What is stall fight?

Question

I saw a video on youtube which was about stall fight between 2 WW II planes...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64lxIfz3qpw&feature=related

Answer 1

A dog fight between two aircraft at near stalling speeds during which they stall and recover and continue fighting. In the end, the German pilot stalls and his aircraft goes into a spin subsequently crashing into the ground.

Answer 2

Louis: "unaccelerated flight" does not necessarily mean straight and level. In a constant rate climb (or descent), you are unaccelerated.

From NASA.org:

Straight, unaccelerated ascent (climb) or descent (dive).- Figure 119 illustrates the force systems for the cases of an airplane in a straight, constant-velocity climb or dive. It has been assumed that the thrust line lies along the free-stream direction or flight path. The climb or descent angle is given by +y  or -y  [Greek letter gamma], respectively. If the...



[140]

Airplane unaccelerated ascent and descent

(a) Climb, unaccelerated.

(b) Dive, unaccelerated.



Figure 119.- Unaccelerated ascent and descent.

http://history.nasa.gov/SP-367/chapt8.ht...

Answer 3

The airplanes 'stall' or quit flying during the video.

Answer 4

That is when planes are vying to get higher than the other, with airspeed slowing and the wings approaching or reaching a stall.  The airplane capable of slower flight or better stall recovery characteristics can sometimes have an advantage then.

Answer 5

Lets imagine an airplane flying along in level unaccelerated flight.  This means that it is not climbing, descending, getting slower, getting faster, or turning.  In this state, the amount of lift that the airplane is producing is the same as the amount of lift required to keep it in the air.  (This is more or less the weight of the airplane, but for you really technical people there is additional weight on a traditional aircraft design from the tail down forces of the elevator and such.)

When you raise or lower the nose, you are changing the angle that the aircraft is going through the air, which changes the amount of lift produced by the airplane.  By raising the nose, you increase the amount of lift and start to climb.  By producing more lift however, the airplane produces more drag and starts to slow down.    This can be offset by adding more power from the engine(s) if it is available, but at some point you will be at full power so the aircraft will start to slow.  After a short period of time, you end up in another balanced flight situation similar to the first one, but you have a constant airspeed and are climbing instead of staying level.

This process of raising the nose, generating more lift, climbing at a higher rate, and losing airspeed can only go on for so long because in order to produce lift, air must be flowing across the wings!  As you can imagine, if you were to keep raising the nose until your speed reached zero, there would be no air flowing across the wings so you would not be generating any lift!  There are a few airplanes (mainly military) that have enough thrust to keep the airplane in the air without lift, but most airplanes are not capable of this.  In actual practice, as you keep raising the nose, there comes a point where the air moving across the wing drops to the point where it is unable to support the airplane, and due to aircraft design, the nose of the airplane will abruptly drop.  This is the stall, and the speed at which it occurs is the stall speed.  (Again for you techies, this angle is the "critical angle of attack".)  As the nose is lowered, the opposite reaction takes place: speed starts to increase, there is more air flowing over the wings, and lift starts to be developed again.  

The stall fight that you are referring to is when two different airplanes are trying to get as close to this airspeed as possible so that they can out-climb the other one.  They can't actually let it stall though, or they are going to be in trouble because the other guy will still be flying and can simply shoot you down because you are not able to maneuver away from him!

Answer 6

A stall is whenever the angle of attack exceeds the critical angle.

The angle of attack is the angle between the wing and the flight path of the airplane (don't think of it as the angle between the airplane and the horizon). Flight path means the actual angle the entire airplane is flying.

As the airplane tries to climb, it will slow down and produce less lift. As a result, the airplane will climb less and have more of a forward/downward movement relatively.

When the angle between the airplane's travel and the wing exceeds approximately 17 degrees, the airflow over the wing becomes extremely turbulent and lift is loss, while drag increases dramatically.

As a result, the angle of attack is increased even further, as the airplane will now travel downwards while the wings are pointed upwards.

And the airplane loses effective controls and falls like a rock.

This is a stall.