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AOA indicators

I stuck something like this on top of the glareshield of my work airplanes: https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/inpages/bank_indicat.php

Id like to think I stayed coordinated enough without one, but having it up in my sight line really helps.

MTV
 
So if you’re so convinced these things are so great, instead of speculating, why don’t you install one in one of your airplanes and tell us all about it?

I have limited but actual experience with at least one example, and so far, I’m not impressed.

MTV

I already indicated my interest in that. All I need is a $199 pitot. I expect to do it once I move into my new hangar house. Whether I share my opinions here? Why get in your way. You have the agenda. All I have is curiosity. Negativity sucks. Nobody learns from that.
 
It is nice to glance at and check.
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Goes in every rebuild.
 
The thing that gets most people in trouble is low level maneuvering flight in wind where you are focused on a ground reference, either a landing spot or an object you are observing. The ground reference captures your attention and in trying to fly this path across the ground you can lose focus on your coordination because, depending on the direction of the wind, your nose isn't going to be pointing in the direction you want to fly across the ground and if it is you're not coordinated. The lower you are the more pronounced it is. The ground reference maneuver practice done in initial training teaches you how to continuously cross check your ground path and control coordination but these "moose stalls" still happen to seasoned pilots.

So even with an AOA indicator it's still just another reference to cross check and if you are distracted by a ground reference is it any better than the ball? For those who have them it would be interesting to hear how they behave when you are uncoordinated and the ball is slammed off to one side. What sort of indications do they give?
 
Maybe we need to explore and develop some sort of electric slip indicator. To catch our attention it lights up red LED's at the ends of the lateral display when the ball goes too far left or right. Stays green or goes yellow in a normal to caution range. Colored LED's are easy to program for that.

Use the conductive rolling ball to make an electrical circuit between the power strip contacts and LED contacts as it rolls left and right. Face the lateral display with lights.

Gary
 
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I flew about 10 hours in a PA 18 with an AOA indicator. I will classify it as just about worthless. If you’re coming in slow and trying not to stall and focused on the AOA indicator you probably shouldn’t be flying. After about two hours we turned off the sound so it would stop buzzing all the time. You can still see the lights. I would say they work as advertised but not something that I think an experienced pilot would find very useful. Better ways to spend your money


Sent from my iPhone using SuperCub.Org

First thing I do I a carbon cub is pull the stall warning breaker.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
It is nice to glance at and check.
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Goes in every rebuild.

The only non-glass instrument I have is a skid ball. It’s all I need if the screen goes black. Mine is down low and I have no problem seeing it.rbJJkFP-0%21sizeoriginal.jpg
 

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That's pretty much all I have nowadays and it works pretty good. When I learned to fly in a J3 you really didn't need much of anything because you were sitting in the back seat and could feel it all, I guess that's where the "seat of the pants" thing comes from but when you're up front at the center of lift not so much and it's easy to get jacked up if you're staring at something on the ground.
 

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Maybe we need to explore and develop some sort of electric slip indicator. To catch our attention it lights up red LED's at the ends of the lateral display when the ball goes too far left or right. Stays green or goes yellow in a normal to caution range. Colored LED's are easy to program for that.

Use the conductive rolling ball to make an electrical circuit between the power strip contacts and LED contacts as it rolls left and right. Face the lateral display with lights.

Gary
This is a good idea. Couple it with a heads up display similar to the new cars projecting the colored lights onto the inside of the windshield directly in your line of sight.

I can understand the angle of attack indicator being used in highly maneuvered airplanes such as military fighters. But for general use in planes such as our Cubs it is a total waist. I have many thousands of hours flying large airplanes with an AOA system installed and can honestly say that I could never once find it to be useful. Every once in a while I would look at it to see what it was doing. Never was it giving me any pertinent information. During the regime of flight when it might have given good information my eyes were looking out the windshield focused on the runway. Money is better spent on avgas. That is unless you just want a toy to talk about.
 
It could more easily be done with a solid state acelerometer that could sense the same force and just program the lights to come on whenever there was a pre-determined out of coordination condition. the light (left or right) would indicate the ball. "Step on the light" kind of logic. It would not have to replace the traditional ball but would give you a visual (And possible aural) warning of an un-coordinated condition. Then you would/could look down at the ball....

Just thinking out loud....
 
That's the problem.
Very few people who spend money on a mod wanna admit that it isn't all it's cracked up to be.
And the more expensive the mod, the less they wanna admit it.
Makes it hard for someone considering those mods to know if he's getting the real story or BS.

Yah, your comments about the G5 are probably crap. Your logic, not mine.


Oh yeah, I'm probably as prone to this as anyone else.
I do like my G5, however I will readily admit that it doesn't do anything my vacuum horizon & GD didn't do.
But several years ago I spent $900 or so buying & installing a set of Micro VG's for my C150/150TD.
I was hot to spend some money on my airplane, and let some glowing VG recommendations sway me,
in spite of a few Cessna pilots that reported little to no improvement with them.
Unfortunately I didn't see much difference in performance with them installed.
Some pro-VG people have said "you didn't fly it right" or similar -- maybe so.
In any event, they didn't do much for me, the way I flew it,
so I don't think I'll ever bother putting them on a stock Cessna wing again.
If someone else raves about them in the same application,
I'll post my experience, but otherwise more power to them.

As far as AOA's, I've never flown behind one, but I'm leaning toward MTV's point of view.
But if you or anyone else likes them and wants one, more power to you.
Just don't insist that I need one too.
 
The bottom line is - a stall warning horn is an audible (non-visual) AOA indicator that gives the same information.
 
Riteangle

I looked at Riteangle awhile back for my 180 but never did it. They have a website of the same name. If I was going to do aoa, I would do something like his. Not sure about the benefit of it but it would be fun to experiment with it.

Wayne
 
Welcome Wayne !! Looks like you are new here. Where is the Stold River anyway?? Can't find it on any of my maps !!
 
Welcome Wayne !! Looks like you are new here. Where is the Stold River anyway?? Can't find it on any of my maps !!

Brian, I think it is slang for that short stretch of Yellowstone river in North Dakota before it runs into the Missouri. Early Montanans considered that part as stolen and over the years the name morphed into Stold River. ��
 
AKA c180pilot over on backcountry pilot but decided not to use that since I'm in the planning stage to switchover from 180 to super cub.

Wayne
 
I was a little hesitant with that user name and it appears rightly so. :) I kind of like the Stold River thing, though.

Wayne
 
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