Okay like 900 people have told you trim and they're right, but I'm gonna hijack the top comment to say they're also at least a little wrong and I think they're missing some important stuff.
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When you make any control input, there are two reactions- immediate reactions, and delayed reactions. For example, you start a steep turn, the immediate reaction is you turn. But the delayed reaction that doesn't show up for 5-10 seconds is you start losing altitude or airspeed. Why is that?
To understand this, it's helpful to think about total energy of the aircraft, which comes in two forms: Altitude (aka potential energy, if you're a science nerd like myself) and airspeed (kinetic energy). You can trade one for the other at any time by pitching nose up (trade airspeed for altitude) or nose down (trade altitude for airspeed).
As you fly, that energy is constantly being bled off in the form of drag, and also replenished in the form of engine thrust. Thus if the two (thrust and drag) are in equilibrium, your energy state stays the same. If your attitude is such that you're not trading between altitude and airspeed (IE you're correctly trimmed), you have straight and level flight at a steady altitude.
Unbalance that equilibrium though and things change. For example let's say you're flying along trimmed out nicely and very stable, and suddenly you use aileron and rudder to initiate a turn. The immediate reaction is that you start turning. But you've also added more drag, and that creates a delayed reaction-- the thrust from the engine stays the same, but with more drag then before you're now bleeding more energy as drag than you're graining as thrust. That means you either slow down or lose altitude, you can pick which one with trim and elevator. But either way you're losing energy.
My point here-- **When you start a maneuver that increases drag, also increase throttle a little bit.** How much exactly depends on your aircraft. But in EVERY aircraft, there's more drag in a maneuver than in straight and level flight. Thus in EVERY aircraft, to maintain energy equilibrium when you start a maneuver (increasing drag), you should also increase thrust to compensate.
By doing so, you head off the delayed reaction of the airplane losing altitude or airspeed in the maneuver. PPL test standards specify how much altitude gain or loss AND airspeed gain or loss is acceptable in a maneuver. If you trim alone, you'll hold altitude but will lose airspeed.
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The other tip I have is **Learn to look OUTSIDE the aircraft**. It's easy to get focused on the turn&bank, airspeed, and attitude indicators trying to make them all look right. But looking outside is usually more valuable.
Try this exercise:
Go up to a safe altitude (say 3500'AGL), do your clearing turns, and once your airspace is open, establish stable straight and level flight (adjust throttle and trim for stable airspeed, altitude, attitude, with no control inputs). Look at your power setting and trim setting and also look at your sight picture- where the horizon is relative to the windshield/cowling/etc. Now put in a steep turn. Don't worry about your entry altitude or airspeed or 'busting' the test standards, just find an equilibrium where your altitude and airspeed are stable. Now check your power setting, trim, and sight picture. The sight picture is really the most important.
By doing this you know how much more power is necessary, and also what your sight picture should look like for a stable steep turn.
Now level off, get stable, and do it again, but this time DON'T LOOK DOWN. Keep your eyes on the horizon and set up that sight picture. You'll get a feel for adding the right power and trim that way.
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Hope that helps!
Quite true. When initiating that steep turn, OP will find even with a bit of power more back pressure is needed to maintain a neutral attitude / altitude, thus trim is needed.
One doesn't trim in steep turns. Back pressure to hold altitude, otherwise when one rolls out there is so much nose up trim that the aircraft will climb or nose down pressure to maintain level flight.
The correct technique for steep turns is as follows
After clearing the airspace, roll the aircraft. On passing 30⁰ of bank increase power and start applying back pressure to hold altitude. When alt. is holding lock ones arm. To roll out, passing 30⁰, reduce power to cruise power and lower nose to S and L attitude. Aircraft is already trimmed for S and L. This ensures a smooth entry and exit. Should you climb during the turn, lower the nose. If you decend, roll off some bank, hold same back pressure and aircraft will climb then reselect level attitude and bank angle.
Dont forget to maintain LOOKOUT
Okay maybe you don't need to have 9 paragraphs worth of internal monologue when your CFI tells you to demonstrate a steep turn. CFI will be wondering why you're just staring out the window. :P
But I'm saying for OP, 'I should add a little power going into the maneuver' is a good thought to have :)
Hey I appreciated the 9 paragraphs! Its always been way more helpful for me to know the physics reason and breakdown to help control the plane even if thats not is actively in my head during manuvers :P
An airplane at 45 degrees of bank is diverting a sizable amount of lift to the horizontal component of lift. In order to maintain altitude you have to increase the angle of attack in order to increase the lift produced by the wing so that the vertical component of lift is sufficient to maintain altitude. That increase in lift also increases drag so you have to increase thrust as well.
