[music]

Man: [0:31] Welcome back my aviating companion to another episode of
Aviator 90 from Angle of Attack.
[0:38] Today we are going to discuss point turns, which build upon
S-turns which we did last episode.

[0:44] First, what is a point turn? Well, it’s really simple. It’s
basically all visual, and we are simply choosing a landmark, say, a
tower, and we are going to circle around it.

[0:56] Now, this may sound simple, but we’ll need to compensate for
wind, continually adjust our bank angle and maintain altitude
without really focusing in the cockpit, or, with our eyes forward.
This can be a task, but it is a lot of fun. So let’s jump right in
and try it out.

[1:14] First, we want to pick a landmark. There’s a radio tower
right over here that looks quite nice. So, let’s set a course to
intercept that. Now we want to circle just under a mile out or your
typical runway length. And the closer you are to the object, the
greater the bank angle it will take to turn around it. So if you’re
too far away, it will be a very long process. So we want to be
somewhere in between.

[1:41] So here we are coming up on the tower. You can see it right
over the airspeed indicator right now. There are some strobes on
the top and they’ll peek around here. We’re going to use the left
one. It’s a little bigger. And that way, it will just be a little
easier to visualize this.

[2:02] So, I’m starting about a mile out. And it will take practice
to kind of figure out how far away you need to be – just one sec
here.

[2:22] If you start about half way down the strut on the wing it
will work well.

[2:26] So, here we are. We start the turn. And basically what you
want to do, is you have a few seconds to adjust here. Now, you want
the point that you’re pointing at to have everything else revolve
around it. So, if you kind of look at the terrain out of the corner
of your eye, you can see everything is rotating around that tower.

[2:54] And now we’re moving in closer. So, if you want to move
closer to the tower or whatever landmark you’re using, you’ll
increase your bank angle. And if you want to move away from it for
any reason, say your bank angles are just too steep, you can
shallow out your turns.

[3:24] Also, you’re going to need to increase your bank angle when
the wind is trying to push you away from that landmark. So, right
now I’m actually shallowing out my turn because the wind is trying
to push me toward the landmark. And I don’t want that; I want to go
just the same distance.

[3:45] And you’ll see, once I get on the other side here, I’m going
to have to start increasing my bank angle again. That’s because the
wind is coming from the other direction, basically to our left
right now.

[4:04] So, like I said before, we basically want everything
rotating around this landmark we’ve chosen. And we also want to
attempt to maintain an altitude at the same time. Now, this is
really difficult in Flight Simulator because you can’t really feel
the airplane climbing or descending which is basically your best
indication in this maneuver, when you have to do it.

[4:37] So here we are, I’m going to – I’m getting a little too
close to the tower. So, I’m going to shallow out my turn a little
bit.

[4:46] We’re still basically rotating around it but I’m just moving
further away from it now. And that way I can get this maneuver to
be a little more manageable.

[5:10] So, now I can start increasing my bank angle because I’m at
that distance that I want now. I’m just making adjustments until,
once again, everything is rotating around that point.

[5:23] Now, it’s important to keep in mind that although you are
rotating around that point, it’s not always going to look the same.
You can’t really necessarily measure it from somewhere on the wing
strut or think it’s going to be somewhere at a perfect place under
the wing visually. Because it could be very low, say halfway,
between the wing strut and we’d still be rotating around it. So,
just make sure that you’re doing a bank angle that is great enough
and not too shallow and that will help out.

[5:59] All right, so as you can see those are actually really
helpful. So, for an extra challenge, you can try it even closer in
or you could try it in the landing configuration or just some
different things to mix it up.

[6:13] Also, it’s important to note that you shouldn’t get in the
habit of always doing it in the same direction. You’ll have a
natural ability to do this maneuver one way or the other. So, it’s
probably best to work on the side that you aren’t that good at if
that makes sense. So it’s always great to just challenge your
shortcomings.

[6:32] All right, this was a great episode. I had a great time and
I hope you guys did as well. Next time we are going to do one of
the funnest of all the maneuvers, in my opinion, and one of the
more challenging, which is steep turns.

[6:47] Until next time, throttle on.

Transcription by CastingWords