This issue covers some more advanced skills that are essential to master before we start circuits and landings....
Let’s get straight into this tutorial by hopping into our A2A Piper Cub and get airborne. Remember to use all your checklists and all the techniques that we have covered over the past four issues.
Stop stalling
After departing the circuit area, level off at least 3,000ft above ground level and get the plane nicely trimmed. Figure 1 is a representation of what the airflow over our wing is currently doing - nice and smooth with minimal drag. In a balanced aircraft in straight and level flight (Figure 2), this laminar airflow produces sufficient lift to counter the weight of the aircraft. You may recall that earlier in this series we demonstrated low speed flight and explained how we needed to increase our ‘angle of attack’ in order to maintain level flight at lower airspeeds. We can now take this a little further and show what happens to this laminar airflow as we slow even further.
