Mounting a turn coordinator on the tail?

Now that's a VERY interesting way of thinking about it.

It's the proper and textbook way to think about it.

difficult to keep the ball exactly centered in a 50-degree bank, so
I started thinking about whether it's even possible to do this in a
60-degree bank.

Of course it is.

However, in a steep bank, the rate of turn is mostly controlled by
the elevator.

No. The rate of turn is controlled by load factor at a given
airspeed. You can increase the rate of turn by banking more, or you
can pull back on the yoke to increase the load factor (temporarily).

In a 60 degree banked turn, you will get a load factor of 2 regardless
of what you do with the elevator. If you don't increase the AOA
during turn entry however, the aircraft will accelerate and the 60
degree banked turn will occur at a higher airspeed, in a rapid
descent.

Ron Natalie wrote:
Stubby wrote:
What causes a plane to turn is the horizontal component of the lift
vector. It certainly does not depend on the turn coordinator.
What counts is the center of gravity of the plane, not the tail.

...opinion deleted...

While the horizontal component of lift is what pulls
you to the interior of the turn, the tail is VERY important to
actually "turn" the aircraft direction so that the horizontal
component continually gets pointed to the center of the turn.

The elevator/rudder mechanism is for applying the torques to the plane
so it rolls and yaws. Also, as I remember from the first day of
physics class, a physical body behaves as a point mass at the center of
gravity with 3 translational forces and 3 rotational torques that can be
applied to it.

The horizontal component of lift behaves like a string tied to a rock
being swung around. The string does indeed apply force to the center of
gravity of the rock and "points" to the center of the turn. If you put
a paint spot on the rock and want to make the spot always face you, the
rock will have to yaw at the same rate as you are rotating it around
you; consequently something like a rudder will be needed.

Stubby wrote:


The horizontal component of lift behaves like a string tied to a rock
being swung around.

No, it doesn't. The lift vector points in a direction (roughly)
perpendicular to the wing. Nothing causes it to point to the
a "center" other than the other aerodynamic surfaces .

Ron Natalie wrote:
Stubby wrote:


The horizontal component of lift behaves like a string tied to a rock
being swung around.

No, it doesn't. The lift vector points in a direction (roughly)
perpendicular to the wing. Nothing causes it to point to the
a "center" other than the other aerodynamic surfaces .

The lift vector(s) point perpendicular to the wing (s). With a dihedral
angle in the two wings there will be horizontal components of the lift
vectors and in level flight they will be equal and opposite, canceling.
In a turn with the plane banked, it's easy to see how one lift vector
will point entirely straight up while the other doubles its horizontal
component. This pulls the plane toward the center of the turn. (It
sure is easier to explain with a blackboard!)