Contactflying, let me see if I can try to fully understand what you are describing...

We are headed into a dangerous canyon on a heading of north (magnetic or geographic irrelevant here).

We need to turn around and get out of the canyon (to the south) using your energy management turn.

We pull up into a zoom climb, trading speed for altitude, and the unload the airplane so there are no G loads on it. Essentially at this moment we have several seconds of low- or zero-G flight in a ballistic arc.

In this unloaded (and stall-proof) condition, we initiate an aileron and rudder roll. Because we are not using wing lift to turn the airplane off the northerly course, it seems that we are relying solely on the aerodynamic force from the rudder to yaw the aircraft from northerly to southerly.

Because the ailerons have rolled the airplane from level to a steep bank, the rudder input (with help from gravity) is also lowering the nose far below the horizon. Because we have not used any wing lift to "pull" the aircraft around through a tight turn, the rudder alone has pretty much only changed our course 45 degrees from northerly.

(hopefully I am completely incorrect here, because...) At this stage we have a nose down attitude, descending rapidly, but the nose of the aircraft is not pointed out of the canyon, the nose is only 45 degrees off of north.

What I'm not getting is what physical force turns the aircraft from heading north to south, if you are not using the lift force from a tilted wing to change the heading?

I KNOW that you can finally pull back on the stick once you are safely diving out of the canyon, heading downhill and southbound. What I am not getting is the middle 50% of this maneuver between the initial zoom climb and the safe exit.

I'm sincerely trying to fully understand the physics being used to change direction.

EZFlap wrote:Contactflying, let me see if I can try to fully understand what you are describing...

We are headed into a dangerous canyon on a heading of north (magnetic or geographic irrelevant here).

We need to turn around and get out of the canyon (to the south) using your energy management turn.

We pull up into a zoom climb, trading speed for altitude, and the unload the airplane so there are no G loads on it. Essentially at this moment we have several seconds of low- or zero-G flight in a ballistic arc.

In this unloaded (and stall-proof) condition, we initiate an aileron and rudder roll. Because we are not using wing lift to turn the airplane off the northerly course, it seems that we are relying solely on the aerodynamic force from the rudder to yaw the aircraft from northerly to southerly.

Because the ailerons have rolled the airplane from level to a steep bank, the rudder input (with help from gravity) is also lowering the nose far below the horizon. Because we have not used any wing lift to "pull" the aircraft around through a tight turn, the rudder alone has pretty much only changed our course 45 degrees from northerly.

(hopefully I am completely incorrect here, because...) At this stage we have a nose down attitude, descending rapidly, but the nose of the aircraft is not pointed out of the canyon, the nose is only 45 degrees off of north.

What I'm not getting is what physical force turns the aircraft from heading north to south, if you are not using the lift force from a tilted wing to change the heading?

I KNOW that you can finally pull back on the stick once you are safely diving out of the canyon, heading downhill and southbound. What I am not getting is the middle 50% of this maneuver between the initial zoom climb and the safe exit.

I'm sincerely trying to fully understand the physics being used to change direction.

I would say that simply it is gravity and your tail, not just your rudder from here until you level your wings. You are falling out of the 1st half of your turn. Maybe wrong, but I think that is what is finishing your turn!

EZFlap,

You will have to ask a better aerodynamics guy than me. Robert Reserve, author of "How to Fly Airplanes, " explains that part much better than me. I will attach his working copy I edited, with his permission. Email me at [email protected].

The shallow energy management turn, as in soyAnarchisto's video with me, feels the same as a very steep gunship return to target or a very steep crop duster turn.

From a pilot's point of view/feel, we just seem to need to stand on the rudder in the steep turn. I was constantly telling Ag students to push that nose around. We are always concerned with getting the nose on target and level the wing before putting the down wing into a wire or terrain.

The energy management turn is easier to fly than explain. Once comfortable with it, we find steep, level turns to be ridiculous.

