Use of rudder in turns
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Making things overly complex for no real reason is a disease of many PPL's and inexperienced pilots. Don't make life difficult for yourself. Get up there and have fun, you'll soon find that discussions like this seem trivial
I've never been a natural pilot, but with an application of good training and plenty of practice, find that one can fly neatly by visual clues and seat of the pants.
Also, Like to look out when doing any turn, as you never know when a glider is coming the other way
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Whats the rudder for then?
My Robin ATL has rudder pedals which are used for taxying, but in flight they just serve as foot rests. No need for rudder in turns as the vee tail keeps the ball in the middle automatically. Must be something to do with a dihedral effect I guess. Rudder useful if needing to side slip however.
My Robin ATL has rudder pedals which are used for taxying, but in flight they just serve as foot rests. No need for rudder in turns as the vee tail keeps the ball in the middle automatically. Must be something to do with a dihedral effect I guess. Rudder useful if needing to side slip however.
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Quote:
In that case you are really miss using the rudder
Hey Chuck
Are you accusing David of being a girlie?
In that case you are really miss using the rudder
Hey Chuck
Are you accusing David of being a girlie?
Hence my interest in the hands-off steep turn technique mentioned in a previous posting. The control tower would make a good central reference point. One hand would be needed to hold the binoculars....
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We use teh rudder to keep the ball in the middle (unless we are intending a slip/skid. Like cornering a car, it is really smooth to anticipate the need for application of control and apply that control in a measure appropriate to maintian control as desired. When you corner a car, you don't wait for it to drift across the centerline before steering, you steer a bit to anticipate the turn and then adjust accordingly.
Today while flying home in my mighty Cessna 150, I was playing at this. If I roll left and right 10 degrees either side of wings level, without touching the pedals, the ball will be 3/4 of a ball diameter out by the first cycle, and more than a whole ball out by the second cycle. If I roll from level to 30 degrees bank with no pedal, the ball will be 1 1/2 ball diameters out before I reach the 30 degree bank angle.
For this reason, as mentioned before, I lead my turns in all cases with pedal. It is noteworthy that my 150 is STOL kitted, so the ailerons are more effective, and the effective dihedral very slightly less. It's a "M" model, so it has the larges rudder of all 150's and is thesame as a 152 in this regard.
My observations of the day... Pilot DAR
Today while flying home in my mighty Cessna 150, I was playing at this. If I roll left and right 10 degrees either side of wings level, without touching the pedals, the ball will be 3/4 of a ball diameter out by the first cycle, and more than a whole ball out by the second cycle. If I roll from level to 30 degrees bank with no pedal, the ball will be 1 1/2 ball diameters out before I reach the 30 degree bank angle.
For this reason, as mentioned before, I lead my turns in all cases with pedal. It is noteworthy that my 150 is STOL kitted, so the ailerons are more effective, and the effective dihedral very slightly less. It's a "M" model, so it has the larges rudder of all 150's and is thesame as a 152 in this regard.
My observations of the day... Pilot DAR
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For some reason many posters think what I got out of Wolfgang Langewiesche's book "Stick and Rudder" book was that one shouldn't use rudder at all when making a turn. This is what I wrote at the start of this thread:
I also always lead into a turn with rudder, not waiting for the ball to do as Pilot Dar has observed. Problem was that I thought the same amount of rudder was needed throughout the turn and as the song goes in Porgy and Bess "It ain't necessarily so".
I see that a bit further on in the book (I'm a slow reader) he has a section which he warns "students are forbidden to read" in which he says that it's not quite so simple and some planes will indeed need at least some rudder throughout the turn, but that in most cases forces cancel themselves so that for practical purposes one can assume that rudder is only needed when the airelons are not central (is that the right word?)
So far I haven't tried this out on an equally awesome Cessna 152.
According to the author one should ONLY USE rudder when ROLLING in or out of a turn - while BANKED the aircraft does not need rudder and in fact use of the rudder causes it to descend and has to be compensated by excessive back pressure.
I see that a bit further on in the book (I'm a slow reader) he has a section which he warns "students are forbidden to read" in which he says that it's not quite so simple and some planes will indeed need at least some rudder throughout the turn, but that in most cases forces cancel themselves so that for practical purposes one can assume that rudder is only needed when the airelons are not central (is that the right word?)
So far I haven't tried this out on an equally awesome Cessna 152.
