Danger-Low Altitude Steep Turns
The danger, with steep turns, is losing control too low and slow to the ground. There is a safe recovery "out" if the pilot doesn't give into "instinct."
If you remember your student days the instructor made you do 720 degree steep turns around a pivot point you could see and identify on the ground. The admonition not to lose altitude was another goal that worked in practice, at cruising speed, and a sufficient altitude to "recover" from a stall or spin.
It is easy to enter a steep turn from cruising speed where the angle of attack is low. If you read my posts you should all know about, "Angle of attack." The reason banking into a turn is easy is the lack of "yaw." You don't need to apply much rudder. You can also return to level flight with more adverse yaw without too much difficulty.
The problem occurs when you try to unbank out of slow, high angle of attack flight. At slow speed there is much yaw and, to prevent the yaw, much need for rudder.
If you try to visualize this condition, in straight flight, in a Cessna 120 (thats right, I'm an 'Old Timer') trimmed for landing and the approach speed seventy miles per hour try to cross control the ailerons and rudder. (Left turn aileron and full right rudder.) I went into a spin so fast it frightened me. i also lost a bet. I was the "ace" 15 year old pilot that said a Cessna 120 wouldn't spin if it was going 70 MPH with the nose down.
Where this might happen is a steep turn, at approach speed, after a missed approach. IFR or VFR flight conditions. Steeply banked with stick or wheel well back with g-loads building up something happens that might "spook" the pilot. Turbulence close to the ground may cause the aircraft to overbank.
The uninitiated may want to get level in a hurry and you start to behave instinctively. You turn the stick or wheel rapidly to the opposite direction of the steep turn to regain level flight. Because he is flying at a high angle of attack with the stick well back the adverse yaw is very powerful and draws the planes nose inward and down. To counter this the pilot tries again to unbank by applying even more high wing aileron and more back stick to get the nose of the aircraft up. He quickly works into a spin at low altitude where recovery is impossible. Its a "killer!"
Heres how you may save your life.
- Let the stick or wheel come forward which reduces the Angle of Attack that unstalls the wings. This gives the ailerons less adverse yaw that allows the wings to function to lift the plane.
- Then apply a lot of top rudder. (left rudder if in a right turn)
- Then apply only gentle high wing aileron to roll the plane out of the bank.
If this recovery produces some uncomfortable sensation, like a side slip, who gives a hot. You recovered from a fatal mistake.
Remember: Stick forward!
