I agree. It also reinforces the direction in which you should be turning
and about how far when your in a panic and lose situational awareness. When
my CFII pointed out this technique, it was a godsend. I can do the math and
was pretty good with timed turns, but it was a nice tool to double check and
speed the process.

Bob


"John Clonts" wrote in message
...

"David Cartwright" wrote in message
...
"Michael" wrote in message
oups.com...
Some students just don't get math. For them, the mental math required
to figure out how many seconds the turn needs to be is too much to do
while flying under the hood. For others, the jumping around, lead, and
lag of the compass is too difficult to deal with - they prefer to time
the turn, the check the compass only in level flight.

For some reason, despite two 'A' levels in maths, I have brain failure
with my three times table when trying to figure out timed turns. So long
as I take a few seconds to double-check your multiplication, though, and
I sanity check it (e.g. if you're turning 120 degrees it should take less
than a minute, not more) it's not a problem.


I think its easier just to do it on the dg (or even an obs if your dg has
failed and is covered up)-- as Gardner said, count 10 seconds per
"numbered" heading, even if it means putting your finger physically on the
numbers as you count from your current heading to your desired heading...

Cheers,
John Clonts
Temple, Texas
N7NZ