Aero Academic
Aero Academic
How increasing load factor in a bank or maneuver raises the speed at which a wing stalls, independent of the aircraft's weight.
A wing stalls at a fixed angle of attack, not at a fixed airspeed — but because most flight instruments display airspeed, stalling is conventionally discussed in terms of a stalling speed for a given configuration and load factor. As load factor increases, stalling speed increases, because the wing must generate more lift (and therefore fly faster, for the same angle of attack) to support the additional apparent weight.
In a level, coordinated turn, load factor increases with bank angle: at 45 degrees of bank the load factor is approximately 1.41G, and at 60 degrees it is 2G. Because stalling speed increases with the square root of load factor, a 2G, 60-degree-bank turn increases the stalling speed by a factor of about 1.41 over the wings-level, 1G stalling speed.
This relationship is a frequent FAA knowledge-test calculation: given a 1G stalling speed and a bank angle, a candidate is expected to compute the new stalling speed using new stall speed = 1G stall speed × √(load factor).