Steep turns - visual technique
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Steep turns - visual technique
Just wondering when you do steep turns (at 45 and 60 degrees AoB), do you look at actual engine cowling in reference to the horizon? Or do you look at where the edge of the glareshield (dashboard) intersects the horizon?
Reason I ask is that I'm kinda tiny and can't quite see the engine cowling from where I'm seated in the C172 cockpit so I've been looking at the glareshield intersection with the horizon. Is this correct technique or should I be looking at the aircraft's attitude from the engine cowling?
Reason I ask is that I'm kinda tiny and can't quite see the engine cowling from where I'm seated in the C172 cockpit so I've been looking at the glareshield intersection with the horizon. Is this correct technique or should I be looking at the aircraft's attitude from the engine cowling?
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If that's working for you then stick to it! Make sure you always sit at the same height in that type of aircraft and I can see no problems. As it stands, if you can't see the cowling then you can't see it...perhaps you should try sitting on some cushions or something as perhaps you need a better view anyway (notwithstanding the steep turns) if you can's see the cowling.
Beet.
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Doesn't matter what you are looking at as long as you have a visual reference rather than instruments - they (altimeter and AI/ball) will confirm you have the correct attitude but once that is set you must be looking out. The top of the dashboard is just fine.
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All suggestions above are spot on. I remember, many years ago, even before I earned my instructor's rating a new member joining us with the intention of learning to fly. He was Polish, his English was not brilliant, had long, greasy hair and was mad, mad keen. We nicknamed him "Pete the Pole" or "Pete the Pilot" and he made rapid progress. This was until he got to the circuit - he just couldn't land it! He tried and tried, hour after hour and was literally in tears. Then his instructor had a brainwave and put him on a couple of cushions. He landed it successfully at his first attempt and, three landings later, was on his first solo. It seemed like a mere day or two before he was proudly flashing his brand new PPL!
I would thus deduce that an extra cushion may well enhance the accuracy of your steep turns. I also always advocate a quick glance at the VSI to ensure that the nose is in the correct position as the turn progresses.
P.P.
I would thus deduce that an extra cushion may well enhance the accuracy of your steep turns. I also always advocate a quick glance at the VSI to ensure that the nose is in the correct position as the turn progresses.
P.P.
In my early training--- which began during the summer---the haze was soooooo thick that I never once had a horizon-EVER--and we were over water-
since we were 'legal VFR' I wasn't violating any thing--as a result ALL of my maneuvers actually on instruments while my CFI --looked out for traffic--and guess what--two things 1. when I did finally have a horizon 60 and 70 degree steep turns were EXTREMELY EASY and my IR proceeded in minimum required time----but my CFI's had alway let me play a bit--
-the moral don't be helpless use your instruments to precisely ascertain the back pressure, attitude, seat -of-pants- and correlate the instrument data with the horizon both primary horizon references --wingtip and ahead---then you'll find it easier---and very intuitive---
sometimes I think of that famous parable from proverbs ---A lazy man says --"there is a lion in the street--I shall be slain"---when I see flight students
PA
since we were 'legal VFR' I wasn't violating any thing--as a result ALL of my maneuvers actually on instruments while my CFI --looked out for traffic--and guess what--two things 1. when I did finally have a horizon 60 and 70 degree steep turns were EXTREMELY EASY and my IR proceeded in minimum required time----but my CFI's had alway let me play a bit--
-the moral don't be helpless use your instruments to precisely ascertain the back pressure, attitude, seat -of-pants- and correlate the instrument data with the horizon both primary horizon references --wingtip and ahead---then you'll find it easier---and very intuitive---
sometimes I think of that famous parable from proverbs ---A lazy man says --"there is a lion in the street--I shall be slain"---when I see flight students
PA
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If you can't see the cowling, probably you are seated to low. That was mentioned before regarding references, but more importantly that would create a blind spot in the forward lookout sector. I think you should get a cushion to be seated higher to improve safety.
Bart
Bart
In my early training--- which began during the summer---the haze was soooooo thick that I never once had a horizon-EVER--and we were over water-
The AI should only be used in visual steep turns to confirm that the estimate of the correct AoB is correct - NEVER continuously to maintain the turn. So, LOOkout first, roll to the visual attitude, a squeeze of rudder and an increase in back pressure, plus a little more power as required to maintain the speed. Then a check of the instruments - altimeter and ball plus a quick check of the artificial horizon to confirm that what you thought was 45 deg actually is (correct as necessary), then maintain the attitude visually. Continue the Lookout, Attitude, Instruments sequence until rolling out of the turn to regain straight and level.