Contact

This...

M6RV6 wrote:You are falling out of the 1st half of your turn.

No possible way to guess how many high performance turns I did over corn or soybeans in the last six weeks... wait....well ya there is... something on the order of 14,700... don't think I found the need to 'pull' my way around one (unless I really screwed the pooch somewhere).

Many, many guys do pull there way around the turns in Ag.... it is always easy to spot them.. they are the ones too wore out to do anything after flying a long day

I will say, that in night ag, it is more common for people to pull there way around a turn... That's cause guys don't want to get high enough that their turn lights won't reach the ground... do it long enough and you end up not so dependent on the turn lights, and you go back to 'coasting' a little higher and 'falling' back to your line...

Take care, Rob

I thought this was interesting to see the techniques preformed from inside the cockpit.

contactflying wrote:...You are correct about the slope toward the bottom nature of ridge/valley systems in the mountains. That is why the target, in the energy management turn, should be the bottom of the valley. Neither the opposite ridge nor the slope down from that ridge should be the target. The danger of a stall is far greater in a medium bank level or climbing turn than in a zero load turn of any bank. We do not have to pull back on the stick in any turn. ...

I'm not a big fan of saying always or never, very few things in life are written in stone and unaffected by circumstances.
I understand targeting the bottom of the valley, unfortunately depending on your surrounding terrain you might have to be at least halfway (or more) through your 180-ish degree turn before you can let the nose drop to do that. I can see where in some circumstances a "zoom climb" combined with a nose-dropping turn (aka "hammerhead") might be the way to go. Just starting a turn and letting the nose drop immediately (aka "energy management turn", or "one gee turn") isn't always doable if the terrain doesn't cooperate.

hotrod180 wrote:

contactflying wrote:...You are correct about the slope toward the bottom nature of ridge/valley systems in the mountains. That is why the target, in the energy management turn, should be the bottom of the valley. Neither the opposite ridge nor the slope down from that ridge should be the target. The danger of a stall is far greater in a medium bank level or climbing turn than in a zero load turn of any bank. We do not have to pull back on the stick in any turn. ...

I'm not a big fan of saying always or never, very few things in life are written in stone and unaffected by circumstances.
I understand targeting the bottom of the valley, unfortunately depending on your surrounding terrain you might have to be at least halfway (or more) through your 180-ish degree turn before you can let the nose drop to do that. I can see where in some circumstances a "zoom climb" combined with a nose-dropping turn (aka "hammerhead") might be the way to go. Just starting a turn and letting the nose drop immediately (aka "energy management turn", or "one gee turn") isn't always doable if the terrain doesn't cooperate.

Correct. There are just too many variables in the mountains to suggest this technique is the "best" for all circumstances. First of all, why are you there in the first place......a cloud cover which forced you to fly down in the canyon? Rising terrain, where the bottom of the canyon is creeping up on you? Or, you're just hooting around down in a canyon and turned up the wrong canyon? Or.....????

I teach level turns, as do most of the folks I know who teach this stuff. A level turn means you can turn in the bottom of a canyon, or....wherever. A level turn means you're not relying on the ability to "zoom climb" or "hammerhead" where a cloud layer could preclude such operation. If the opportunity to descend presents itself in the scenario you're in, go ahead and descend in the turn, but a properly executed level turn will get you turned around in minimum distance in most any set of circumstances.

As with any performance maneuver, this stuff needs to be practiced, and practiced in any airplane you fly in the mountains. Different airplanes may require slightly different procedures. Get with an instructor who's experienced in mountain flying to hone the skills.

For twenty years I flew Dall Sheep surveys in central Alaska. Most of my flying career involved flying in mountainous terrain or flying through mountainous terrain to get where I needed to work.

Maneuvering in the mountains is not rocket science, but by far the most important skill is to learn to stay OUT of places where you may have to execute a maximum performance turn.

