In trying to understand wing behaviour in vertical windshear for a (minor) incident analysis, I thought I had it all sussed. However, I came across this in an Airbus Document 'Windshear Awareness'
(
http://www.airbus.com/fileadmin/medi...V_WX-SEQ02.pdf)
Quote:
"downdraft affects both the aircraft Angle-Of-Attack (AOA),
that increases, and the aircraft path since it makes the aircraft sink "
Surely when entering a downdraft, the relative wind vector will be rotated to point more downwards (and hence the AOA will be reduced, not increased)?
The only explanation of this statement I can think of is that
1) The sink triggers a pitch-up response of magnitude greater than the change of relative wind.
2) The AOA increase is after the transient effects of entering the downdraft have occurred.
I'd be grateful for any insight from the professionals.