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Old 23rd Mar 2014, 17:13
  #7539 (permalink)  
stadedelafougere
 
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Loss of power - steady stall

One question from an engineer, and to the aerodynamicists here:
If we assume the aircraft ran out of fuel, but was correctly trimmed in the final stages of the flight, the aircraft would stall from high altitude.
If we also assume that there were no crew inputs at this time of the flight, and because commercial airplanes are stable by design, I believe the aircraft would have started descending and entered some sort of small amplitude (due to stable design) phugoid mode at speeds close to Vs and kept in that kind of mode until reaching sea level.
What would be the aircraft attitude upon reaching sea level (order of magnitude of the pitch angle?)
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