Under Knowledge, students are to demonstrate understanding of the effects of bank angle and groundspeed on rate and radius of turn. Since Skills require maintenance of altitude and airspeed, students are forced into the dangerous load factor involved in steep level turns should much wind be involved. Much wind should be involved. They should be learning how to manage wind energy at low altitude where stall is usually fatal.

In Risk Management, students are to demonstrate the ability to identify, assess, and mitigate the risk of low altitude maneuvering including stall, spin, or CFIT. At 600 to 1,000 feet AGL, they will not avoid the risk nor will they statistically recover from a stall. So how mitigate? Would learning to use wind energy to reduce groundspeed and decrease radius of the turn to a ground target help with getting onto the centerline extended safely. Rather than make dangerous level turns around points and dangerous S turns downwind and upwind of roads or section lines, why not teach students to use wind energy to turn from parallel downwind of the road to exactly down the road in the opposite direction? Allow them to try it from the upwind parallel, and break off to wings level before accelerated stall in the dangerous downwind turn to target. Finally the mitigating factors of reduced airspeed to increase rate of turn and elimination of load factor by allowing the nose to go down naturally in the turn could be included by simply teaching the energy management turn. Only the energy management turn truly mitigates the stall risk in low altitude maneuvering.

I know the school solution is to quit ground reference maneuvering if the wind is strong enough to force more than whatever bank is the limit. That doesn't teach the energy management and wind management necessary to safely maneuver at low altitude. OK student. We will now return to the airport and engage in the very maneuvering flight that we have avoided out here. And we, half the time, will make the very dangerous downwind base to final turn. If this crosswind causes us to need to exceed 20 degree bank will we just continuously go around? Why not make our downwind leg downwind of the runway using good wind management to make the much safer upwind base to final turn? Would that not mitigate the risk and allow limited bank base to final turn?

Happy Mother's Day Ms Pirate, Colonel

Judging by the way many people fly at my home airport, it appears that instructors these days are teaching their students to fly a super-wide (and super-long, but that's another rant!) pattern so they can make their gentle 20º banked turn from base to final, starting 3 miles wide of the runway... Argh!

Yes, inefficiency works if you work really hard at it. Not as safe however.

Student pilot here, and very confused. I would love to know what this stuff means in student pilot terms. Anyone wanna help me out?

FFSchooley,

In the turn about a point you enter downwind so that the first level turn will have to be very steep, in a strong wind, to keep from being drifted beyond a designated downwind boundary. If that turn exceeds 20 degrees for most instructors and examiners, the school solution is to discontinue.

When you get back to the airport with the same conditions and enter downwind behind an old pilot a quarter mile upwind of the active runway, you will see him bank steeper than 20 degrees on both the turn to base leg and the turn to final to keep from being drifted beyond the runway extended centerline. You will also notice that he allows the nose to go down naturally in those steep turns.

How steep can one turn safely? Could we bank 60 degrees without load factor and stall? Yes, if we allow the nose to go down naturally in the turn. The airplane cannot stall by itself, stall requires a pilot pulling back on the stick.

So why are you not taught this in turns about a point and S turns across a road?

In the turn about a point and S turns across a road in lesser wind you are allowed to practice and test in, notice how easy it is to use the turn to prevent drifting off too far downwind and how awkward it is to barely turn part of the way through the upwind portion but have to increase bank significantly to get the wing level crossing the road.

Now try a new drill. Parallel a road or section line one quarter mile downwind, as if you are on downwind leg to a runway. Turn 180 degrees to go down the road the other way maintaining altitude. Next try the same drill on the upwind parallel to the road to see how much more dangerous and difficult it would be to try to maintain altitude. Don't try to maintain altitude. Allow the nose to go down naturally.

It is not the bank exceeding 20 degrees that makes ground reference maneuvers and low altitude maneuvering dangerous, it is the absolutely unnessary pulling back on the stick.

Somewhere we need to learn that the slower we go, the faster our rate of turn. We can reduce power to go slower or climb or turn into the wind. The old pilot above reduced power and allowed the nose to go down naturally in all to be able to make the more dangerous downwind base and base to final turns. It would have been safer to make the downwind leg downwind of the runway, but traffic may not allow that.

Ground reference maneuvers would be more practical if they taught using wind energy, managing wind energy to safely put the aircraft where we wish. Low altitude maneuvering would be safer if we taught that pulling back on the stick, not banking caused stall. Low altitude maneuvering would be safer if we taught that pitching up wings level to slow down is a turn radius reduction trick that works well if we allow the nose to go down naturally in the turn following the airspeed reduction and resultant altitude gain in the zoom.

There are lots of safe maneuvering flight techniques. We just need to get off the airspeed, altitude, and bank restrictions that prevent teaching them. Click my signature box and turn to the chapter on the energy management turn. It is the only truly safe low altitude turn.

