1 Fatal ...r.a.h or r.a.p?
"Bryan Martin" wrote in message
...
In a "normal landing" you start a half mile to a mile to one side of the
runway and only require about 180 degrees of turn. In a turn back maneuver
after takeoff, you are nearly directly off the end of the runway. Turning
back to the runway from this position requires far more than 180 degrees
of
turn. So calling it a 180 degree turn back can be misleading. 180 degrees
of
turn will usually put you well to one side of the runway so you must
continue turning until you are headed back towards the runway and then
turn
back the opposite direction to line up with it. This maneuver requires
closer to 360 degrees of turn than 180 and you will lose altitude faster
while turning than when flying wings level. So before you attempt a turn
back, you need to know how much altitude you will need for a 360 degree
turn.
If you are taking off from an airport with more than one runway, you might
consider if it would be easier to turn back to a different runway than the
one you took off from. One time during a BFR, my instructor pulled the
throttle at about 500' after takeoff from runway 6 at Midland Barstow. He
expected me to attempt to return to land on runway 24. He was kind of
surprised when I just made a gentle 240 degree left turn and rolled out
lined up with runway 18 with altitude to spare. I just looked back and
realized it would be much easier to get to 18 than 24, the wind was
blowing
us that way anyway.
--
Bryan Martin
Good point.
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