What’s the absolute minimum speed a plane has to go for it to stay in the air?

Question

What’s the absolute minimum speed a plane has to go for it to stay in the air?

In: Physics

Answer 1

For light prop planes, it’s around 45 knots IAS, and it goes up from there. You can look this up for almost any plane, and it’s called the *stall speed*. If you go slower than the stall speed, your wings lose laminar flow and stop acting like airfoils.