Contact

FFSchooley wrote:Student pilot here, and very confused. I would love to know what this stuff means in student pilot terms. Anyone wanna help me out?

FFSchooley, let me see if I can help clear the mystery...

Contact is an old school helicopter / ag / pipeline patrol pilot who made his living "down in the dirt." He also spent a lot of time flying low-powered airplanes in some pretty challenging terrain. He teaches energy conservation techniques that make flying safer, and reduce the chances of entering the dreaded "stall/spin" near the ground. Spending the time to figure out what he means is generally worthwhile... (I have the feeling than the "in person" experience would be a lot more productive. We're missing the hand gestures, etc...)

Jim (Contact) firmly believes (and has convinced me, for one) that the way we teach new students to fly certain maneuvers (and the way those students MUST fly in order to meet the ACS standards for the Private/Commercial flight tests) is not the safest or smartest way for anyone to fly their airplane. In this instance, he's talking about the "turns about a point" maneuver where you are supposed to maintain a constant altitude as you fly a 360º circle around a point on the ground, while maintaining the same distance from the point. It's basically teaching you the effects of wind on the airplane when you're trying to maintain a constant-radius turn. It is supposed to teach you how to maneuver the airplane properly with reference to the ground, such as when you're making your turns in the traffic pattern.

But when you're practicing that maneuver with higher winds, it requires a steeper bank angle to maintain that radius as you go from downwind to crosswind situation. And as you probably learned in your ground school, steep banks increase the G-load on the airplane, which in turn increases the stall speed. Because steep banks and higher g-loads increase the potential for stall/spin accidents, some flight schools will only allow practice of this maneuver in low-wind situations, aborting the training if more than a 20º of bank is required to maintain the distance from the point. This follows the FAA's promotion of "avoidance" training, but has some (likely) unintended consequences, because EVERY flight ends with a landing – even the training flights that are aborted when the winds require bank angles > 20º... (More on that further down..)

But Contact would point out that there are two ways to reduce the g-load in those turns. The way the flight schools (and FAA) emphasize is by reducing the bank angle. That certainly can work, but it means that you're making larger-radius turns. And he would also point out that there are plenty of situations where those larger-radius turns are not a great idea. In backcountry flying, a "canyon turn" is a great example of a time when that nice shallow bank angle could kill you when you hit the opposite canyon wall. But a much more common example is in the ACS for the traffic pattern, where you are not allowed to overshoot the extended runway centerline during your base-to-final turn. And THAT is precisely the point where (A) the effect of a left-quartering crosswind on final would tend to push the airplane out beyond the centerline, so (B) the pilot tends to steepen the bank angle, and (C) the airplane is now in that high-bank, high-g situation. If we then (D) add a bit of uncoordinated turn – perhaps instinctively pressing on the "inside" pedal thinking it will expedite the turn – we're in the absolute perfect setup for the base-to-final Stall/Spin to occur. And that situation kills a lot of pilots every year.

But as Contact points out, there is a second way to reduce the g-load in a turn – simply lower the nose to reduce the g-load. In the traffic pattern, you're already descending... And if you're flying a nice, tight pattern (another thing the flight schools don't teach well these days), losing some altitude in that base-to-final turn is actually a good thing. If you know you're going to have a tailwind on base leg, you can use a steeper bank angle to reduce the radius of your turn, and reduce the g-load by lowering the nose and allowing the airplane to descend instead of adding even more g-load by applying back-pressure to maintain altitude.

And here's where that "turns about a point" and "steep turn" practice, with the focus on maintaining altitude during the entire 360º turn works against you. You've had it drummed into you that you cannot allow the nose to drop during a turn. In fact, every single maneuver you're taught during your training – except for the traffic pattern – emphasizes maintaining altitude during the turn...

So, FFSchooley, you've got a dilemma (as does your instructor, by the way). It is the CFI's responsibility to teach you to fly safely. But he or she also has to prepare you to pass the FAA flight test within the ACS standards. The two are not always aligned, as you can see from the above discussion. But because of the Law of Primacy (that which you learn first is remembered best), when you get into that situation where you're about to overshoot your turn from base-to-final, you're more likely to pull back on the stick as you bank the airplane into a tighter turn, which is exactly the wrong thing to do in that situation...

So what does your instructor do? He or she cancels your training sessions when the winds are above some number that his or her experience tells them will require steeper turns in the pattern. (The no flight in winds requiring more than 20º angle of bank in the pattern reference was probably a bit exaggeration on Contact's part... But only slightly.) What SHOULD they be doing? Well, there probably is some legitimacy in not exposing a brand new student to high winds and gusty crosswinds, but SOMETIME during their training, their CFI needs to allow that exposure and teach the techniques that work.

