PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Wing loading question
View Single Post
Old 6th Feb 2016, 02:20
  #2 (permalink)  
Tarq57
 
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Wellington,NZ
Age: 66
Posts: 1,678
Received 10 Likes on 4 Posts
The g force, or wing loading required to maintain steady flight (ie: not accelerating upward or downward) can be calculated by inverting the sine of the bank value. Sine 60 = one half. One over zero point 5 equals two, so load factor two. At seventy five degrees the sine value is a quarter. So, load factor is four.

It works out that in a 30 degree bank the load factor is about 1.4. As you can see it increases exponentially with increasing bank angle.

If the aircraft is descending, but in a steady state of descent, the load factor will remain the same. Ditto climbing (if you have an aircraft powerful enough to achieve much climb at a sixty degree bank.)

The next logical learning to this formula is to realize that the stall speed will increase by virtue of the increased wing loading. The revised stall speed is always the normal speed multiplied by the square root of the wing loading. So at a 2 g loading, stall speed is approx 1.4 normal. At a 4g loading, stall speed doubles.

I don't think descending changes it, except for when actually initiating the descent, which slightly changes the required load factor for the duration the aircraft is accelerating downward.
Tarq57 is offline