Aviator90 Episode 17

[music]

Chris Palmer: [0:31] Welcome to another episode of Aviator 90 from Angle of
Attack.
[0:36] Last episode we did the enjoyable point turns, awesome,
useful, but it’s time to move on to something more aggressive. Now,
we will do steep turns. Let me first tell you what we’re going to
do, and then we’ll actually do it.

[0:52] We’re going to pick a heading, start there and do a 360
degree turn at a 45 degree bank angle. We’ll roll out and meet our
initial heading after that 360 degree turn and immediately initiate
a steep turn in the other direction. Sound fun? Well, just wait.

[1:13] All right. So, here we are. During this procedure we’re
going to maintain 2,000 feet, and we will use north as our heading.
So, let’s get right into it here. Roll the wings and get to a 45
degree bank angle, as you can see in the attitude indicator between
those two marks. Now, as you’re in a turn here the way to keep your
altitude is with varying pressure on the elevator. It’s going to
take a lot of back pressure to get your altitude the way you want
it.

[1:45] Now, you don’t want to trim in this situation because once
we roll out on our heading, then it will bubble up, and we don’t
necessarily want that unless we need to get a little altitude back.
I need to get here so I’ll get a little extra lift out of rolling
out, and it’ll start the turn in the other direction because I was
at north.

[2:07] So, here we go again for our next 45. Again, lots of back
pressure. We want to keep that horizon right in the same spot.
That’s really what we’re looking for here. We’re not looking inside
the cockpit. We just want to use the horizon. So, keep it coming
around. It’s going to take a lot of back pressure and try to stay
right there at that 45 degrees bank. We don’t need any more than
that. You can use less if you need to get your altitude back. Here
comes north again, so we will roll out.

[2:40] The cool thing about steep turns is the fact that it’s
pretty aggressive. It gives us that feel for the situations where
we may need to be a bit more aggressive in the turn because usually
what I’ve taught you to do is just a nice, smooth, standard rate
turn, but there are instances where you’ll need to use a steep
turn. And you’ll need to be used to it because it’s a lot
different.

[3:06] If you want to keep going and try more of the steep turns,
go right ahead. I know initially it’s pretty difficult to keep that
horizon and get used to the feeling of the pressure that you need
to put on the yoke for the elevator. So, feel free to practice
more. It’ll definitely help out a lot in your future aviation
travels.

[3:27] For now, we are done. This is just a simple and fun maneuver
that I like to do often and you guys should, too. Next time we will
discuss the all too feared stalls. It’s an important episode, so
don’t miss it.

[3:41] Until next time, throttle on.

Transcription by CastingWords