I'll start things off...

Let's talk about stalls. Here are a couple terms we might need to know.

A stall is basically when the air around the wing get's screwed up. (my definition) We will go back to that...

Angle of Attack- This is the angle at which the wing meets the on-coming air. Pretend the ground doesn't exist, look at this from the airplanes point of view. Flying straight up would be O degrees angle of attack, not 90. It's measured in degrees...While landing, right before touch down, your angle of attack is usually about 18 degrees assuming you're stalled or just about to stall.

The root of the wing is where it meets the fuselage, or where the two halfs come together. The tip is, well, the tip!

An airplane will stall (screwed up air flow) at a different part of the wing first depending on the wing design. Generally (trying to keep it simple here) a tapered wing wants to stall at the tip. Generally a hershey bar wing, or a rectangular wing like a trainer will stall at the root. What does that mean?

If you look in the books, you will get this definiton of a stall. A stall occurs when the wing meets or exceeds the critical angle of attack (theres that angle of attack thing again!).

The critical angle of attack is the angle of attack at which the air get's screwed up (you stall). The airflow over a wing is normally very smooth (keeping it simple again). As you increase the angle of attack past a certain point, the air seperaess, mixes up, and basically get's screwed up. At this point, you've reached the critical angle of attack. You've stalled!

Keep in mind that you can stall at 100 MPH and stall at 10 MPH. Speed is not a factor, your angle of attack is what matters. If you pull high g's (lot's of elevator!) at high speed, you can meet the critical angle of attack and stall. If you try a really sharp turn at high speeds, you can stall...Got it? You don't stall because you're too slow and you don't stall because you're going up.

So let's get back to your Cap 232...

The Cap 232 is one of the best aerobatic airplanes ever designed, probably more for it's instability than it stability! That's a good thing and a bad thing.

It's got a fairly high wing loading and a tapered wing. As I said before, the tapered wing (for others who want to correct me, I'm trying to keep it simple!!) generally means it wants to stall the tip.

Let's use an example...

You're flying a trainer straight and level and you cut the throttle. You continue to add in up elevator and add in more and more to stay level. Eventually you stall (angle of attack is too high) and it just drops straight forward.

The trainer did that because the wing stalled at the fuselage, so it wanted to drop in the middle.

Let's go back to your Cap now...You're flying straight and level just like the trainer and cut the throttle. You slowly add in more and more elevator to hold your altitude. When you reach that point, the same point that the trainer stalled, your Cap will also stall. Instead of the air getting screwed up by the fuselage now, it get's screwed up on a wing tip. The airflow over the whole wing is sort of screwed up, but REALLY screwed up at the tip. What do you think will happen? Yep...It will DROP that wing. It will want to fall away from the direction you're trying to go (up). THAT is a tip stall. Cap 232's have a reputation for this, because of their wing and many other things. This is why many people hate them, and the same reason they are considered one of the best aerobatic airplanes ever designed.

What's good about this? I'll make another thread so I don't lose all this if my computer decides to quit.