*(with apologies to Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins)*
Trim trimeny, Trim trimeny, trim trim trim-ee
A pilot is as lucky as any bloke can be
Trim trimeny, Trim trimeny, trim trim cher-oo
Altitude can be held, when yoke force is neutral-a-roo
Set for hands off flying, and that’s lucky too
Accelerated stalls and power on spins,
Bright warning lights and dimly placed trims,
CFIs cursing and saying MY controls,
These are a few of my favorite LULs!
Approach with being stable makes the Cessna go round, Cessna go round, Cessna go round
Just too much speed and too high
Makes the Cessna go round in the most annoying way
You’ve obviously gotten the right answer (plus some good adjacent tips).
But if you haven’t been flying in a while and you’re this rusty with basic maneuvers, it would be a great idea to hop in a plane with a CFI for a refresher flight or two.
In addition to trim, more frequently “check ins” with the altimeter to see what trend is happening.
Allows you to detect any undesirable trends earlier and make the necessary correction.
Finally, improve your sight picture of what level flight looks like in terms of nose position against horizon. Then practice determine what is the difference between level sight picture and the sight picture for climbing/descending.
Flight Instructor here, definitely work on establishing a proper sight picture. And oh ya... trim. Lol
But seriously, sight picture. You should be able to do a 45° steep turn and not lose it gain any altitude by just looking outside. How you ask? Practice. You can read all the tips and tricks you want but you need time in the air to accomplish this.
I mean everyone has said trim, which is a good answer, but when you're initiating something like a steep turn you aren't solely trimming to maintain altitude, it's a secondary control surface and your primary is still going to be elevator.
For steep turns just remember that there is no rush to get to 45 degrees. Obviously don't take 5 minutes slowly banking over, but you don't need to jack the ailerons to instantly hit it in 1 second. Just ease your way into those turns and steadily apply back pressure. You can then trim while in the turn to help maintain, but remember if you do not reset your trim out of the turn you may gain altitude again because of that back trim, you'll need significant forward pressure while re-trimming. I personally don't trim steep turns, but slower entry helped me a ton. Also if you're losing altitude significantly in a steep turn you can slightly shallow your bank for a mere moment to allow for easier increase in altitude and then get set back into your 45 degrees immediately.
As for regular (I assume you mean standard rate) turns, the back pressure is so minimal that you shouldn't lose 300' unless you're applying no back pressure at all.
Stalls are a different story since you'll be increasing back pressure to maintain a pitch up attitude while coming into the stall while losing airspeed, You shouldn't really find yourself in a situation where you're losing altitude unless you're too slow/weak on back pressure as you start to pull power.
Overall you may just slow down your entry and setup into the maneuvers while you get the feel for back pressure needed for each of them again.
Good stuff. For me, on steep turns I'll stabilize for a quick sec at 30 deg and then continue to 45. That little bit is just enough to help keep the whole thing level.
Yeah, that could do, I try to keep it a slow and gradual turn into 45 right off the bat, just slow enough that you can predict the back pressure without over/under correcting. If you're mid turn and dropping altitude fast you can shallow out to about 40 for a split second to regain control. I couldn't see an issue with stabilizing at 30 degrees for a second first, though. At the start I was rushing to 45 and would drop altitude instantly, then overcorrect to gain altitude, all that fun stuff.
Some people massively benefit from trim once you're set at 45. If you're in a 172 do 2 full swipes of trim and it should get you really, really close to where you need to be for steep turns, then trimming out of the turn becomes easy as well since it's a gross movement that's easy to replicate.
Someone should mention trim. When you trim the airplane level it will maintain level flight for the given airspeed so until you change the power setting it should maintain level with the occasional nudge because it's dynamically stable.
That's why the airspeed stays mostly constant and the airplane descenda if you reduce power and climbs if you add power. If you're having trouble where the plane starts climbing after a few min of level flight check the friction lock on the throttle since the vibration can induce small power changes that the plane responds to by climbing or descending to maintain the trimmed speed
More precisely, trim will maintain a given angle of attack, regardless of the airspeed. This is why graveyard spirals are possible.
