Bill Crawford’s Flightlab Blog

Holding top rudder in a steep turn, to keep the nose up, is usually a no-no. But it’s one of flying’s great temptations, and has a time-honored history of abuse. Top rudder means that the pilot is trying to use the side of the fuselage to generate lift. Most fuselages are not particularly efficient that way, and produce lots of drag in the process. But top rudder can be warranted. In aerobatic competition, pilots are supposed to make their turns at no less than 60-degrees of bank. Usually you rack it over a little more to make sure the judges believe you. A 70-degree-bank turn requires a 2.9-g pull if done at constant altitude and with coordinated rudder. That’s not really a problem in an aerobatic aircraft if you’re going fast enough, but at low speed you may not have the energy necessary to pull the required g. And the induced drag from that g is going to slow you down even more. In this situation, the wing needs help from the fuselage. So you add some top rudder.

Speaking of aerobatics, this May the International Aerobatic Club (IAC) Chapter 35 regional contest was canceled due to off-and-on rain. So, instead, Bobby Thissell and I flew from Plymouth up to the Hampton Fly Market, in New Hampshire, to sift through piles of aviation junk in hopes, I confess, of a miracle.

You never know what you’re going to find in a pile. (I once stumbled, miraculously, upon a MiG-17 in a barn in North Carolina.) At Hampton this time, Bobby found only a hamburger and a bag of chips, but I found that plus a minor mother load—a set of training manuals published in the early 1940s by the U.S. Department of Commerce Civil Aeronautics Administration, precursor to the FAA. The very thorough manuals were intended for use by students (and instructors) in the Civilian Pilot Training Program, which prepared thousands of pilots for later military service. The Program helped to further standardize training methods, and with the exception of the lapsed spin requirement, practically everything done in stick-and-rudder basic training back then is done essentially the same way today. While today’s training aircraft are easier to fly (and a lot easier to land, given the differences between conventional and tricycle gear) the basic sequence of tasks in learning to fly hasn’t changed. Students were making those tedious s-turns across the road more than half a century ago, just as they are now—and learning the same lessons about aircraft control.

One of the volumes in the set, the Civil Pilot Training Manual, contains the best instructions for steep turns I can remember reading. It rid me of a misconception: Imagine a 60-degree-bank turn. The ball is centered and the aircraft maintains a constant altitude. The g-meter reads two. In other words, perfection! If you then hold rudder position and bank angle constant, but release some aft pressure, the ball in the turn coordinator will move toward the bottom. Hauling back on the stick will bring the ball back to center. The implication, I thought, was that the elevator plays a role in coordination, increasingly so as bank angle rises. But once I got that idea into my head, and tried to figure out how to control the ball using a combination of rudder and elevator, my steep turns went completely into the trash. According to the Civil Pilot Training Manual, many pilots were similarly confused back in 1941, thinking that the elevator could help cure a skid or a slip. Below is how the Manual breaks steep turns down. I’m paraphrasing some, and adding embellishments of my own to bring things up to date. In particular, the Civil Pilot Training Manual does not refer to the ball, but to seat-of-the-pants coordination—in other words the feeling that one is balanced in the aircraft and not sliding into the turn (slipping) or sliding out of the turn (skidding). Speaking for itself, my butt has never been as sensitive as the skid/slip ball, especially when enthroned close to the aircraft’s center of gravity. The sequence below leads to check ride precision.

Ailerons: Roll with aileron (obviously), using the attitude indicator to determine bank angle. (Most pilots are lousy at judging bank angle from outside reference.) Use coordinated rudder rolling in, to counter adverse yaw. Once you’ve hit your bank angle, use the outside horizon to maintain it. If you rely on the AI for bank control, you’ll have a harder time spreading your attention, whereas the outside horizon remains in your peripheral vision, even when your primary focus shifts back into the cockpit. As you roll, apply aft pressure. Remember that the required stick force goes up exponentially with bank angle, because the required g goes up exponentially. This is a mathematical way of saying don’t pull too hard too soon, but don’t pull too little too late.

Rudder: Once you’ve achieved your bank angle, quickly center the ball with the rudder pedals (step on the ball). Now hold the pedals still. Their job is done, at least until you apply coordinated rudder on the roll out.

Elevator: Adjust your pressure to maintain altitude. Use the altimeter as the initial pitch attitude reference, with the rate of climb indicator saved for small adjustments. If the nose goes low, bring it up with elevator and not with top rudder, as the Devil may be urging you to do. The latter action will put you in a slip, and could reduce your bank angle if you let it. If you have to reduce the bank angle to bring the nose up, you used too little aft pressure to begin with, and fell behind. The elevator has nothing to do with the ball.

Once everything is set, you can monitor bank angle and the position of the nose relative to the horizon mostly by looking outside, with only an occasional, reassuring glance at the instruments. One test of this step-by-step approach is the ease with which you can do steep turns in unfamiliar aircraft.