Originally Posted by
Genghis the Engineer
Which is why in a full research programme we need to include a reaction delay, and assess the ease of maintaining the best speed and bank angle, and ease of stall avoidance, and the overall pilot workload. With other things.
But, at a first look, what N did was show that Rogers' figure of 45 degrees bank angle for minimum height loss per degrees of turn seems to be correct. That in itself is a useful conclusion because it gives a bank angle that *probably* should be used by a pilot who is sharp enough and positioned well to fly a turnback. It is however only a part of a much bigger problem.
G
I am not sure I agree with you as to the value of another formal test program as quite a bit of research both theoretical and practical has already been done on this subject. The universal conclusion does seem to be 45 deg bank at min flying speed is the most efficient flight path.
An unexplored and IMO equally interesting scenario is the best way to do a turnback with say 1/3 available power, not enough to sustain level flight but enough to greatly reduce your sink rate. Off the top of my head my thought would be a teardrop with an initial 45 degree turn to one side followed by a 225 degree turn back to final with lower bank angle (30 deg ?) which would reduce the sink rate in the turn would be best. The 225 deg turn could be modified if you were too high (what I believe would be a likely outcome) by extending the flight path through the runway centre line and then turning back in.
Thoughts ?