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Chockstone Forum - Climbing Videos

Post links and comments about your favourite climbing flicks

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Probably the most crazy man in the world 20-Dec-2011 At 9:32:37 AM tnd

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On 19/12/2011 shortman wrote:
>thanku
>
>Out of interest, what happens when u stall? Do u stop going forward, but
>keep goin down? And how hard is it to right yourself?

Aeronautics is complex, but...stalling a wing is dependent on angle of attack (the angle between the horizontal and the plane of the wing). When you reach the stall angle of attack, the wing stops flying. Your speed and direction the instant after the stall is the same as those the instant before the stall; but after the stall you're not flying, you're falling, so your subsequent path will be a curving descent towards the earth under the pull of gravity. To start flying again you have to decrease the angle of attack, i.e. tip the wing forward. If you have enough height and there isn't something solid in your way.

I would guess the stall speed (the speed at which a gentle increase of the angle of attack will get to the stall angle) of these wing suits is pretty high due to their tiny wing area and swept back profile, so when stalled they're still carrying a lot of momentum - way too much to stall them onto a vertical face as suggested above.

When you see birds "stall" onto a tree branch or ledge, they actually don't, they flap their wings a little to brake themselves. Hang gliders pretty well stall onto the ground when landing, but at very low speed so as to avoid injury. Mostly.

Personally I only fly things that I can sit inside.