Coffin Corner Explained With Easy Diagrams!

It’s the narrow window at high altitudes where an aircraft's stall speed and its maximum Mach number—MMO—get dangerously close. Go too slow, and you stall. Go too fast, and you risk exceeding critical Mach, leading to shockwaves, pitch-downs, and potentially losing control.

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As you climb, your true stall speed increases—your wings need more airflow to stay flying in the thinner air. At the same time, the true airspeed needed to hit MMO decreases because the speed of sound gets lower in colder, higher altitudes.

Eventually, these two speeds nearly meet. That tight margin is the coffin corner. In jets like the U-2, it can be as small as five knots between stall and Mach buffet. There's no room for error—and no way you're hand-flying that. You need the autopilot.

So despite the dramatic name, the coffin corner is more about precision than panic. But it’s a fascinating part of jet flight—and one more reason high-altitude flying demands respect.

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00:00 - Introduction
00:11 - What is Coffin Corner?
02:19 - Maximum Mach Operation Speed (MMO)
04:32 - How to Avoid Coffin Corner?
05:17 - Simulator Example
06:47 - Conclusion