Originally posted by AquaShrimp
But for those of us who aren't, we can clearly see what is happening in the video.
Dude, that's retarded.
"we can clearly see" is ALWAYS what the ignorant say when talking out of their anus. It doesn't matter if it's a congressman talking about the intertubes or a self-proclaimed aviation safety expert talking about a go around after an aborted landing, it's still nonsense. Half of what I do in my job can be, and has been, mis-interpreted by civilians, pilots and pedestrians alike, simply because although they "clearly see" something I do, they lack the background or actual knowledge to properly interpret what they are in fact seeing. They see but do not actually perceive the truth or context so the conclusions they reach are quite incorrect in spite of clearly seeing whatever it is they saw.
The only thing you can "clearly see" in that video is that the pilot let the wing get pretty damn close to the ground because he began a fairly aggressive turn before climbing very much. That's it. Any speculation about the airspeed is just that, speculation. In my opinion (having flown somewhat more than 4 types of light aircraft) the speed looks just fine, but I would not venture a guess as to how close the plane was to stall speed. I will offer the observation that the plane did not appear to wallow, it's pitch, roll, and yaw rates were consistent with fully controlled flight well above the stall (remember, I TEACH stalls and spins for a living) and although the turn appears to have been made at a stupidly low altitude, it was in fact done in VFR which essentially leaves it up to the pilot as to when to make his first turn on a climbout.
Again, it looks like it was a stupidly low turn, but wild speculation about airspeeds and equally wild accusations and protestations of some sort of expert knowledge is pretty dumb.
IMHO.