MTV

CC's canyon, or energy management, turn to target was just as I teach. I don't bother with the flaps which means the zoom climb will be higher and take a bit longer.

It is amazing how good techniques are good techniques regardless of the continent we are on. Of course we who tout them loudly take some flack. I think CC, as Caesar said of his enemies in Gaul, is inure to the bog.

MTV is right, as always. I'm teaching mostly to young pups who, like a young Contact, tend to get themselves between a rock and a hard place.

I'm all for learning better ways to fly...god knows I'd benefit from a few. And I like a theoretical discussion as much as the next guy. And I really enjoy contactflying's submissions and learn a lot from them, so this isn't any sort of snub or disagreement. But the silly part of the "canyon turn" debate is this:

For a backcountry pilot, if you've allowed yourself to fly into a situation where you need something other than a level, coordinated turn to keep from flying into terrain or clouds, then you've already made a series of very significant mistakes which you may not be able to recover from. The PROPER time to act has long passed, and while a better turn might save your life, it should have never, ever gotten to that point. No level of skill will adequately compensate for poor judgement.

Always be in a position to turn towards descending terrain, and always have a pre-planned escape route.

Turn around as soon as you begin to question either of those, and a level, coordinated turn is all you'll ever need.

I go out and practice minimum-radius turns every now and again, using a variety of techniques. Looking at the GPS track it's amazing just how tight you can turn a airplane. But all that is very academic. The idea that I'm going to pull one of those maximum-performance turns with a full load, in thin air, with my wife sitting next to me and treetops and jagged rocks getting closer and closer...well if it comes to that and I make it out OK then I'll have to seriously reconsider whether I have the simple judgement necessary to continue flying.

What a crop duster or fighter pilot does every day is very impressive, but they do it EVERY DAY, in aircraft designed for the maneuver, and they set out to do just exactly that. When they climbed out of bed that morning they knew they were going to be making high-performance turns low to the ground.

Even if they know the mechanics of the maneuver and have practiced it, Jo Six-Pack thinking he's going to execute a high performance turn in a Cessna or Piper or whatever, on short notice, with certain death as the consequence for failure, is fantastically unrealistic.

Don't get into that situation in the first place if you want to live a long life.

Now back to the theory of minimum-radius turns...

Very good points by MTV and Hammer. Had I never flown pipeline, I probably would never have written "Contact Flying. " It was on the pipeline, not air to ground gunnery or Ag, that I found energy management to be so much more comfortable for shallow turns as well as steep.

It goes back to indoctrination and iterations. We crop duster and pipeline patrol pilots feel for you, but we understand.

Here is a short clip of the control inputs of an energy management turn. You can see after the initial pull up over the trees, there is very little if any back stick used through out the turn. Pull up, as you slow down roll into the turn, the nose drops, roll out when ready. As the plane accelerates the nose comes back up. The whole manoeuvre is coordinated and well above stall speed.

https://youtu.be/YaH3ckluFWk

This one shows front view of a similar turn. Remembering that I have to turn onto the next run, not just turn as tight as possible. Sorry about the crappy phone video.

https://youtu.be/rn8LtYlItsk

EZ, this is not a 0 or negative g manoeuvre, you're just not pulling back hard, loading up the wings.

And fwiw I'm 100% with MTV and Hammer.

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I use them a lot when low and slow for the reasons Contact describes, and because I grew up flying with my cropduster uncle and never realized there was anything unusual about turning that way. I especially like energy management turns when flying low down the river because it gives you a chance to pop your head up and check for other planes, wires, and such, and it gives you a chance to see what's around the next bend before you commit.

Would I use that turn in a canyon? Probably, if it was appropriate for the circumstances. I dont see anything wrong with turning around in a canyon when its within your abilities, and you've planned for it...But getting stuck in a canyon and having to make an unplanned turnaround is up there with running out of gas on the Darwin scale and is something to be avoided.

