Hi Flymad,

I guess you meant to reply to me?

I broadly agree with most of what you posted, but I think you missed my point a little.

In a normal symmetrical stall it's common for the stall to develop in one part of the wing before the rest. Full size aircraft designers mostly try for the root to stall first with the stall spreading towards the tip as angle of attack is increased further. In some models the opposite can occur with the tip stalling first. Depends on the design of the wing. So a 'tip stall' can be perfectly symmetrical. You are dead right when you point out that applying aileron, when the tips are close to the stall, will likely stall the tip with the down going aileron. There shouldn't be any full size pilots surprised by this phenomena though, we'll good ones anyway.

'Obviously tip stalls occur when one wing reaches the critical angle before the other'. Nope, that's when an asymmetric stall occurs. Now if the wing is one of those that tends to stall from the tip to the root then obviously one tip stalls first. The resultant difference in lift and drag is far worse than if one root stalled first. And that is an asymmetric tip stall. But not many wings stall tip first so even though one wing will drop it's not a 'tip stall'.

When the wing drops most modellers call it a tip stall but most times it's not, just an asymmetric stall.

For what it's worth I agree totally with the advise to be careful with the ailerons close to the stall and picking up the low wing with rudder is a better idea. Especially for beginners.

But there are plenty of models that will still respond to aileron well into the stall and this is because the tip is still flying, it's the root that has stalled.

Dave H

Who has spent a lot of time at and beyond the stall