Lesson 30 - Sunday May 9th

Steep Turns

Steep turns are the one maneuver I'd not been given instruction in, which is required before I solo, so today was steep turn day.

We fly out to Thousand Oaks, and do steep turns, which are just 45 degree banked 360 degree turns.  You've got to maintain your altitude, and roll out on the same heading you started, and sometimes roll into a steep turn in the other direction.

Just getting to 45 degrees is the easy part, the tricky bit was keeping altitude.  Tanya taught me the "2-2-2" method: as you bank pas 20 degrees, add 200 rpm, and trim up two turns of the trim wheel.

You can also adjust your altitude by reducing the angle of bank for a while, to give you more lift.  Overall it did not seem especially hard, although I'm sure I'll need a bit of practice.  This is the kind of thing I'm sure I'll be practicing for hours by myself later.

We returned to SMO, and did three landings.  Not too bad, and the third one I got a much better flare out of it than ever before.  Still not exactly perfect though. 

Tanya said tomorrow we might go to Camarillo to practice crosswind landings.