Thread: Airplane turns
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Old April 17th 04, 12:49 AM
Peter Duniho
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"Dave" wrote in message
...
I'm curious as to how an airplane behaves during turns. It is my
understanding that once you put the plane into a turn and return the
yoke to a level position, the plane will stay in a turn but will
straighten itself out slowly.


It depends on the airplane and the bank angle. Most airplanes have a narrow
range of bank angle at which the turn is stable, and the airplane will
continue indefinitely in the turn. At bank angles less than that, the
airplane will eventually return back to level flight. At bank angles
greater than that, the airplane will actually steepen the bank, which left
uncorrected would result in loss of control of the airplane.

The rates at which the bank changes does vary quite a bit from airplane to
airplane, as it depends on a variety of aerodynamic factors in the airplane
design. There are a few airplanes that won't return to level flight at all
without pilot input, as they've been designed as unstable airplanes (some
intentionally, some not).

Pete