CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
GA or military?
GA or military?
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
GA.
USAF students are doing acro on their very first ride in the program, so by the time they get to be IPs, there should be no such apprehension about being upside-down. Even USAF students have to "demonstrate proficiency" in basic acro before they can progress out of the first 1/2 of the T-6 training course! So, by the time one becomes a USAF instructor, not only have they had to do it as a student, but when they've gone through instructor training they have to be able to both do acro and teach it as well.
I have flown with more than one CFI who is very apprehensive about getting outside the normal 60-degrees-of-bank-steep-turn envelope, so I "assume" (based on basic statistics) that it can't just be the few guys I've flown with who are nervous about being banked up or inverted. Yes, it's against the rules to intentionally be there (depending on the airplane, depending on where you are, depending on what you're wearing, etc), and I'm not advocating that anyone go out and intentionally violate the rules...but it DOES accidentally happen sometimes during the course of flying. Thus, it SHOULD BE an attitude that a CFI is not nervous about being at, much less executing a recovery from.
This would all be a non-issue if basic acro was a core part of the training program.
In their defense, going beyond 60deg of bank makes me a little nervous in your average Cessna or Piper too. They're just not built for that kind of stress. But I have time in airplanes that are capabile that going well beyond is actually quite fun. I remember giving a flight review to a fella who owns a Extra 300l, and at the bottom of a cuban8 looking at the g-meter starting to trend past 7 and the world turning grey was a blast!
amjon
Pilot and A Half (for now
I know of at least one school that has a private/ instrument combined course. Not sure if that is the school.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Bank angle does not directly equate to airframe stress. The airplane doesn't know which way the horizon is.
z987k
Well-Known Member
yep, you don't have to maintain altitude.
tgrayson
New Member
No, but it knows where gravity is. The load factor will increase until the vertical component of lift equals the weight of the aircraft. A 60 degree bank will eventually result in a load factor of 2 and a 41% increase in stall speed.
tgrayson
New Member
The load factor doesn't exist to maintain altitude. Even in a steady descent, lift should equal weight, or else the aircraft would experience an increasing descent rate, otherwise knowing as "falling". When you roll into a bank, overall lift must increase to prevent this "falling". This increase in lift occurs either through an increase in AoA or an increase in airspeed; either way, the load factor goes up. The descent is produced by an increase in drag, either due to the increased airspeed or increased AoA.
msmspilot
Well-Known Member
Completely agree. I've been in some interesting attitudes in a 172. I don't know for sure that the couple hours of acro training I've had made the difference, but I certainly wasn't panicked that we got beyond the normal flight limits.
Douglas
Old School KSUX
Most flight school instructors don't fly around with parachutes, which makes that little maneuver illegal.
If some random renter student tried to illegally roll it 90 degrees, I would literally elbow you in the throat and chop your hands off the yoke.
drunkenbeagle
Gang Member
Funny, the Examiner on my CFI initial ride told me I should never let that happen - that I must grab the controls as soon as a wing drops, unless the student is receiving instruction for a CFI ride.
His reasoning was that exceeding bank and pitch limits was only legal when necessary for a certificate or rating without a parachute. While technically true, I sincerely believe that that instructional value is real - and that instructors should have more leeway here.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
Well aware of that. Did you read the part of my post when I said "it depends on what you're wearing"?
That's not what this discussion is about. It's about having the experience and confidence to deal with it when you do get there because of factors other than the sole-manipulator-of-the-controls' intent.
z987k
Well-Known Member
My point was that just because you roll 80* does not mean the load factor has to go up and it's very possible to do in a Cessna without going over the load limits. You could be initializing a descent with an increasing falling rate for example, there are quite a few 182's and 206's, 208's, DHC-6(see where this is going) that do this daily.
Hacker15e
Who am I? Where are my pants?
No, actually it won't. What's the load factor in 60 degrees of bank and -90 degrees of pitch? What's the load factor when the airplane is fully stalled, falling like a leaf, and at greater than 60 degrees of bank?
What's the load factor if I roll into 60 degrees of bank, and then release all the back pressure on the stick? What's the load factor if I push forward?
CoffeeIcePapers
Well-Hung Member
There is no way as a professional flight instructor that I would allow a student exceed the limitations of the aircraft. It isn't safe and it is unnecessary. If I were in the proper aircraft with the proper equipment, I would let them have at it. As it stands, I instruct in Normal and Utility category aircraft. It is the job of the instructor to correct unsafe practices and teach people how to fly aircraft safely. Allowing them to exceed regulatory and structural limits is a death wish, plain and simple.
tgrayson
New Member
You're grabbing extreme examples here outside the normal range of flight in order to justify a previous incorrect statement. Mshunter's concern about exceeding a 60 degree bank is justified, since the aircraft will start to exceed the load factor limit just 15 degrees past that.
In the end, it will be 2'gs. You don't need back pressure on the yoke to produce the load factor.
tgrayson
New Member
Sure, but it's brief. You aren't allowing the aircraft time to assume the equilibrium airspeed. But this sort of technique isn't pertinent to the original criticism of mshunter's comment, nor does it justify the blanket statement that bank angle doesn't imply a load on the airplane. In normal maneuvering, it does, and saying that it doesn't undermines an important educational effort.
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
Come again?
I've personally flown a 60 deg bank descending turn with a load factor of 1. The nose was way down, as as the VSI.
A 60 deg Level turn has a load factor of 2, but that's it.
tgrayson
New Member
Not so. You can briefly do an unloaded turn, but any stabilized 60 degree banked turn, descending or not, will be right around 2 g's. This MUST be the case; otherwise the vertical forces wouldn't be equal to weight and the aircraft would be falling like a rock.
The load factor in a descending turn is actually calculated by n=cos(descent angle)/cos(bank angle). So a descent angle of, say, 10 degrees, with a 60 degree banked turn would have a load factor of 1.97. The reduction is due to the fact that a component of drag supports a little bit of the weight of the airplane, so less lift is needed.
Seriously, anyone with a Commercial pilot's certificate should have experienced this first-hand while doing steep spirals.
USMCmech
Well-Known Member
I did it 10 times a day every weekend for a year, and I know the difference between 1.2 vs 2G.
The vertical forces were NOT equal, and I was coming down like a bank safe. Which was of course the whole point after droping a load of jumpers.