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Approach and Landing

OnSpeed's primary value is during the approach and landing phase — the most dangerous part of every flight. The tone provides directive feedback that simplifies energy management during the highest-workload phases of flight.

Standard Approach

  1. Configure for landing — set flaps as desired for the approach
  2. Slow to ONSPEED — reduce power and let the aircraft decelerate. You'll hear low-pitched pulsing that speeds up as you approach the target.
  3. Fly the solid tone — when the pulse stops and you hear a steady low tone, you're ONSPEED. Effective power is balanced.
  4. Maintain the solid tone — use small power and pitch adjustments to hold it. The tone provides push/pull feedback: high pitch means push (add power or reduce AOA); low pulse means pull (reduce power or allow pitch up).
  5. Flare — as you round out over the runway, the tone will transition to low pulsing (you're decelerating). This is normal in the flare.
  6. Touch down — tones fade as airspeed drops below the mute threshold.

The key technique: fly the tone, not the airspeed indicator. The tone automatically adjusts for weight and G-loading. You don't need to compute VREF for your current weight — ONSPEED is the correct AOA regardless.

Short Field Approach

For a shorter approach:

  • Fly to the slow edge of the ONSPEED band — let the tone just barely begin high-pitched pulsing, then add a touch of power to bring it back to solid
  • This gives you the minimum approach speed while maintaining a safe margin from stall
  • Use steeper approach angle and less float in the flare

Don't push below ONSPEED without power management

The high-pitched pulsing tone means effective power is negative — the airplane cannot sustain this condition. If you fly in this region, you must actively manage power and glide path. The closer you fly to the stall warning, the less margin you have for gusts, sink, or a sudden need to maneuver.

Gusty Conditions

In gusty or turbulent conditions:

  • Fly to the fast edge of the ONSPEED band — where the low pulse is just transitioning to the solid tone (~55% fractional lift)
  • This gives you additional energy margin and aerodynamic margin for gusts
  • Accept the slightly higher approach speed; it's trading landing distance for safety

The tone fluctuation in turbulence gives you real-time feedback about AOA excursions. If the tone briefly jumps to high pitch, a gust just pushed you closer to stall — maintain or add power. You don't need to chase exact airspeed — the tone tells you the trend.

Don't chase the tone in turbulence

In rough air, use the tone as trend information, not a moment-by-moment target. Fly attitude and power settings. If the tone stays generally in the low-pulse to solid range, you have adequate margin.

The Base-to-Final Turn

The base-to-final turn is where the most stall/spin accidents occur. This is where AOA cueing provides the greatest safety benefit.

Why This Turn Is Dangerous

In a turn, the wing must generate additional lift to support the airplane's effective weight (actual weight × load factor). A 30° bank requires ~1.15G; a 45° bank requires ~1.41G. That extra lift comes from increased angle of attack. The margin between approach AOA and stall AOA shrinks rapidly.

Critically, indicated airspeed does not tell you how much margin you have in a turn. A pilot flying 70 knots wings-level and 70 knots in a 45° bank has very different proximity to stall. The airspeed indicator shows the same number; the AOA situation is dramatically different.

How the Tone Helps

  • If the tone stays solid through the turn, you're at the same aerodynamic margin from stall that you'd have wings-level. The AOA accounts for load factor automatically.
  • If the tone goes high-pitched in the turn, you're pulling too hard or too slow. Effective power is negative — the airplane cannot sustain this condition. Unload: reduce bank angle and/or add power.
  • If you hear the stall warning in a turn, you are at the aerodynamic limit. Reduce AOA immediately — relax back pressure, reduce bank angle. Do not attempt to "pull through" the turn.

Sustained vs. Instantaneous Turns

There are two fundamentally different ways an airplane can turn:

Sustained turn: The pilot increases AOA to the ONSPEED condition. Angle of attack stabilizes, airspeed remains steady, and the turn can be maintained without energy loss. Maximum sustained turn rate occurs at ONSPEED.

Instantaneous turn: The pilot pulls beyond ONSPEED, borrowing energy. Turn rate increases briefly, but drag rises rapidly, airspeed decays, and AOA continues to increase. This condition cannot be maintained. If the pull is not relaxed, the airplane will stall.

In the traffic pattern, you almost never need instantaneous turn performance. Fly the sustained turn at ONSPEED. If the tone goes high-pitched, you're pulling beyond what the airplane can sustain — ease off.

Steep Turns

In steep turns (45°+ bank):

  • Load factor is 1.4G or more
  • Stall speed increases by ~20%
  • The AOA tone accounts for this automatically — the same ONSPEED tone at 45° bank means the same margin from stall as wings-level
  • If you maintain the solid tone, the turn is aerodynamically sustainable at the current power setting
  • If the tone goes high, power may be insufficient to sustain the turn at this bank angle — reduce bank or add power

Best Glide

The transition from silence to the first low pulse corresponds to the L/DMAX AOA — your best lift-to-drag ratio (~50% fractional lift). In an engine-out scenario:

  • Fly to the boundary between silence and the first low pulse
  • That's your best glide angle of attack — maximum distance per foot of altitude lost
  • Hold this while you set up for an emergency landing
  • The tone doesn't change with weight — at any weight, the best-glide AOA is the same, even though the best-glide speed changes

Unload for Control

"Unload for control" is the fundamental principle for maintaining positive aircraft control near the aerodynamic limits. If the wing approaches its maximum lift capability and no corrective action is taken, the airplane will stall. To unload simply means to reduce the wing's lift demand by decreasing angle of attack and load factor.

An airplane cannot stall at zero G. Any reduction in load factor reduces stall speed. At half a G, stall speed is approximately 70% of the 1G stall speed.

When you hear the stall warning:

  1. Ease forward pressure — this is the primary recovery action
  2. Add power — thrust helps offset drag and supports the flight path
  3. Reduce bank angle — less bank = less load factor = less AOA required
  4. Do not pull harder — additional back pressure will drive AOA further past the stall

The AOA tone will respond immediately as you unload — the transition from stall warning to slow pulsing to solid tone confirms your recovery is working. This direct feedback helps avoid the common error of pulling back into a secondary stall.

Go-Around

If you need to go around:

  1. Add full power immediately — this is always the first action
  2. Maintain or slightly reduce AOA — don't pitch up aggressively; let the power accelerate the airplane
  3. The tone will transition from whatever you were hearing toward silence as you accelerate
  4. The rapid transition from approach tones to silence confirms you're building energy and increasing margin
  5. As you retract flaps (if applicable), the tones will momentarily shift because the flap setpoints change — this is normal

Gravity Effect on Approach

When the flight path is below the horizon (as on approach), gravity provides a "gravity assist" — effectively adding to available thrust and helping maintain airspeed. When the flight path is above the horizon (as in climb), gravity works against thrust.

This is why a sudden flare or pitch-up during approach can rapidly deplete energy. The airplane transitions from gravity-assist to gravity-oppose in a few seconds. The AOA tone will shift toward slow (high-pitched) as the airplane decelerates, providing immediate feedback that energy is decreasing.