HN - Dan W has summed up the 'buffets' nicely. There is no way that the 'routine pilot' should get anywhere near the often misnamed 'coffin corner', and as Dan says providing the pilot is aware of what he/she is doing vis a vis pitch attitude there should be no great difficulty in distinguishing between the two. As Dan says they are different, but I would not expect a 'diagnosis' based on 'what it feels like' to take place. We are well-provided now with target pitch attitudes for different stages of flight and should know which we are feeling from that.
Dan - I am completely with you on the correct sequence of stall recovery ie pitch then level wings, but you do need to be very careful with aileron even on a swept wing. These do not exhibit the classic straight wing stall and aileron is useable while the a/c is in buffet BUT if you look at the FDR from PGF you will see the classic 'Stalling II' demonstration of use of aileron increasing wing drop on a fully stalled wing. That is how they got to those bank angles. I suspect that your successful use of aileron at 'the point of the stall' in a Hawk was not actually at the 'stall' - the Lightning, which as I have said, spent much of its time in pre-stall buffet would respond readily to aileron until it didn't and then you were in a spin - and it was that quick, and the key was to prevent yaw into the dropping wing which always leads to autorotation. I have several (unexpected) 'flick rolls' in my log-book to prove that. The lesson has to be driven home - forget aileron UNTIL you have unstalled the wing. It can and does kill. That is all I am trying to say. It is of concern that people seem to either forget or not be aware.
Last edited by BOAC; 24th July 2010 at 07:06.