Stall Warning ? 1 Vs. 2 Onboard?

[Piper J3]

I?ve noticed my stall warning is far less sensitive in the landing flair with only one person onboard with minimal fuel. In the above scenario the landing flair in ground effect is longer and it takes a very pronounced nose-high full-stall landing to get the stall warning to annunciate.

With a second person onboard and ? fuel the stall warning annunciates much sooner in the flair and nose of aircraft is not nearly so high an angle.

I have checked stall warning vane geometry and switch setup against drawing 16-03 and everything looks correct.

So, I?m wondering if others are seeing this same thing?
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[rmartingt]

Originally Posted by Piper J3

I?ve noticed my stall warning is far less sensitive in the landing flair with only one person onboard with minimal fuel. In the above scenario the landing flair in ground effect is longer and it takes a very pronounced nose-high full-stall landing to get the stall warning to annunciate.

With a second person onboard and ? fuel the stall warning annunciates much sooner in the flair and nose of aircraft is not nearly so high an angle.

I have checked stall warning vane geometry and switch setup against drawing 16-03 and everything looks correct.

So, I?m wondering if others are seeing this same thing?
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Assuming you're flying the same speeds... I'd think that would be expected, with significantly more weight on the aircraft.

[Sam Buchanan]

Originally Posted by Piper J3

I’ve noticed my stall warning is far less sensitive in the landing flair with only one person onboard with minimal fuel. In the above scenario the landing flair in ground effect is longer and it takes a very pronounced nose-high full-stall landing to get the stall warning to annunciate.

With a second person onboard and ¾ fuel the stall warning annunciates much sooner in the flair and nose of aircraft is not nearly so high an angle.

I have checked stall warning vane geometry and switch setup against drawing 16-03 and everything looks correct.

So, I’m wondering if others are seeing this same thing…
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Sounds like it is working very nicely!

The aircraft is going to stall at more nose-high attitude (slower airspeed) at light weight than when flown with a heavy load. The AOA is doing just what it is supposed to do, telling you what the wing is seeing.

I've been flying AOA in my RV-6 for over 15 years and consider it the primary instrument for landing. Study AOA and understand what it is telling you and it will be a valuable resource.

[RFSchaller]

Mine stopped working ?- can?t say I miss it!😜

[rv7charlie]

Hmmm... I'm ready to be (re)educated. Everything I've ever read said that an a/c in any single configuration always stalls at the same AOA, and only the stall airspeed varies.

[Mich48041]

I'm with you Charlie.

[BobTurner]

Me two (also too).
I do think there is the possibility that pilots of light aircraft flare into zero sink rate, while when the airplane is heavy they pull up to the same attitude as light -but that?s insufficient to completely check the descent. Due to the descent the angle of attack is higher than it appears.

[sblack]

Stall attitude will always be the same but it will happen at lower speed at lighter weight. If you approach at the same speed irrespective of weight you will spend more time in the flare bleeding off the excess speed so you might get to a higher attitude. If you want your approaches to be consistent then fly slower when you are lighter. Multiply your heavy weight approach speed by the square root of the weight ratio i.e (actual weight/max weight). So if you are 10% lighter than full fuel and 2 people, approach 5% slower and it should feel pretty much the same. You would be flying a constant V/Vstall ratio, which is how most larger high performance airplanes are operated.