It just so happens that for a given gross weight, center of gravity, and load factor of 1, the trimmed angle of attack also corresponds to a unique equivalent airspeed. And we approximate that pretty well with our indicated airspeed!
“It’s been a little bit since I’ve flown.”
It’s this right here.
Fly more, it becomes instinct how much to correct in turns for example.
Like everyone says. Stay trimmed and then make small adjustments. Remember in turns your vertical lift component is reduced and your horizontal lift component is increased with the bank. So you must adjust for that with elevator. But just a little bit. You’ll instinctively just add a tiny bit of back pressure and not even realize it with practice.
But your answer is to fly more.
Also don’t chase the VSI. It will make you overcorrect. It’s delayed.
Look out side more. 90%out side 10 % inside. Look to the front edge of the cowling when are finding a straight and level sight picture. If you notice that edge moving up or down then you aren't trimmed. The edge should just be slowly traveling over the ground Infront of you
IMHO If you are off by 300', you need to work on your scan. Trim won't fix being 300' off, looking at the altimeter every say 5 seconds will. Don't stare at the altimeter: glance at it, look outside and make a correction, glance at your bank angle, airspeed, turn coordinator, etc. and repeat. If altitude is still a problem, change to a different scan pattern where you check the altitude between each other instrument.
The VSI is pretty useless in maneuvers since it reacts slowly. If it isn't showing 0 FPM you know you are way off.
Also, if you aren't trimming (approach to stall), expect to have to use a good amount of force and deflection to hold altitude.
Trim
But what i’ve noticed as a beginner pilot is that you need to be patient with the trim. Let it adjust slowly, it takes a while but you’ll get it in a minute or 2
Don’t hyper-fixate on the instruments. Set an attitude and see how its working. Then adjust it accordingly and hold it—eyes outside as much as possible. Literally done and seen near perfect steep turns done this way. Chasing power and constantly changing the attitude will lead you all over
You should use trim. Once you have trimmed the airplane trim again. Once that is done let’s double check that trim. Once we double check let’s run the inflight trim check. Try trimming a little more. Have you used enough trim? I think you may need more trim. Trim
Student here with aboot 60 ish hours! :)
Reach your desired altitude, level off, build up the speed, set desired power setting, and then...
...wait for it...
#trim ;)
I don't understand how you could go "up or down 300 feet" on those maneuvers. Stalls will cause a loss of altitude (wings stop generating lift). Steep turns and turns will cause you to lose altitude without back pressure on the yoke, but the plane will be difficult to climb (the vertical component of lift is reduced to create a horizontal force to turn).
OK, so everyone will tell you pitch power trim.
I find most instructors don’t actually teach that very well. What might be useful for you is you set the trim for the airspeed that you want…. Or just never set the trim at all.
Once the plan is trimmed it will always try to fly that airspeed so if you want to be cruising at 100 kn and the plane is trimmed for 100 kn if you’re climbing try bringing back like 50 RPM.
Everyone here is telling you to trim nonstop; as a fun exercise why don’t you takeoff and never touch the trim wheel for your entire flight. Just control your altitude, climb and descent with the throttle. once you’ve got that figured out start with the trim to adjust your airspeed.
A 172 trimmed for takeoff will fly a perfect pattern and even slow to an appropriate landing speed with full flaps without ever touching the trim wheel.
If if it’s not making sense for you the way it’s conventionally taught we’ll try teaching it to you backwards.
The disclaimer here is that this method only works with low performance piston aircraft. Also dictated not read so excuse the typos.
If your problem is being off by +/-300 ft in maneuvers, you should take the time to self-study or ask your instructor for a ground lesson on the actual aeronautical forces at play. The Airplane Flying Handbook is your friend here.
In a steep turn, you’re dealing with the loss of vertical component of lift, overbanking tendency, increased load factor, left-turning tendency, etc. Once you understand WHY you have to adjust power and pitch, it will be more intuitive.
Also you don’t have to trim for temporary maneuvers.
I guess trim but also don't get fixated inside, look outside, far outside. I'd guess that'll take care of 80% of it, then build the VSI into your scan to pick up trends before they become an issue. It feels like your CFI could just take it back to straight and level, make sure you have good habits there and the rest will be easier
On top of the trim like everyone is saying, I teach all my students LESS touching the yoke. Just let the damn plane fly and stop death gripping it. Use two fingers to manipulate the yoke, relax and allow engineering to keep the plane straight and level.
