Jared:
I have to take you on also.
Originally posted by Jared
...gyroscopic precession...
The weight of the propellor is such a small fraction of the total airframe weight that precessive forces are negligible. The WWI planes with rotary engines had a much greater percentage of their total weight spinning, a pilot who ignored precession in one of those often quickly became dead.
Point number 2: I don't think you can call high angle of attack situations abnormal; if you have a landing on the main wheels, you are flying at a high angle of attack. If you descend straight ahead with the airplane perfectly level, you still have a fairly high aoa, depending on the descent angle. Remember that the aoa is the difference between the direction you are going and the direction you are pointed.
And in every instance you note, you are flying at idle power, or a very small amount of power on. P-factor negligible. Normal flight, remember?
point number 3: The critical engine is determined almost entirely as a result of p-factor, since p-factor is what displaces the center of thrust further away from the longitudinal axis of the plane...
Absolutely wrong, sir. The center of thrust is displaced by mounting the engines to either side of the airplane. And if you fly a twin engine out at a high angle of attack you too, will soon be a statistic. Offset thrust, rudder authority, and torque are the determinants of VMC, P-factor has nothing to do with it.
I will admit my 15 degree prop blade angle was a simplification, but it was sufficient to convey the needed information. A real propellor has a blade angle that changes from the root to the tip, since the tip travels a much greater distance per revolution than the root, it needs much less angle to have the same true pitch. If the blade were extended all the way to the root, the blade angle at the root would be 90 degrees regardless of the actual pitch, since the root has effectively zero rotation.
Bill.