Yesterday’s ground briefing covered in more detail turns:
– When/how to enter and exit a turn so that you roll-out on the heading you want
– How to perform steep turns (with banks greater than 30°) and what the hell load factors are
– Climbs and what they are used for (Best Rate, Best Angle)
– Descents and what they are used for (Power on, Power off)
– When/how to enter and exit a descent/climb so that you arrive at the altitude you want.
So, how do you know when to stop turning if you want to turn to a heading of 180°? Lets assume you are making a 30° bank turn. So you would start rolling out of the turn at 165° on the HI. How did I know that? Just take half of the bank angle and use that number as in indication of when to start rolling out:
half of 30° is 15°, 180° – 15° = 165°
The same sort of trick applies to your altitude. So, you are at 4000′ and you want to climb at 5000′. When should you stop climbing? Well, take a look at your VSI.. it shows that you are climbing at 400fpm:
10% of 400 is 40. So start leveling off at 4960′.
Take 10% of the VSI and subtract it from your target altitude for climbs or add it to your target altitude for descents.
Hopefully, if the weather is nice, I will be able to practice this on Sunday. I’m still a little rusty on the rudder, especially with taxiing. So I hope to get that polished on Sunday too. The forecast for the weekend looks good: Sunny. Low minus 11. High minus 5.
