"Grumman-581" wrote in message
.. .
"d&tm" wrote in message
...
I have heard guys on this group regulary mention 60 degree
or 2 g turns, but in my training steep turns were 45 degrees
maximum.

A 60 degree turn is only 2Gs if you you maintain altitude during the
turn...


Close, but not exactly. The geometry might cause a to be trivially more in
a descending turn and trivially more in a climbing turn. However, during a
constant rate climb or descent, a 60 degree bank will be very close to
2Gs--for a typical standard or utility category airplane which can maintain
only a modest angle of climb or descent.

Maneuvering in any manner which trades altitude against airspeed causes
radical changes in the relationship of G loading and bank angle, and most
are easier to demonstrate than describe.

Even in the simplest case (which really exceeds my ability to fully
describe), consider an aircraft flying a circular path in a plane angled 30
degrees from the horizontal (or plane of gravity). At the bottom of the
maneuver, a 30 degree bank relative to the horizontal would be 60 degrees
relative to the plane of flight and would significantly exceed 2Gs, but may
still not be sufficient. At that point, a 60 degree bank would be knife
edge relative to the plane of flight, so it would be quite easy to reach the
structural limit of standard category within the maneuvering limits of
standard category. Conversely, at the top of the maneuver, a 60 degree bank
is only 30 degrees relative to the plane of flight; but a very short turning
radius is easily achieved and the loading can easily be 1G, or even slightly
less. Meanwhile, halfway up or down during the maneuver, the relationship
of bank angle to loading should be identical to what would be expected in
level flight.

Crop dusters and banner towers routinely exploit portions of the above, plus
some usefull additions, but a Google search did not yeild any usefull links
to include for a graphical description.

I hope this helps.

Peter