A good thing that JulieFlyGal is clearly being taught correctly and not as woefully badly as Pugilistic Animus obviously was. Sadly, I've also come across people 'trained' by a certain school in the US who couldn't fly a steep turn without an artificial horizon and who had no idea how to recover from a spiral descent...... Yet someone in the USA had passed them on their JAR-FCL PPL Skill Tests...
A good thing that JulieFlyGal is clearly being taught correctly and not as woefully badly as Pugilistic Animus obviously was.
What was I supposed to do "Woe is me the horizon isn't visible I shall cancel and come back next year"--or maybe I could go 500' above the water--like the other schools no --so that I would have been left without options--in case of an engine failure---the natural horizon is the best easiest--and most intuitive of all instruments--and there was no trouble transitioning to it---when it existed and regarding---steep turns---they should have been call sleep turns
planes are easy to me --what can I say---it's the ground I can't quite get
PA
Ill-informed?.............get out !!
BEagle's 2nd para on how to teach the steep turn is spot on.
It's exactly what the Aussie syllabus teaches, and I haven't heard of many QF aircraft spiralling in recently!!
As to what happens in US flight schools - that's for others to answer.
A mate of mine is C&T on turbines and tells me that there are CPL's converting onto them who simply cannot execute a steep turn without losing it.
My own experience is that a % of our PPL's coming up for a BFR are also unable to make a half decent steep turn left without spiralling it.
I think it's happening as a result of an increase in instructing in procedural matters - with a decrease in skills emphasis. You can only do so much every hour.
happy days,
BEagle's 2nd para on how to teach the steep turn is spot on.
It's exactly what the Aussie syllabus teaches, and I haven't heard of many QF aircraft spiralling in recently!!
As to what happens in US flight schools - that's for others to answer.
A mate of mine is C&T on turbines and tells me that there are CPL's converting onto them who simply cannot execute a steep turn without losing it.
My own experience is that a % of our PPL's coming up for a BFR are also unable to make a half decent steep turn left without spiralling it.
I think it's happening as a result of an increase in instructing in procedural matters - with a decrease in skills emphasis. You can only do so much every hour.
happy days,
jcbmack, a somewhat weak first post, I would venture.
Quite how anyone can learn to fly visual steep turns by cheating and using instruments with the school seemingly tolerating the practice is beyond me. They're only cheating themselves and would certainly fail a PPL Skill Test over her if they couldn't fly an accurate, level, 45 deg steep turn.
Quite how anyone can learn to fly visual steep turns by cheating and using instruments with the school seemingly tolerating the practice is beyond me. They're only cheating themselves and would certainly fail a PPL Skill Test over her if they couldn't fly an accurate, level, 45 deg steep turn.
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Steep turns
BEagle has it right. Applied flight by sole reference to instruments is exercise 19, in the JAR syllabus. The briefest reference to instruments during the learning of 'Steep turns' is as BEagle has described.
The instructor should be capable of demonstrating the entry, required angle of bank, maintenance and the recovery to S&L flight accurately for the student who, following a handover, then replicates also VISUALLY.
Flight by the sole use of instruments should only follow instrument training. Continueing any exercise in inappropiate conditions is counter productive and wrong! Lack of spatial awareness is the the greatest cause of many accidents. Spatial awareness must be taught thoroughly and you must be able to see features and the horizon for it to be meaningful.
The instructor should be capable of demonstrating the entry, required angle of bank, maintenance and the recovery to S&L flight accurately for the student who, following a handover, then replicates also VISUALLY.
Flight by the sole use of instruments should only follow instrument training. Continueing any exercise in inappropiate conditions is counter productive and wrong! Lack of spatial awareness is the the greatest cause of many accidents. Spatial awareness must be taught thoroughly and you must be able to see features and the horizon for it to be meaningful.
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I think both sides of this very valid argument are being a bit blinkered.
Beagle is perfectly correct for JAA purposes. The FAA folks are perfectly content for FAA purposes (despite the fact that I disagree with them [my own blinkers]).
I think it comes down to the "reason for the manoeuver"and "what are we trying to achieve".
