moore in Tampa Bay wrote:

I think the danger time is that turn onto final - too late, therefore
too steep, student gets fixaxted on the approach and the airspeed decays
in the turn.

I mean... how many planes have stalled in that turn in history???

--
Duncan

The turn from base to final is a bad place to stall. When someone stalls
inadvertently on that turn it is rarely, if ever, because they got too steep
in the bank. Pilots these days have been so thoroughly brainwashed that
they will NOT bank greater than thirty degrees in the traffic pattern.

When they find they are overshooting the turn and will be wide of the runway
they carefully hold their thirty degree maximum bank like they were taught
and then rush the turn by pouncing on the inside rudder to get the nose
around quicker. This doesn't really stall the whole airplane. It only
stalls the inside wing. The outside wing, which is still flying fine, then
proceeds to fly up and over the fuselage until it is the inside wing.
Unfortunately the resulting inverted position generally results in a quick
split ess maneuver that soon terminates when the airplane lands from the
inverted dive that results. This is not actually a spin because the
airplane generally contacts the ground at high speed before the spin has
time to properly develop.

Even a fortyfive degree bank only increases the stall speed by about
fourteen percent. The normal approach speed is about thirty percent above
stall speed. Consequently even a fortyfive degree bank in the pattern still
leaves you a fifteen percent margin. In a Cessna that is about five knots.

Of course, I must admit, I see few private pilots these days who can hold
their airspeed within five knots in a fortyfive degree bank. :-)

Highflyer
Highflight Aviation Services
Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY )