Page 24 - PDF-Sample

Chapter-7 Ground Reference Maneuvers-V20_Sport Pilot Handbook 8/30/2021 6:12 PM Page 18

7-18 Rod Machado’s How to Fly an Airplane Handbook

As you approach the up-
wind point of the circle (the Max WCA
270 degree turn point), as Crab Angle Increased
shown in Figure 24, position
D, your groundspeed begins to D
increase slightly because the D
wind is no longer blowing di-
rectly on your nose. You’ll have
to increase the bank slightly to Groundspeed increasing, wind correction
maintain the correct turning angle increasing and bank increasing
radius. However, you’ll also
need to keep the airplane’s
nose pointed slightly outside
your imagined circular ground Fig. 25
track in order to keep your
turn radius from decreas-
ing. Apply the same WCA The Third
you used at the 90 degree Quarter Of
of turn point (the WCA Turns Around
won’t change much and A Point
if it does change a little, C
that’s due to slight As the airplane
changes in airspeed due Max wind correction progresses from
to bank angle). angle at position D positions C to D, it
experiences less of a
How do you do that? headwind but more of a
crosswind. Therefore, as
Gradually increase the
its groundspeed increases,
bank angle to compensate for you must progressively allow
the increasing groundspeed the airplane to turn slightly
outside the turn arc to establish
but not so fast as to pull the nose the desired wind correction angle.
parallel to or inside the imagined
D Fig. 24
turn arc (Figure 25, position D). In
Turns Around a Point - Graphically Explained

Sometimes there’s nothing like a good graph
to help you make sense of a particular maneu- A
ver. So let me help you understand how to use
the Turns Around a Point graph to the right. A B D
On the left side of the graph are three vertical
color coded bars representing the wind correc-
tion angle, the groundspeed and the bank
angle used in this maneuver. The top of these
bars represent maximum values (MAX) while
the bottom represents minimum values (MIN).
The graph’s horizontal axis represents the de-
grees of turn throughout the maneuver. Position
#A represents the beginning and end of the ma-
neuver (0° and 360° of turn) where the ground-
speed and the bank angle are the largest
(MAX). At positions #B and #D (90° and 270°
of turn) the wind correction angle is at a maxi- C
mum and the groundspeed and bank angle
are approximately half of their max value. At
180° of turn all three values are at a minimum.