Steep Turns - The Beginning

Today's lesson is supposed to be an introduction to the maneuver called steep turns. We went out to the practice area and practiced what we learned on our last flight. Slow flight. Then came the excitement. Steep turns.

To earn your private pilot certificate, you need to perform a 360 degree turn to the right and to the left at a 45 degree angle of bank. Oh you can be +/- 5 degrees on the bank. But wait, it gets better. You also have to come out exactly on the heading on which you started out +/- 10 degrees and maintain the altitude at which you started +/- 100 feet. Finally there's speed. You have to maintain the airspeed within plus or minus 5 knots too. Sound easy?

My first one was a "practice" maneuver. First of all, if you have mostly flown heavy iron (airlines) you have never been in a 45 degree bank. It is very likely that you have never been in a 30 degree bank either. The sensation of looking out the window and seeing nothing but ground is a little unsettling at first. Furthermore, your instructor will tell you to look out the front of the plane. We started at 3500 feet. At one point in my turn we were as low as 2500 feet and when I finished the turn, I leveled off at 4300 feet. 25 degrees past my initial heading. Did I mention that I was 20 knots fast?

The only compelling difference between my first steep turn and my second steep turn was the direction of the turn. This was going to take some practice... Back in for a landing. We were having trouble with the left magneto and the plane was running rough so RC flew back to the airport and performed the landing - as opposed to me performing an arrival...

Flight time: 1.0

Total time: 5.9