I think that we can all agree that having to make a maximum performance energy management turn to extricate ourselves from whatever situation we've put ourselves in while in the canyons and mountains is evidence that we've gone too far, that for some reason we're behind the airplane. For myself, I prefer to get turned around and out of there, long before it becomes critical. To that end, although I can do a maximum performance energy management turn because I've practiced them, I've never had to do one, i.e., it wasn't a necessity. I'd just as soon never have to do one.

Cary

Cary,

Try shallow energy management turns to distant targets.

Jim

contactflying wrote:Cary,

Try shallow energy management turns to distant targets.

Jim

I have. I'm certainly not saying anything against them, just that if it's necessary to use them, whether shallow or steeply banked, it usually means that the pilot has gotten behind the airplane. Not that it couldn't happen to me; it just hasn't, at least in the canyons and otherwise not in many years. Of course, it helps that I fly a relatively slow airplane which is really hard to get behind!

Cary

Hammer wrote:Even if they know the mechanics of the maneuver and have practiced it, Jo Six-Pack thinking he's going to execute a high performance turn in a Cessna or Piper or whatever, on short notice, with certain death as the consequence for failure, is fantastically unrealistic.

Don't get into that situation in the first place if you want to live a long life.
...

I could not agree with you anymore on that... In fact so much so, that I'd like to backpedal just a bit and point out that in my last post I meant in no way to suggest or condone a true Ag type turn as a way to get yourself out of a pickle in a canyon. In fact, I would whole heartedly recommend against it, as I did in my posting on the last canon turn thread.
It was a poor attempt to illustrate to EZ, that semantics, was the only thing between Contacts turn, and his and MTV's (correct) assertion that you can't turn an airplane without loading the wing. What you can do however is reverse course... Throw a marble straight into the sky, and sure as the sun's gonna rise tomorrow, it is going to reverse course...

With that out of the way, I also do not think it is Contact's intent to suggest a pure Ag turn as a way out of a canyon either. Jim feel free to slap me straight if I get any of this wrong. What I *think* Jim is trying to say, is that if you are of the mindset that a flat turn, and only a flat turn is how you should turn an airplane, than you have effectively removed a tremendously valuable tool from your flying toolbox... the energy management turn...
It is here where I wish Jims approach was just a tad more subtle , even though I agree with everything he is saying. My reasoning is that I am of the opinion that Energy Management is far too valuable of a skill to limit to just turns. And in his approach the turn part tends to overshadow the energy management part... I am also of the opinion that if more pilots spent a summer flying gliders, towing gliders, or banners, hauling soda to far off villages in overgross pigs, or spraying in antiquated flat or round engine aircraft...

We would then have far less people;
Mushing into the trees on take off (Climbout with poor energy management skills)
Falling out of the sky on base to final (Descending turn with poor energy management skills)
Running off the end of a runway in high / hot conditions (Landing with poor energy management skills)
Or... running into building because they truly didn't know how to make their airplane turn as high as it really could (turning with poor energy management skills)

SO you see...Energy management really does transcend the turn, and again it is only my old wore asss out opinion, but I am of the opinion that if you don't practice energy management but instead choose to fly by the numbers, engine, and airframe, you have essentially lost control of the most powerful motor your aircraft has, regardless of what flavor that aircraft is...

Again, I am not preaching the ag turn, in fact I personally do not put myself so deep into a canyon under adverse conditions that I would need this maneuver, and I can execute it to within 3' with no visual reference to the surface. What I am preaching, is that when you limit yourself to thinking in the box, or flying solely by the book, you have very effectively ... well.... limited yourself. What turn will I use if I fell stupid and found myself in this pickle? Well I can honestly say that you'll have to ask me in that instant, because preprogramming yourself to one thought process only effectively rules out any other option regardless of how bad, or better it may be.

