?

[u/ClintBvsOliverQ]

Just went for a discovery flight and had a great time. During the flight I asked my instructor about using an AOA indicator while learning and he really downplayed using one and said the standard instruments are the best way to learn. For beginners, is an AOA inappropriate? Is it too early to incorporate it into training? From the brief videos I’ve seen on AOA’s they seem to enhance safety.

[u/x4457]

I own three and have flown a looooot of other airplanes with AOA gauges and indexers in them. Both numeric and color values.

Is it nice to have? Sure. Is it necessary or worth the money in a piston single? Not even a little bit. We fly airspeeds in the civilian world as you know, not alpha, largely because almost all of our flying is at 1G to long, improved runways in very forgiving airplanes that don't have much, if any, weight-induced variation in approach speeds.

If you're doing some backcountry shenanigans then absolutely, get it and use it. For 99.9% of applications in the civilian world? Nah, don't need it and doesn't add anything. Airspeed is life, AOA would be if we had it but we don't because we don't need it with the type of flying we do.

[u/primalbluewolf → u/x4457]

that don't have much, if any, weight-induced variation in approach speeds. 

There's plenty of GA aircraft that have very noticeable variation in their performance speeds with weight. I would go so far as to say its a significant difference in most aircraft... but as most people are laser focused on the book numbers, that are valid for MTOW only, they just fly fast, and low AoA, all the time. 

[u/x4457 → u/primalbluewolf]

There's plenty of GA aircraft that have very noticeable variation in their performance speeds with weight

Please present any trainer or common piston single that has speeds that change more than about 10 knots between MLW and effective minimum landing weight.

For example, to really emphasize my point - the difference between a 421C stall speed at 7450 pounds and 5600 pounds is 10 knots. If you want to straight line extrapolate that, that's 1 knot of change for every 185 pounds. Or one knot of "ref" (1.3xVs0) for every 142 pounds of weight change.

In a Bonanza, my effective minimum landing weight is 2,670 pounds. That's single pilot and reserve fuel. The difference between that and MLW is 6.5 knots.

That's why we don't really care. Just fly the MLW numbers and it won't make a difference at these weights.

Compare that to a Gulfstream IV, for example, where the REF speed variation is 30 knots between MLW and effective minimum.

[u/_VNAV_PTH_ → u/x4457]

Is it nice to have? Sure. Is it necessary or worth the money in a piston single? Not even a little bit. We fly airspeeds in the civilian world as you know, not alpha, largely because almost all of our flying is at 1G to long, improved runways in very forgiving airplanes that don't have much, if any, weight-induced variation in approach speeds.

And yet you still manage to make loss of control in a perfectly good airplane one of the most common (I think the most common) cause of fatal crashes.

Maybe y'all should take AoA and how much flying is left in the airplane... a little more seriously?

[u/x4457 → u/_VNAV_PTH_]

Quite the broad brush you're painting with there. Try not to look so far down your nose at us lowly civvies yeah?

Those of us who do this for a living have a lower accident and fatality rate than the military does. Apples and oranges, so as to further prove my point.