Visual Angle of Attack Indicator

The oscillations in the instrument are not noise, they are accurate representations of the turbulence in the air rapidly changing the wings AOA and thus rapidly changing it's lift and thus shaking the plane!

If you feel like it supporting:

[Jesse-cxsi]

We missed out on so many more years of great videos from this guy. RIP and God bless your family. So sad.

[SammSheperd]

Fun fact: The plane in the opening picture is the plane I trained in and took my checkride in for both Commercial pilot and Certified flight instructor.

[billville]

70 years ago it would cost millions of dollars to acquire this data. hahahaha

[jchevelle]

Would love to also see how AOA acts in tight turns with a steep bank angle. Relative wind seems mysterious to me when it comes to steep and tight turns.

[TheClown]

I'm going to study Aircraft Mechanics next year in college. Not only is this video AWESOME, it's also EDUCATIONAL! Thanks Samm!

[sam-rswg]

thats cool, it looks like your wing stalls from the inside out too.

[MichaelWilliams-cnwb]

I think you should take a look at the work done by the German akakfleig " gliding" researchers concerning sailplane wing design .They looked at various methods of controlling boundary air control and laminar flow characteristics.You don't need to attempt to reinvent the wheel here, this information is already in the public domain.

[TheRattleSnake]

golfball sheet looks like it worked well.

[jchevelle]

Looks like that airfoil stalls between 20 and 25 degrees AOA. Awesome visualization! Thanks for this!

[adamt]

This is a life lost too soon. Just discovering this guys fascinating channel now.

[welshpete]

Fascinating ! on early planes a device like this was fixed on to the strut of the wing as a airspeed indicator .

[confuseatronica]

that lighting effect where the red sunset glow is much brighter -inside- the rainbow is really pretty
also lol at the dramatic sunset over the golf ball dimples

[icanacoustics-noisevibrati]

What a great video from a true engineer.

[EversonBernardes]

Funny to find this video completely by accident. A few days ago I was reading about laminar flow and occurred me that one could probably spoil the flow over the foil to prevent boundary layer separation until it gets to a higher angle of attack and get some extra lift at the expense of some added friction drag.

And here you are, doing exactly that :D

[willconway]

That, is amazing. Never really thought about how even relative wind can change the AofA. Thought it was always based off ground, thank you!

[JFrazer]

They fly BT higher pressure below and less pressure above.
A plank flies by presenting A to the wind. This mimics camber above and slows and compacts air below.

A ram-wing GEV certainly doesn't fly by bouncing air down, back up off the water and off the wing again & again.
It traps and compacts air below and is lifted via pressure difference driven partly by the Bernoulli effect above. Same with a plane in GE or flying.
Any reaction from bouncing air down is secondary.

Consider also the wing-tip vortex-driven "parachute lift" effect used by planes with aspect-ratio <3, flying very slowly with very high A (>30°+) the huge vortices wrap around and capture a "bubble" of low pressure above/behind them, increasing lift, while piling up high pressure below (just like a plank or Ekranoplan).
Charles Zimmerman working for UAC/Vought following the '30s Arup planes from Indiana, found that aspect-ratio 1.8-2.2 maximizes the effect, producing >4x the lift a normal wing could, if they can even fly at <25kts.This was the planform he selected as a starting point for his VTOL tail-sitter experiments.

As a side effect, the extreme vortices trap flow from the front on top of the wing, preventing it from separating, and giving strong smooth flow to the controls.
It's recognized that this effect is just a magnification of what wings normally do, (create a pressure differential.)
Very-low aspect-ratio planform planes don't stall, even if held to high A. They'll "mush" all the way down (~50% power on the low-powered Arup or the '90s Facetmobile).
Wainfan found that the Facetmobile would still fly at 16kts, when his pitot tube stopped reading anything.

[filemonbonifacy]

Thanks a lot, it is so Simple and was so chalange for me to imagine.. you help me with ATPL exams preparation 🤛🏿

[matthewrichardson]

I just built an AOA and Slip Air Data Computer for NASA and USAF. All new C-130's are outfitted with a boom, not unlike the one you made, and will use my computers to take measurements for flight test and acceptance tests. Usually those vortex generators are used on the wings in front of control surfaces to clean the air a bit for the surface to be more effective.

[robertosfield]

Great wee experiment. A variation would be to use a set of tell tails in front of the LE in place of the vane. You could arrange them in various ways - vertically a specific span location, spanwise, before and aft the wing.

[zsblendorio]

Great video! Thank you. I finally get it after watching multiples videos and reading, it wasn’t until seeing it did it all make sense. Thanks again!