Lastly I would add that these type of maneuvers should be treated exactly as flying in IMC... do them with conviction, or don't do them at all. What I mean is that, if you are trained in the conventional 'flat' canyon turn, and find yourself in the need of such a maneuver, do not under any circumstance shift midway through and decide to let the nose down. Pick your maneuver and run with it. Letting the nose loose halfway through a canyon turn is merely going to rob you of the precious tight radius you are trying to achieve and leave a nasty mark on the canyon wall.
Conversely, if you are bailing out with an energy management turn, let the plane have her head, pulling back halfway through because you got weak in the knees is only going to rob you of the precious airspeed, you so willingly gave up your precious altitude for, leaving you slow bag of shit in the bottom of the canyon... no good...

In the end... just don't do it. In todays techno marvel world, there are very few reasons to find yourself playing in the wrong boxed canyon, in MVFR...

Take care, Rob

Cary,

The most difficult thing for a new pilot, on the pipeline, is to anticipate the need to turn by climbing to slow down trading cruise speed for altitude. Waiting until the need to turn now creates load factor or fast dive.

Getting behind the airplane is easier and more dangerous at 200'. Yet, knowledge of both needs and results are so much more apparent than at altitude. In an environment where both needs and results are most quickly indicated by instruments, contact skills quickly deteriorate.

You are right about the instrument pilot's ability to stay ahead of the aircraft at altitude.

Jim

I've never flown ag or pipeline, though I've watched a lot of ag pilots working. Ain't the same.

But, this isn't a discussion about spraying a field, and I guess some pipelines do run through mountains, so there may well be application there.

I spent a lot of years doing wildlife surveys and wildlife radio telemetry work in mountainous terrain. You go into a LOT of canyons doing that work, and if you do that work for long you learn to "test the waters" before you jump into some holes......downdrafts in the wrong place can really ruin your survey.

You also learn to never, EVER get behind the airplane's performance capability. Ever. In the previous thread someone posted a link to the two guys in an L-19 who crashed doing some sort of wildlife work in Colorado. Anyone watching that who's ever worked airplanes could see they were waaaaay over the performance capability of that airplane well before they crashed. That's why I personally would never fly those types of flights with a low time pilot. And, yes, I have done some training in that kind of work, but there's no way I ever trained anyone to fly goat or sheep surveys. And, I was always cocked and locked on a hair trigger when instructing telemetry work.

In a survey of mountainous terrain, you need to cover the entire area, much like you have to cover all of a field in an ag operation. But, this "field" is quite vertical in places....like most of it. So, you have to figure out how to cover all the terrain as you survey each canyon. Sometimes you need to get creative, but it's generally easiest to fly a level line around the canyon. Then, turn around, move down a notch and make a parallel pass just a bit lower, and repeat. But, there is NO WAY I'm going into a canyon doing this where the airplane doesn't have the performance to get out of there without going downhill. Downhill is the absolute last "get out of here" technique here, and if you HAVE to use it, you've screwed the pooch.

So, this is where I come from. Again, it's not rocket science. And as we've pretty much all agreed, the real key is to stay out of places you can't turn around in fairly comfortably.

One quick story: Doing Dall Sheep surveys in the White Mountains north of Fairbanks, AK, early on I discovered a mineral lick that one band of these sheep really like. The way I discovered the lick (and the sheep's affinity for it) was coming over the top of a really steep, nasty little "canyon" on a downhill run. This was more a crack in the mountain than a canyon, and the only way I could see to look into it was to fly down it.....and it was fairly steep. My practice before going into tight canyons was always to drop into them from above first, make a run down the canyon and see what the air is doing. In this case, that was going to be the whole extent of our survey. Near the mid point of this thing, altitude wise, is a bunch of alders. And, as I cruised past that bunch of alders the first time, I caught a glimpse of something white.....sheep. So, I climbed up again, slowed as I came over the top, but kept a little power on as I came down the canyon. This was in a Husky on floats, by the way. One of the characteristics of the Husky is that if you pull the power back a bit, then quickly close the throttle, the engine will backfire pretty enthusiastically. So, coming down to the alders, I pulled all the power off quickly, the Husky backfired, and that patch of alders literally erupted with Dall Sheep...... So, as the sheep moved away from that lick, we were able to count and classify them. Every year after that, I'd finish the rest of that unit, then come over the top of that tight little crack and give those sheep a little thrill. worked every time, and on one count, we counted over forty sheep that came out of that patch of alders hidden down in that crack in the rocks.

