Dear Sky Doc,
First... Sorry to hear you are stuck on Diego Garcia. Anyway...
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
I don't know about the Navy but EVERYBODY ELSE (transport category &
high speed wings) has stick shakers, not rudder shakers. When reaching
high angles of attack (about 1.1 Vs for the configuration) the stick (or
yoke) is shaken by a motor with an eccentric weight on it. This is an
artificial means of simulating the natural buffet that is designed into
slow speed wings with washout and stall strips. When the stick shakes it
is telling the pilot through his hand (not his feet) to reduce pitch and
release some back pressure. If the stall AOA is reached, a stick pusher
automatically reduces the pitch so the wing does not stall. If you stall
some of these high speed swept wings it is not pretty. You will depart
contolled flight.
Stick Shakers, or Rudder Shakers for that matter, would be redundant
on the Europa. The washout in the wings and the mandatory stall strips
are there to tell the pilot by the pre-stall buffet that he is close to
the stall.
The AOA gauges that everyone is talking about are great. AOA is all
the wing cares about. Not speed, weight, or angle of bank.
Others may be interested to know that an AOA is also part of the
Sierra Flight Systems EFIS 2000 and EFIS 1000. Take a look at
http://www.sierraflightsystems.com
This system does not have an AOA vane. It has an air data computer
(airspeed) and a G-meter. With these two inputs it extrapolates the AOA.
No external probes to dirty up our beautiful Europas. Being a computer
based system, you can program a stall warning (voice), or series of AOA
thresholds. The AOA reads out, color coded, in the upper left of the
Primary Flight System display.
The Sierra Flight Systems EFIS 2000 is a little pricey but is a
great instrument. The EFIS 1000 is more affordable and very appropriate
for a space age installation in the Europa. This instrument/display does
it all!
Best wishes for a prosperous New Year to EuropaPhiles around the
world!
Dave Conrad, N200XS, A078
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