Airplane turns

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 16:49:38 -0700, "Peter Duniho"
wrote:

"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).

When I was down to Bonanza specific recurrency training (with
characteristics a bit different than the trainers) The one instructor
had me trim (elevator only) in steep turns as an experiment. I put it
right at 60 degrees of bank and gently eased in the trim (and power).
We were holding a tad over 120 MPH, hands off and made two complete
circuits (a 720). In two complete circles the plane had displayed no
tendency to change bank angle or altitude. The altitude varied less
than 20 feet in the check. (better than I can do without lots of
practice)

The Debonair/Bonanzas do have a lot of dihedral

I would say it's probably better behaved in a steep turn like that
than one of only 30 degrees, but OTOH it's been some times since I
took part in that experiment.

I think when I get the Deb back after annual I'm going to take it out
and spend a few hours just practicing. That and I'd like to get it
down to P-ville next month if at all possible.

What with the broken throttle cable and now being out of annual I'm
starting to suffer withdrawal.

I have a couple of guys who really want to buy it, but I keep having
thoughts about keeping it for years to come. It may have been built
in 59 but the airframe only has about 4,000 TT, or a tad less. (time
to go check the logs)

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Pete