It is Contact's contention – and I agree with him on this – that many of the maneuvers required to be performed to ACS standards are VERY poor practice for real-world flying. They teach bad habits that are very difficult for pilots to subsequently overcome. And he (and I once again agree with him) believes this results in many injuries and deaths that might otherwise be avoided. We also realize that the FAA is highly unlikely to change their position on this...

You're going to have to learn the FAA maneuvers – to ACS standards – so you can pass your checkride. But maybe also snag a copy of Contact's "Maneuvering Flight" e-book (and one for your CFI) and discuss it with them. Maybe even go out and try some of his techniques in the airplane? Depending on your CFI's age and experience, you might both get something out of it!

Thanks, JP256. You guys who can speak English clearly amaze me. And I do miss the hand and arm signals. Garyowen!

Went up the other day with what I thought was a good plan for practicing the energy management turn. Really wanted to compare with a canyon turn. Seems I don’t quite have it, as with relaxed/released elevator I can at best only get about a 90 degree turn before the dive. I found with a very small amount of back pressure the turn was noticeably better. What am I missing, or is that small amount what is being referred to as relaxed? Thanks Contactflying, as I’ve enjoyed your writings.

I use and teach the energy management turn with every angle of bank. If we have a nearby target we are turning to, or to make the tightest turn possible, we need to pitch up wings level to slow as much as we are comfortable with. The slower we are to begin the turn and the greater the bank angle, the greater will the nose pitch down when we release back pressure in the turn. We can safely take some of that extreme tuck out with light to moderate back pressure. Remember to pull up from the dive wings level.

Shallow to moderate turns require less pitch up, less slowing, and require no back pressure in the turn. All energy management turns, save power reduction descending turns, require planning. We have to anticipate the need to turn to have time to pitch up, which takes a bit longer than power reduction. Low level down pipeline right of way or down rivers is the best way to practice various bank energy management turns. These are turns to target, the right of way or river in the new direction. We should have the target between our legs as we bring the wing level and begin pull up to zoom back to near start altitude.

One of three things are probably happening if we are getting too near the bottom or are getting too fast in the canyon turn back. We may not be pitching up enough, wings level, to slow enough to begin the steep turn. We may not be using lots of rudder to get the nose down quickly and to move the nose around and onto target quickly. In the Stinson you are used to using lots of rudder or the nose goes the wrong way, but dragging the nose around and slipping a bit commonly slows rate of turn. Finally we may be allowing the nose to tuck more than 40 degrees or so down.

I emphasize not pulling back on the stick in all turns because of primacy of doing so is dangerous. No we don't have to dive bomb to prevent stall. We just have to extinguish the level turn primacy and allow the nose to go down naturally initially. The design of the airplane is to regain trimmed airspeed quickly. We need the natural pitch down. In steep turns we don't need to regain trimmed airspeed quickly.

So to be clear, you’re not suggesting skidding the turn to hurry the nose around, correct? But to start the turn with a drop of the nose and then coax it further with some back pressure to complete the turn?

Jim I love you.

All the rest of this post basically is don't pull back. How can Jim do 180 return pushing the nose down and kicking rudder?

It's wing loading. If you pull back you're loading the wing, if you don't pull back you can lay the airplane on its side and it doesn't care. These are the things that are no longer taught and you got to rely on the old school understanding of wing loading. If you push forward or don't pull back the wing is unloaded. You can now do the Bob Hoover coffee roll. This is what's missing in flight training. Contact gets it but it's hard for everybody to understand what he's talking about. If you don't pull back it's impossible to stall. If you don't stall you can't spin. Don't pull back. Is this really so hard?

If you haven't accidentally spun an airplane you need to do it. After you do that you need to intentionally spin it. It's no longer legal but it's the way it should be. Once you do that you will understand wing loading and how to avoid becoming a statistic.

Ken,

Like tbag points out, we are reluctant to mention any back pressure. Yes, we can safely take out extreme pitch down with light back pressure. No, the back pressure is not used to aid the turn much. We must, must level the wing prior, prior to the pull up. The pull up doesn't happen until we have wings level with the target between our legs.

As MTV points out often, internet instruction can be dangerous. All I am trying to do is to get pilots to think origionally about flying, rather than just doing what the test preparation taught them to do. What I am also trying to do is to encourage instructors to teach flying as well as test preparation.

The Socratic method worked for Plato and can be stimulating in aviation. We can safely experiment a bit or even pay a more experienced, not so stuck in primary training concepts, guy to ride with us and help. I fly for food, as do many teachers. But we all need to support active instructors. They can't make a living doing flight reviews. They do it for the love of flying and teaching.