MTV

Great thread...better than all our previous canyon turn threads.

MTV, that is a great story.


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mtv wrote:I've never flown ag or pipeline, though I've watched a lot of ag pilots working. Ain't the same.

But, this isn't a discussion about spraying a field, and I guess some pipelines do run through mountains, so there may well be application there.

I spent a lot of years doing wildlife surveys and wildlife radio telemetry work in mountainous terrain. You go into a LOT of canyons doing that work, and if you do that work for long you learn to "test the waters" before you jump into some holes......downdrafts in the wrong place can really ruin your survey.

You also learn to never, EVER get behind the airplane's performance capability. Ever. In the previous thread someone posted a link to the two guys in an L-19 who crashed doing some sort of wildlife work in Colorado. Anyone watching that who's ever worked airplanes could see they were waaaaay over the performance capability of that airplane well before they crashed. That's why I personally would never fly those types of flights with a low time pilot. And, yes, I have done some training in that kind of work, but there's no way I ever trained anyone to fly goat or sheep surveys. And, I was always cocked and locked on a hair trigger when instructing telemetry work.

In a survey of mountainous terrain, you need to cover the entire area, much like you have to cover all of a field in an ag operation. But, this "field" is quite vertical in places....like most of it. So, you have to figure out how to cover all the terrain as you survey each canyon. Sometimes you need to get creative, but it's generally easiest to fly a level line around the canyon. Then, turn around, move down a notch and make a parallel pass just a bit lower, and repeat. But, there is NO WAY I'm going into a canyon doing this where the airplane doesn't have the performance to get out of there without going downhill. Downhill is the absolute last "get out of here" technique here, and if you HAVE to use it, you've screwed the pooch.

So, this is where I come from. Again, it's not rocket science. And as we've pretty much all agreed, the real key is to stay out of places you can't turn around in fairly comfortably.

One quick story: Doing Dall Sheep surveys in the White Mountains north of Fairbanks, AK, early on I discovered a mineral lick that one band of these sheep really like. The way I discovered the lick (and the sheep's affinity for it) was coming over the top of a really steep, nasty little "canyon" on a downhill run. This was more a crack in the mountain than a canyon, and the only way I could see to look into it was to fly down it.....and it was fairly steep. My practice before going into tight canyons was always to drop into them from above first, make a run down the canyon and see what the air is doing. In this case, that was going to be the whole extent of our survey. Near the mid point of this thing, altitude wise, is a bunch of alders. And, as I cruised past that bunch of alders the first time, I caught a glimpse of something white.....sheep. So, I climbed up again, slowed as I came over the top, but kept a little power on as I came down the canyon. This was in a Husky on floats, by the way. One of the characteristics of the Husky is that if you pull the power back a bit, then quickly close the throttle, the engine will backfire pretty enthusiastically. So, coming down to the alders, I pulled all the power off quickly, the Husky backfired, and that patch of alders literally erupted with Dall Sheep...... So, as the sheep moved away from that lick, we were able to count and classify them. Every year after that, I'd finish the rest of that unit, then come over the top of that tight little crack and give those sheep a little thrill. worked every time, and on one count, we counted over forty sheep that came out of that patch of alders hidden down in that crack in the rocks.

MTV

So did you write yourself up for harassing Wildlife?? Or is it OK to do that when you have your suit on?? Just Dissin ya!!
I here ya should not do that to walrus on the beach!!