Orientation has a lot to do with how we control, or fail to control, our aircraft. Consider the excellent poem, "High Flight." What is the orientation? Consider the admonition, "There is no difference in upwind or downwind turns. What is the orientation?

What is the effect on pilot control and wind management if his/her orientation is flight at high AGL altitude? Does the level turn about a point training maneuver teach wind management or just bank angle control? Does the S turn across a road maneuver teach wind management or just bank angle control? Do arbitrary left turns in the pattern, with no consideration of the danger of the downwind turn, teach wind management or just bank angle control?

Does our high AGL altitude orientation and lack of wind management to control our ability to safely put the aircraft where we wish in reference to the terrain contribute to loss of control accidents?

Wind management, with relation to turns, is a dying art in the ag world. I think that the downwind turn danger is misplaced, it’s more a matter of returning to the target/swath with a lack of wind management. When making the downwind pass and exiting the field in a heavily loaded piston plane, you’re often behind the power curve as is and off the step. If you begin making the turn without thinking about wind management and instead relying on muscle memory, you’ll end up 500 ft past your line and start cranking on it to get back, getting into a stall/spin similar to the base-to-final turn. Turning downwind didn’t get you into this bad situation, the lack of wind management did.

Turbines have the power to pull you through safely in many turns, but complacency kills. You’ll be a smoking hole without wind management in a piston plane, and it seems like many of the guys getting in now merely see the piston time as a stepping stone to a turbine, and never take the time truly master energy management.

I really have to be the downwind turn Nazi with the young guys when the wind gets over 12 or so and they continue race tracking. Every other turn they basically have to P turn anyway. I can't get them to manage both computer and wind and tell the Satloc to go to back and forth swaths.

Any ground reference work should start from the downwind border and work toward the upwind border making every turn upwind at the slowest groundspeed and smallest radius of turn.

Yes, no wind is a bitch that can hurt maneuvering flight ability.

CenterHillAg is talking about those uncomfortable times when, because of the much longer run possible N-S say verses E-W, and the wind is from the north or south, we elect to make swaths upwind/downwind. The downwind turn is more than twice as difficult as the upwind.

When field shape (squarish), round pivot, or multiple fields with Satloc, make working crosswind from the downwind border to upwind border possible, that is safest. The simple reason is that we can turn a bit downwind, coming out of each swath, and teardrop or P turn back upwind to the next swath run fifty feet upwind. If we turned left into the crosswind this time, next swath we will turn right into the crosswind. This is the old standard for crosswind back and forth from the downwind border to upwind border.

What happens in a race track pattern, in just one or in multiple fields, is that every other turn will be the flatter, wide, P turn all the way back around. Every other turn will be the dangerous downwind turn. This is not just the downwind standoff, more in no wind and as little as nothing in a strong wind.

With this slight "fall off the target downwind," we can teardrop back around safely, 90% of the return to target being upwind. This makes return to target possible even in no wind. With significant crosswind, the 50' diameter return to target is entirely possible. No, it is not a high load factor level turn. It is a 1g turn using wind management and energy management..

Why non crop duster, non air to ground gunnery pilot, and now even the young crop duster cannot see the amazing beauty of both energy management and wind management is beyond me. It is truly a thing of beauty ever bit as much as high flight.

Turning to a target makes us aware that we are using contact flying skills and should factor wind management into our maneuvering.

Turning to heading, either flying by reference only to instruments or by integration of contact and instrument skills, may distort our wind management or even completely disrespect it.

The myth of the downwind turn completely disrespects wind management. We can certainly arrive at a reciprocal heading by turning either direction. Disrespecting wind management, when between a rock and a hard place, can put us into the downwind rock when an energy management turn toward the upwind hard place can work out just fine.

"In" the mountains, a turn to heading can easily result in CFIT.

Anticipation of the need, or possible need, to turn is important in both energy management and wind management. We need to stay ahead of the airplane. If we have kinetic energy in airspeed, it is a dangerous waste not to pitch up a bit to slow down and increase altitude prior to the no backpressure 1g turn. It is also a dangerous waste of wind energy not to be as close as possible to the downwind ridge.