What is suction peak in terms of POF

[clkorm3]

What is suction peak in terms of POF

[Graham@IDC]

The area of lowest pressure on the upper surface of the wing just after the leading edge.

[Otto Throttle]

It's the point on your head from which EASA suck your will to live with their stupid questions and outdated gibberish.

[The500man]

Seconded! :ok:

[Graham@IDC]

Ignore the morons clkorm3. You asked a valid question and it's a useful bit of knowledge to have.

If you don't know what the suction peak is, you won't understand the concept of centre of pressure, and if you don't understand CP you won't understand the stalling characteristics of a swept wing airliner.

If you have an iPad I strongly suggest you buy a copy of Wind Tunnel Pro. It's only about £3 and it does an absolutely amazing job of computational fluid dynamics. It's easy to see the suction peak with this app and to watch what happens to it as angle of attack increases.

[The500man]

Graham you could really use a sense of humour.

If you don't know what the suction peak is, you won't understand the concept of centre of pressure, and if you don't understand CP you won't understand the stalling characteristics of a swept wing airliner.

There is no mention of suction peak in my PoF manual, so I obviously didn't need to know what it was in order to understand CP, or to pass the PoF exam for that matter. You can come down off your high horse now.

[2 Whites 2 Reds]

Numerous Cabin Crew can give an excellent demo of this. :E

All joking aside, understanding CoP in relation to swept wing aerodynamics is important later on. The best book I've ever invested in is 'Handling the Big Jets' by DP Davies. Well worth a read and explains these sorts of topics in great detail, certainly enough to get you through an ATPL exam or an interview anyway.

2W2R :ok:

[Graham@IDC]

The 500man

I have great sense of humour but I tend to lose it in this particular forum because so many so called 'professional' pilots seem to positively revel in their ignorance. If someone doesn't try to redress the balance then we will see more and more accidents of the AF 447 kind. Call that a high horse if you like.

It's no secret that the airlines and aviation authorities are extremely worried by the growing trend of technical ignorance and lack of professionalism in new licence holders.

So, when a newbie asked a good, genuine question in this forum I think it's incumbent on all those who care about this profession to help him to better his knowledge.

[paco]

Hear hear.

"There is no mention of suction peak in my PoF manual, so I obviously didn't need to know what it was in order to understand CP, or to pass the PoF exam for that matter."

I don't know whose manual you are consulting but the fact that a subject isn't in there does not mean it isn't important. You can never have enough knowledge and the JAA questions miss the point by a long way. Half the stuff you really need to know isn't even in the syllabus. I particularly find this when converting people to multi-engined aircraft.

Phil

[The500man]

but the fact that a subject isn't in there does not mean it isn't important.I don't think one term qualifies as a subject, however I didn't mean to suggest that it wasn't important, just that it wasn't required to understand CP, which in my manual is described in relation to total aerodynamic force.

so many so called 'professional' pilots seem to positively revel in their ignorance. If someone doesn't try to redress the balance then we will see more and more accidents of the AF 447 kind.I think the lack of integration between ATPL theory and practical flying has something to do with avoidable accidents like AF 447. Theoretical knowledge is fairly useless without the confidence and understanding necessary to apply it correctly, and I think that confidence and understanding only comes from practical experience.

The frustration felt, and the poor regard some of us have for the current ATPL syllabus stems from the sheer volume of useless content, which as nice as it is to know, has no practical application (Impedance of a circuit?). Some of the content is ridiculous and that's at least part of the reason why ATPL theory is so often regarded as just another hoop-to-jump rather than something which is important to learn and understand. Burying the important topics in amongst the 'outdated gibberish' is a good way of trivialising them.

A moron.

[Graham@IDC]

The500man

I can sympathise with your feeling that the ATPL theory syllabus has a lot of irrelevant stuff in it. However you aren't completely right. There is some pretty useless stuff and yes impedance is probably up there (but only 6 questions on electrics feature in an AGK exam).

On the other hand there's a lot of stuff that is very useful (or might become useful when faced with an unanticipated emergency). The problem is that it feels irrelevant because so few theory notes take the time to connect theory with practice.

I think that'll change soon (and is indeed already changing) because airlines are demanding a better pilot product.

[paco]

"so few theory notes take the time to connect theory with practice."

I like to think that's one of our strong points

Phil