Flying angle of attack is safer and more precise than airspeed reference. These inexpensive gadgets bring that capability to the light aircraft GA cockpit.

By Jim Cavanagh

At the dawn of the last century, it didn’t take the Wright brothers long to figure out that wings stall at a measurable angle of attack. Student pilots are taught this concept, then promptly trained to forget about it and use airspeed to detect an impending stall.

That’s because light aircraft have airspeed indicators, but they don’t have angle of attack indicators. Yet there’s no reason they shouldn’t have these gadgets and, in fact, there are four companies hawking such prod- ucts. The argument for AoA indicators is convincing. By learning to fly angle of attack rather than airspeed, an airplane can be flown more precisely at slow airspeeds, improving short…