Turn Load Factor & Stall Speed Calculator

Tilted lift: in a 45° bank, the wing's lift vector leans 45° from vertical, so its vertical component alone must still equal weight — total lift becomes weight/cos(45°) = 1.41× weight. More lift at the same speed means more angle of attack; the critical angle therefore arrives at a higher speed: Vs×√1.41 = Vs×1.19. The wing stalls at an angle, and load factor buys that angle sooner.

Convergence of every aggravator: slow (margin already thin), low (no recovery room), overshooting final (temptation to steepen the bank — load factor up), and the deadly 'fix' of skidding with rudder instead (the inside wing slows and stalls first, snapping toward the ground). The accelerated-stall math this tool computes is the first domino; the spin geometry is the last.

For the same bank, essentially yes in steady flight — the 1/cos relation governs any constant-altitude-rate turn. The perceived difference is energy: a descending turn can trade altitude for speed margin, a climbing one is bleeding it. What changes the load genuinely is pulling: tightening any turn by hauling back adds g beyond the bank's minimum, and Vs follows the square root upward immediately.

Set personal floors: many instructors teach minimum 1.3×Vs-in-the-turn for pattern maneuvering — at 45° of bank with a 50-kt Vs, that's 1.3×59.5 = 77 kt, eye-opening for pilots who fly 70-kt patterns. Run your aircraft's numbers at 30° and 45° once, memorize the two speeds, and let the steeper one be the never-slower-than-this bell in your pattern turns.