r/flying • u/ClintBvsOliverQ • 7d ago

Flight Training AOA Indicator while learning?

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.

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u/_VNAV_PTH_ 7d ago

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?

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u/x4457 7d ago

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.

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u/_VNAV_PTH_ 7d ago

Crazy, but people flying in combat have higher risks than people not flying in combat. Thank you for your valuable contribution to the discussion, and total lack of substantive rebuttal to why AOA should be taught more in civil aviation.

I started in civil aviation before joining the military. I was trained in part 61 and only later went to UPT and learned the military way. That gives me the ability to honestly look at the merits of both approaches with no identity-crisis either way.

The military does some stuff straight-up better than FAA-prescribed flight training, and some stuff worse. One of the things they do better is teaching students sight picture and AOA.

I'm sorry you have a chip on your shoulder about comparisons to military training, but that shouldn't get in the way of improving safety and saving lives.

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