Coordinated turns and the little ball

Robert M. Gary writes:

I'm a flight instructor so I can feel 1/4 of a ball out, but that's
what I'm trained to do. However, in your simulator, I would not worry
about it. You're not going to be able to reproduce the environment
similar to the aircraft without having rudders, etc. When I play MSFS I
set it to autocoordination.

I have independent rudder enabled and the stick can be twisted to move
the rudder independently, but it's quite hard to precisely control the
rudder this way. Even so, I don't want to just ignore the rudder
completely. I'm doing okay in using rudder to stay aligned on runways
and to land in very modest crosswinds, but keeping a turn coordinated
is challenging (in part because you're moving the stick in several
different ways at once).

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Dudley Henriques writes:

You're right. The best yaw indicator in the airplane is the nose of the
airplane. Instructors should be able to pick up the slightest amount of
uncoordination simply by watching the nose. Its also a good idea to wean the
student off the ball and onto the nose as soon as possible. I'll go so far
as to say that it was my common practice to do this on the first flight.
In my opinion, much too much attention is placed on the ball as a
coordination verification tool, and much too little attention paid to the
nose of the airplane by a great many CFI's.

How can I determine that the turn is uncoordinated by looking at the
way the nose moves?

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Tony Cox writes:

Pretty much everyone can sense large deflections -- they'll
feel as they're being pushed to one side of the plane. The
more experienced you are, the smaller movements you can
detect without looking.

Is this the movement that makes people sick? From your description it
sounds like the turning of a car (which usually doesn't make people
sick, unless the car is really turning back and forth a lot).

It is considered to be good style, and it is generally more
efficient, to maintain coordinated flight in most situations.

Is it possible to do a coordinated turn by adjusting pitch and roll at
the same time, without the use of the rudder?

Do autopilots use the rudder to maintain coordinated turns?

Better for passengers & easier not to spill your drink.
But in a slip -- used to deliberately increase air resistance
when you are too fast or too high, or to align the plane with
the runway in a crosswind landing -- the plane will be
uncoordinated on purpose; the ball on the inside of the turn
doesn't indicate "an error" at all, nor does it make the
flight any less safe.

I regularly forget the difference between a skid and a slip.

A skid -- which doesn't have any purpose outside of
training AFAIK -- is more problematic. This tends to be a
issue on base-final turns when pilots are tempted to use
too much rudder to tighten up the turn if they've
underestimated wind drift or otherwise miscalculated. When
you are in a turn, the inside wing is always moving through
the air a bit slower than the outside wing and so is closer
to stalling. A skidding turn increases this airspeed difference,
and if you're too slow turning base to final, the danger is that
it'll make it more likely that the inside wing will stall and start
a spin. Just where the ball might be when this happens would
depend on your airspeed, so there's no simple "red line" beyond
which you can't push the ball if that's what you're looking for.

I'm just trying to figure out how closely I should try to keep it
aligned, since I have no physical movements to provide clues.

I've been trying not to resort to rudder alone for runway alignment.
I'm still not very good at alignment except when coming straight in
from a great distance away, with no wind. Just keeping the aircraft
on the runway during landing is a challenge. I don't usually turn off
the wind, though, because I figure that in real life, dead calm wind
is the exception to the rule.

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The best yaw indicator in the airplane is the nose of the
airplane.

How do you read it?

Jose
--
"Never trust anything that can think for itself, if you can't see where
it keeps its brain." (chapter 10 of book 3 - Harry Potter).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

"Jose" wrote in message
...
The best yaw indicator in the airplane is the nose of the airplane.

How do you read it?