Anyway, Ken, keep at it at a safe altitude where recovery from stall/spin is possible. It is easier to teach safe maneuvering flight techniques down low where, yes, skidding the 30 degrees down nose around is not a problem. I just want to emphasize the safer kids do this at home stuff. Sucking the wing around with lots of back pressure, wing loading, Gs, and rate of turn is dangerous and accounts for a large portion of the fatalities. It is not as cool, but an even better rate of turn is available to those who slow down wings level first and allow the nose to go down naturally in all turns. Better and safer.

Contact

Okay! Thanks for all the replies. I think that helps with the finer points I was looking for. Back to the skies to try some more.

FFSchooley ,
Please do yourself a favor and get Jim’s free book by clicking on the link at the bottom of his post and then go back and read (and reread ) every post he has ever written on this great site until you understand what he has written to help all of us stay alive while flying close to the ground .

Communicate with him and others here that “get it “ . If like myself , you will be very thankful for the valuable , lifesaving hard learned knowledge that they will share with you . I think that you will have a lot more fun and confidence with your flying if you can learn what Jim (Contact ) and other like minded pilots with real life experience here are willing to share .

All, thank you for the info and clarification. It’s super helpful and it does make sense now. I have Jim’s book and have read it and will continue to read it. Yes, I understand that my instructor will be teaching me to pass the check ride. And yes, I understand that after completing my instruction, I then have a “second phase” of training if you will, where I go out and learn all this other stuff, how to actually fly, how to apply it all to real world situations, etc...
It’s unfortunate that the FAA required training is a bit off from what most would want it to be, however I’m used to this in my occupation. When your a new firefighter, you have to learn to fight fire per “the book,” and then once your done with your basic training, we take you out and teach you the real world stuff. You become a life long student in the process.
So I will take that mindset with me, learn the basics my instructor teaches me knowing that a large portion of it is geared to pass a test, and then once it’s said and done spend a whole lot more time getting instruction on more of this type stuff.
Thank you all for the help, I really appreciate it!

As to encouraging the FAA to change it's thinking on maneuvering flight, the very poor low altitude fatality statistics are beginning to make incredibly slow movement. When I started posting here I used some uncommon terms like energy management in my explanations. While the school solution is 99% identical to the old PTS, many terms associated with maneuvering flight are in the new ACS. And while Risk Mitigation may still be avoidance in many minds, creative young instructors can use those terms as a work around justifying safe maneuvering flight techniques.

As I have stated in other posts, these techniques are not difficult. They are just different. They did not hamper the speed of completion of zero time students I soloed after six hours of this very same stuff. They found the three hours of test prep with an instructor who could toe the line adequate to pass the test.

JP256 mentioned that instructors now teach super wide and super long patterns that allow 20 degrees or less banks regardless of the wind. That would make a level base to final turn three to five miles from the airport common. That would make the dangerous downwind base to final turn seem less dangerous. I have been watching u-tube videos of fatal accidents and yes, they are way out and 1,000' when they stall. No they don't recover. Rather than allowing the nose to go down naturally, they fall (not fly) to the ground.

Meybe we should teach students to try to hit the ground in all turns in the pattern. Pilots, high time or low time, are amazed that they can safely turn crosswind before the end of the runway. An energy management turn to crosswind , after acceleration in low ground effect to cruise airspeed followed by a zoom to reduce airspeed to slower, Vy if you like, is entirely comfortable. Do I want students to turn before the end of the runway? Runway extended at 400' AGL is fine. Just allow the nose to go down naturally in the turn.

Try to hit the ground? Sounds crazy doesn't it. But, if it would lower the fatality rate? Look at the videos, the struggle to get up, the struggle to stay up, up, up, up, and then the stall and the fall. Wouldn't a gentle dive to the ground be better. Meybe just not try to stay up in the turns.

Quick follow up question. I understand this concept, it seems simple, and makes sense to me. So far as I fly the pattern, I am descending anyway and haven’t needed to add any elevator as I turn base and final. (maybe with all this reading, I am just naturally letting the nose fall?) I am confused when I hear what other students are learning as it seems soo counter-intuitive. Another concept I have been taught is minimum maneuvering speed. (1.4 x my aircraft’s stall speed.) if all my turns In the pattern are above MMS, then In theory I shouldn’t stall as I make my pattern turns. If I become slower than my MMS, I should employ an energy management turn and let the nose fall. Hope I got this right?

I like the minimum maneuvering airspeed technique. It does require looking at the airspeed indicator or developing aural and kinetic feel for a bit of zoom reserve. No, it will not protect you from a rapid accelerated stall if you come unglued. Muscle memory with the energy management turn is all that will cover any degree of bank. Your minimum maneuvering airspeed is too slow for 70-90 degrees of bank. Unless upset, you will probably never go there.