Stall Speed

Aerodynamic stall is one of the most safety‐critical performance limits of an aircraft and must be verified by direct measurement early in a flight test campaign. This chapter provides a summary of the theory of aerodynamic stall, including a brief discussion of boundary layer separation, two‐dimensional stall, and three‐dimensional wing stall. A brief overview of analytical approaches to estimating stall speed is provided before turning to flight test techniques. Piloting, data acquisition, and data reduction techniques for stall are discussed, including an example of stall speed measurement for a Cirrus SR20.