CAA/JAA suggests the move is a collission avoidance technique and demands it is a VISUAL exercise, flown around the horizon, concentrating on lookout both forwards to the reference and laterally in the direction of the turn. It's why JAA training is happy to roll into the turn whilst making the initial observation - no "clearing turns".
Beagle, not surprisingly, typed it exactly as I was taught to teach it (up to the point of the post turn extra lookout).
The FAA syllabus seems to be more of a "control exrecise" in the manner laid out for them, in writing, in the Practical Test Standards, that says (paraphrasing) lookout turns, 360° of turn at X° AOB, plus or minus 100 feet. That's it.
Indeed, looking up "manoeuvre" in the dictionary gave me
.
There's no "real" requirement to do any other - possibly a function of having boxes to tick (check). Though I am at a loss as to what the exercise was trying to achieve. When, in the real world, would anybody conduct a steep turn in IMC? What's the purpose of the exercise?
Same thing with the JAA "Examiners record" - it has mandatory items listed, if you carry out each one of those, "job done". Then, after a month or two of examiners doing just that, messages start to trickle from the CAA saying "you must do more than just the mandatory stuff" (which suggests to me that more is mandatory????). If you write the bloody form, write what you want us to do.
This may all be a historical misinterpretation of the original intent behind the FAA PTS - but the instructors and examiners are sticking rigidly to it and provided they meet the standard listed in the book, then it's "job done". Just what they have achieved is totally beyond me.
The dogged insistence that if you carry out X amount of lookout turns some time before the manoeuvre guarantees that nobody will fly into your area whilst you conduct the turn without looking out again is beyond me - but the PTS standard has been achieved.
Though how you can carry out a clearing turn to see if it is safe to turn is beyond me, too. Especially as so many of the clearing turns are, themselves, flown with much reference to instruments for the same reason - they've not been trained to turn using the horizon as the primary reference.
It's not for me, BEagle or any other to say whether this is right or wrong. It's yet another cultural difference. It is one that I disagree with - but it not my place to try and change, nor to critice so vehemently on PPRuNe.
It's just different. Same as two pilots logging P1 in a single engine aircraft. How can it be? I disagree with it - but them's the rules in the USA.
Every instructor and every school has "used" the regulatory word at some time in order to achieve a tick in the box for whatever they needed. JAA qualifying cross country flights flown along coastlines because the kid couldn't *really* navigate. I've seen it dozens of times when I used to be at Blackpool doing my own training. Not worth a thing other than getting the guy qualified for issue of a PPL. Same deal, really.
FAA - tested by examiners on VFR navigation up to the first reference point (which is often a known feature) then marked as successful. Then into feature crawling when they get their own licence. Acceptable to FAA, not acceptable to JAA - but doesn't make it WRONG - just makes it different. Different country, different rules. Different requirements to achieve.
Again, I personally don't like it - VFR navigation skills are woeful in FAA land - but they are a GPS culture now, so what does it matter? They achieve THEIR aims and goals.
It is, however, exactly what
me off when FAA instructors are allowed to teach JAA students for the issue of a JAA licence - and I am all for the forthcoming EASA proposal of "if you want to teach it, you must hold it yourself". The instructor is all for being paid to teach it. All for having the student to teach and the hours of airline preparation experience in their logbook - but will not teach what they are being paid to teach - which is NOT FAA.
Last line - I recall a JAA standardised FAA instructor departing to conduct touch and go training with a student. Departed, in a Cessna 152, from a controlled airfield at which he could do the circuits, flew away from an airfield some 15 miles away at which he could do the circuits, flew directly overhead another airfield, 25 miles from departure, at which he could do the circuits and then joined the pattern at another airfield 53 miles from departure in order to teach the circuits.
When asked "Why?" - "Because it gets my cross country time up for my FAA ATP!". Now that's not only a thread drift - it's THEFT.
Beagle is perfectly correct for JAA purposes. The FAA folks are perfectly content for FAA purposes (despite the fact that I disagree with them [my own blinkers]).
I think it comes down to the "reason for the manoeuver"and "what are we trying to achieve".
CAA/JAA suggests the move is a collission avoidance technique and demands it is a VISUAL exercise, flown around the horizon, concentrating on lookout both forwards to the reference and laterally in the direction of the turn. It's why JAA training is happy to roll into the turn whilst making the initial observation - no "clearing turns".
Beagle, not surprisingly, typed it exactly as I was taught to teach it (up to the point of the post turn extra lookout).
