"Bill Daniels" wrote in message news:eOeic.21511$GR.2890579@attbi_s01...
The aerodynamics of this are interesting.


I was taught (and that was long enough ago for it to have passed from
fashion, apparently) that shallow, medium, and steeply banked turns
were defined by the control inputs required to maintain them, to which
the actual angles of bank are merely incidental. Shallow turns
require pro-turn aileron to maintain the angle of bank. Steep turns
require anti-turn aileron to preclude over-banking. As in level
flight, medium turns balance the converging lift vectors of wing
dihedral and require no control displacement whatever to maintain
angle of bank. This isn't to say that medium turns are stable, only
that at some particular angle of bank all lateral forces produced by a
wing with dihedral will balance about the c.g..

From an instructional standpoint, it's easy to demonstrate and serves
as a graphic intro to the subjects of stability and control. One
caution: Dont add this to the student's plate before he's in the
habit of (I mean "really learned") to manuever by applying whatever
force, rate and displacement of controls may be necessary to achieve
the desired result. This is one of those things that can get a
student to thinking too much and (except possibly for spin recoverier)
I've never seen anybody's flying improved by watching their hands and
feet while maneuvering.

Cheers,
Eric