Originally Posted by
double_barrel
But I saw an interesting Youtube video on this subject a while ago and cannot find it now. It was trying to make the point that GA pilots and big jet pilots view Va completely differently. GA pilots view it as a maximum, commercial pilots regard it as a minimum. ie they can always break their aircraft with violent control inputs before they stall. Does anyone happen to have seen the video or know if what I am saying makes any sense?
This confuses two different things, which is easy to do since they unfortunately ended up with the same name. The GA “maneuvering speed” that the thread has been talking about, aka Va, is a
maximum maneuvering speed, defined as the stall speed at the limiting G, and with the purpose of knowing that we can’t possibly exceed the limiting G below this speed (with a symmetrical pull only, yada yada)
The airline thing is
minimum maneuvering speed, often shortened to simply maneuvering speed (hence the confusion) that simply protects against stall as long we stay above it. It’s stall speed, plus a safety buffer, plus an adjustment for increased G from turning (vertically unaccelerated). Often given as a simplistic formula, like on my airplane as Vref+10, that should cover the real math while being easily done in the cockpit