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Edit: It seems that I completely misread what Wikipedia said, disregard this comment.



Over 18k An-2 were produced during the time of 1947-2001. It’s an unusual plane due how old it is and that many are still in operation so general stats should take that into account. It’s well known for being nearly impossible to stall with a stall speed of 30 knots - if it does stall it’ll sink at the rate of a parachute which is still faster than you’d want to hit the ground for a landing. It’s also easy to pick up that speed by dipping the nose. If someone crashes an an-2 by stalling it they had to really work hard to do it. Any pilot that did this would be considered unsafely inept to an almost unimaginable degree.

This article is the first I'm hearing of a Cessna 185 being considered unstallable and I do wonder it that title was picked for engagement. Float planes are extra dangerous with more that can go wrong and less margins for safety.


Wasn't AN-2 the plane where the manual advises that if you need to land and cannot see your landing site, you should fly low and slow and intentionally stall the plane?


I don't know but that would make sense, landing at the speed of a parachute is better than crashing. Not sure on the exact numbers but a parachute sink rate of 5m/s is over the usual landing touch down sink rate of 1m/s. I would guess at that rate there might still be some damage to crew and airframe. If done skillfully I would image it would be possible to trade some forward speed for a slower sink rate right before touchdown to make for much softer landing.


https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/65718/what-make...

There are many ways of totalling a plane beyond a stall.




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