illspam (Jim Vincent) wrote
In power, they're taught to fly patterns with very little bank angle, whereas
in gliders we're taught to bank at about 45 degrees or so. I well understand
the rationale for banking steeply in gliders, but why are power pilots taught
to do shallow turns?

Mainly because the quality of power instruction is, on the whole,
dramatically worse than the quality of glider instruction. The
majority of power instructors are low time, inexperienced pilots who
have completed a training program that takes them from zero time to
instructor (single, multi, and instrument) in less than 300 hours.
They have been taught to fly wide, power-on patterns with stabilized
power-on approaches because this is what they will be doing in the
airlines (their eventual goal) and that's what they teach their
students because they don't know anything else.

Steep turns, especially at low speed, simply scare them. Therefore,
many of them tell students not to exceed 30 degrees of bank in the
pattern.

The power-off pattern, where you bring the power to idle at about
800-1000 ft AGL and abeam the touchdown point and continue to a
landing, was once the normal pattern in general aviation for all light
trainers. Of course in such a pattern your turns will be 30-45
degrees of bank, depending on wind and how many mistakes you make.
The trainers have not changed; in fact we're mostly flying the same
ones. However, today's instructors see this as an emergency
procedure, not a normal one, because it pushes their skill level.

Michael