I was flying with a friend who is a private pilot today in the 'coupe. We were well under 1400#, since I had already flown for a .7 and didn't top off tanks when I picked him up. We went to 2500' and he set up for slow flight at 65 MPH in smooth air. We were just under 70 MPH, and we went from the full back elevator "mush" with around 200 FPM sink rate into a stall where the right wind dropped. The airplane flew itself out just fine, but we were both surprised because we didn't expect the stall to occur until below 60 MPH. I took the airplane, and the exact same thing happened when I tried it. I called the previous owner, and he explained that when the wing is at a high AOA, the pitot tube is not getting a clean airspeed reading and it is probably reading higher than actual airspeed. He said he's had the airpeed checked by another airplane flying formation off his in normal flight, and it agreed within a couple MPH. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced this. Next flight I plan to log the actual observed stall speeds and pencil them into my operations manual.
Thanks, Dave