The FAA syllabus seems to be more of a "control exrecise" in the manner laid out for them, in writing, in the Practical Test Standards, that says (paraphrasing) lookout turns, 360° of turn at X° AOB, plus or minus 100 feet. That's it.
Indeed, looking up "manoeuvre" in the dictionary gave me
a deliberate coordinated movement requiring dexterity and skill
There's no "real" requirement to do any other - possibly a function of having boxes to tick (check). Though I am at a loss as to what the exercise was trying to achieve. When, in the real world, would anybody conduct a steep turn in IMC? What's the purpose of the exercise?
Same thing with the JAA "Examiners record" - it has mandatory items listed, if you carry out each one of those, "job done". Then, after a month or two of examiners doing just that, messages start to trickle from the CAA saying "you must do more than just the mandatory stuff" (which suggests to me that more is mandatory????). If you write the bloody form, write what you want us to do.
This may all be a historical misinterpretation of the original intent behind the FAA PTS - but the instructors and examiners are sticking rigidly to it and provided they meet the standard listed in the book, then it's "job done". Just what they have achieved is totally beyond me.
The dogged insistence that if you carry out X amount of lookout turns some time before the manoeuvre guarantees that nobody will fly into your area whilst you conduct the turn without looking out again is beyond me - but the PTS standard has been achieved.
Though how you can carry out a clearing turn to see if it is safe to turn is beyond me, too. Especially as so many of the clearing turns are, themselves, flown with much reference to instruments for the same reason - they've not been trained to turn using the horizon as the primary reference.
It's not for me, BEagle or any other to say whether this is right or wrong. It's yet another cultural difference. It is one that I disagree with - but it not my place to try and change, nor to critice so vehemently on PPRuNe.
It's just different. Same as two pilots logging P1 in a single engine aircraft. How can it be? I disagree with it - but them's the rules in the USA.
Every instructor and every school has "used" the regulatory word at some time in order to achieve a tick in the box for whatever they needed. JAA qualifying cross country flights flown along coastlines because the kid couldn't *really* navigate. I've seen it dozens of times when I used to be at Blackpool doing my own training. Not worth a thing other than getting the guy qualified for issue of a PPL. Same deal, really.
FAA - tested by examiners on VFR navigation up to the first reference point (which is often a known feature) then marked as successful. Then into feature crawling when they get their own licence. Acceptable to FAA, not acceptable to JAA - but doesn't make it WRONG - just makes it different. Different country, different rules. Different requirements to achieve.
Again, I personally don't like it - VFR navigation skills are woeful in FAA land - but they are a GPS culture now, so what does it matter? They achieve THEIR aims and goals.
It is, however, exactly what
me off when FAA instructors are allowed to teach JAA students for the issue of a JAA licence - and I am all for the forthcoming EASA proposal of "if you want to teach it, you must hold it yourself". The instructor is all for being paid to teach it. All for having the student to teach and the hours of airline preparation experience in their logbook - but will not teach what they are being paid to teach - which is NOT FAA.Last line - I recall a JAA standardised FAA instructor departing to conduct touch and go training with a student. Departed, in a Cessna 152, from a controlled airfield at which he could do the circuits, flew away from an airfield some 15 miles away at which he could do the circuits, flew directly overhead another airfield, 25 miles from departure, at which he could do the circuits and then joined the pattern at another airfield 53 miles from departure in order to teach the circuits.
When asked "Why?" - "Because it gets my cross country time up for my FAA ATP!". Now that's not only a thread drift - it's THEFT.
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Steep turns
Keygrip
Although I understand the point that you make I don't see the evidence. You qoute (paraphrasing) form the FAA syllabus but does it say steep turns are to be flown on instruments?
A steep turn can be used for collision avoidance, true. In my experience many pilots all too readily use angles of bank in excess of 30 degrees for many reasons. The ability to undertake a steep turn correctly and therefore safely is an important skill.
They may need to use such a technique while undertaking a forced landing, although descending the rate of descent will need to be managed using the skills learned.
Although I understand the point that you make I don't see the evidence. You qoute (paraphrasing) form the FAA syllabus but does it say steep turns are to be flown on instruments?
A steep turn can be used for collision avoidance, true. In my experience many pilots all too readily use angles of bank in excess of 30 degrees for many reasons. The ability to undertake a steep turn correctly and therefore safely is an important skill.
They may need to use such a technique while undertaking a forced landing, although descending the rate of descent will need to be managed using the skills learned.