You eyeball it.
The nose will pin entering into and out of a turn if the exact amount of
complimentary rudder pressure for the amount of aileron displacement is
being used. The nose will either lead or lag the turn entry or exit (slip or
skid) if the amount of rudder in play is excessive or inadequate for the
amount of aileron pressure in play. A good pilot will watch the nose
entering into and out of turns watching for this "pinning". The pin won't
stay there long, but long enough to establish control pressure application
quality.
As an extreme example of how this visual cue is used by many demonstration
pilots; in a low altitude slow roll entry, you naturally need inside rudder
with initial aileron displacement to offset adverse yaw as in any turn
entry. But at low altitude, in a slow roll entry, you absolutely can't pull
the nose down which is exactly what you will do if that inside rudder is
held in too long. In other words, what you want in this situation is NOT to
pin the nose. The problem isn't that the nose pin is wrong. The problem is
that it's not a turn entry, but a slow roll entry, and to boot, its a slow
roll entry at low altitude. Where you would be neutralizing the lateral
stick while blending in an increase in angle of attack for the split lift
vector found in a normal turn, in the slow roll scenario, you are going to
need a rudder switch to top rudder to keep the nose up as the airplane rolls
to the knife edge position.
What I'm getting at here isn't a lesson in low altitude rolls. What I'm
stressing is the absolute need in this situation to know what's happening
with the airplane based on visual cues ONLY! This means NO BALL!!
Actually, in the slow roll scenario, you USE that adverse yaw to your
advantage by ALLOWING it to happen. Again, its a visual cue, NOT an
instrument cue. You look at the panel at all in the low altitude scenario
and you won't have to worry about dinner, because you won't be there!
Visual cues on the nose again; only this time you're using adverse yaw
instead of fighting it. Rolling left, instead of stopping the right yaw, you
allow it. You watch the nose carefully.
As you roll left without left rudder, the nose will swing right and up. You
watch the nose and play that against the left aileron pressure you're
applying. As the roll progresses, you simply follow the adverse yaw with
RIGHT RUDDER to keep the nose up.
What I'm describing here is simply the entry into the roll. Once the roll is
established, the rest is standard procedure for a slow roll.
So how does this apply to giving primary instruction?
In my opinion, getting the student out of the panel (the ball) and into
watching the nose during initial training is extremely beneficial. With
practice using the nose of the airplane as the primary reference and visual
cue in verifying control coordination actually becomes second nature, and
once accomplished, becomes an ingrained habit that follows a pilot
throughout his/her career.
Bottom line on all this......a pilot thoroughly acclimated from the very
beginning to using the nose of the aircraft as a ball will detect and
reflexively correct any deviation from coordinated flight no matter how
slight. Correct rudder use should become second nature to a pilot trained in
this fashion.
Dudley Henriques

Dudley Henriques schrieb:

The nose will pin entering into and out of a turn if the exact amount of
complimentary rudder pressure for the amount of aileron displacement is
being used.

Once the turn is established and sustained, I see no way to check
coordination by looking at the nose.

Stefan

Mxsmanic schrieb:

Is it possible to spot an uncoordinated turn visually, just by
watching how things move out the window, or is it only perceptible
through the movement of the aircraft?

In a sustained turn, you can't see it. But you can feel it. In a real
aircraft, that is.

I'm trying to figure out how hard I should try to keep the ball
centered.

It's goot piloting to keep the ball centered. Always work on your skills
to keep the ball even more centered. Actually, the ball is a pretty
coarse instument. So if the ball moves out of the center even by a
detectable amount, you are flying really uncoordinated.

I note that rudder can keep the turn coordinated, but changes in pitch
seem to be able to do it, too. Pulling back on the stick in a turn
not only maintains altitude, but it also seems to coordinate the turn
to some degree.

"To some degree" is not good enough. It may be good enough from a
strictly practical point of view, but it's bad style.

I've seen videos of pilots rolling an aircraft while pouring drinks.
I haven't tried that in the sim.

Shouldn't be very difficult while playing MSFS...

Stefan

I think he'll still pour the drink all over himself...:-)

mike

"Stefan" wrote in message
...

I've seen videos of pilots rolling an aircraft while pouring drinks.
I haven't tried that in the sim.

Shouldn't be very difficult while playing MSFS...

Stefan

"Stefan" wrote in message
...
Dudley Henriques schrieb:

The nose will pin entering into and out of a turn if the exact amount of
complimentary rudder pressure for the amount of aileron displacement is
being used.

Once the turn is established and sustained, I see no way to check
coordination by looking at the nose.

Stefan

Copied from the post you are answering;

"The pin won't stay there long, but long enough to establish control
pressure application
quality."

Dudley Henriques

Dudley Henriques schrieb:

Once the turn is established and sustained, I see no way to check
coordination by looking at the nose.

"The pin won't stay there long, but long enough to establish control
pressure application
quality."

When starting the turn, you roll, which means you apply ailerons. When
the turn is established, you don't apply ailerons anymore (how much
exactly depends on the aircraft, some even require outwards ailerons to
prevent overbanking). Hence the "pressure application quality" you
establish at the beginning of the turn doesn't do you any good to stay
coordinaed once the turn is established.

Stefan