Coffin Corner: How Little Speed Margins Can Lead To Uncontrollable Stalls & Nose-Dives At Such High Altitudes
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The 'coffin corner' is the name for a dangerous flight profile in which an aircraft’s low-speed stall threshold and maximum wing speed converge at extreme altitude. As a jet climbs into lower air density, the airspeed required to generate lift increases, raising the stall speed. At the same time, dropping ambient temperatures lower the local speed of sound. At this lofty altitude, a jet pilot can find themselves trapped in a performance bottleneck where flying just a few knots too slow triggers
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