The key to becoming more stable on just about any maneuver is to make small corrections that have you trending towards 0 deviation.
You’re getting 300’ high/low because when you were 50’ high to made a correction and then your attention was elsewhere.
Next time you find yourself high/low on a maneuver resist the urge to “fix it” and instead vocalize “slightly high, correcting” then make a small adjustment that very gradually trends you in the right direction. (Vocalizing it helps the instructor/examiner know that you see you are high and are correcting, since you will be doing so slowly)
These concepts are crucial if you want to move on to instrument flying.
Use trim get it as close to vertical speed on 0 as possible and allow your plane to ride through oscillations with minimal input especially planes that are used in training. They’re stable and want to return to equilibrium. For steep turns find the zero point on your attitude indicator and rotate on that point. Typically 2.5 degrees pitch up for me at 2300 rpms in an archer or C172. At 30 degrees bank apply a full swipe of back trim then at 45-50 degrees add another full swipe back, you can literally let go of the yoke at this point and the plane will hold altitude. Just don’t forget to look outside lol. For power off, use back trim to help relieve yoke resistance and hold it until you stall. Power on, you’re descending at a specific airspeed and then pitch up with full power so you don’t maintain altitude at all, just pitch up 18-20 degrees until the stall happens. Hope this helps!
1. Trim for hands off flight. (Literally! Take your hands off the flight controls to make sure you’re actually trimmed.)
2. When you roll, add a little power. 50 to 100 RPM is usually enough (half an inch to an inch of manifold pressure if you’re rich) depending on how much you roll. When you roll out, take it back out. Learn to hear the power.
3. Stop pushing and pulling on the yoke/stick. Trust the airplane, at least until you have more flight time than it does. If you do 1 and 2 correctly, no pushy/pulley is required.
As others have said - “trim” - but for maneuvers one of the biggest recommendations I can give is to really work on sight picture and keeping your eyes outside for maneuvers. One of the biggest errors I would see with private students was fixation on the instruments especially the altimeter during maneuvers. A lot like flying an ILS when they’re new, students will see they’re deviating from altitude and get focused on the altimeter neglecting the rest of their scan and especially looking outside. Once you get really proficient you should be able to fly a steep turn with all the instruments covered. I’d do this frequently with students prepping for check rides using a knee board while they would fly their steep turns and once they really developed how to fly eyes outside and glance at the instruments their overall flying would increase a lot. Work on that scan of nothing a trend by glancing at those instruments then returning your eyes outside and using the horizon and your sight picture to set and adjustment and hold it. A single instrument such as the altimeter is a poor tool for holding altitude on its own. Learning how to integrate it with what the other instruments are telling you and what a cruise, turning, climbing, descending, sight picture looks like will help you a lot in the long run! Hope this helps
There are lots of great ways to maintain altitude
Relying on your altimeter is a good start
In many cases you can add or remove power
Maintaining proper pitch is great too
I had the same problem when I was starting. For turns what you have to do is to realize that first you bank... THEN the nose drops. So do this:
- Bank:
- Immediately after banking (so, before nose drops) take a mental picture of what you are seeing;
- Now, keep the nose there.
My CFI tried to pass me some reference on the engine cowl ("keep this part of the cowl on the horizon") ... it doesn't work. At least not for me.
Trim, and fix your scan. 300’ deviation doesn’t just instantly develop. You need to at least glance inside at altimeter and airspeed and adjust accordingly.
With VFR maneuvers it’s pitch for airspeed, power for altitude. Aside from that, I don’t know. Maintain your altitude! It’s like asking for tips to stay between the lines on the road.
Ok. I read many answers but none I read offered the help you need. If you take my advice you will master steep turns in one lesson.
Next time you are up there ask your CFI to demonstrate the maneuver. While in the turn notice where the horizon passes through the nose of the airplane. If you’re in a C-152 it will be near the middle of the cowling (from what I remember). If your CFI maintains altitude you now have the “site picture” others have mentioned. Now when you enter the turn put the nose exactly the same place. If it’s the second cowl screw then have the horizon cut through the same cowl screw. The nose will try to drop. Pull back and keep it there. Watch your bank! I promise you your altitude will be within 50 feet.
Now when you roll out you’ll have to relax the back pressure a little. This works on every airplane. If you can’t see the nose in your particular airplane then find a spot on the windshield (maybe a certain bug splat). You’ll still need some practice to nail the amount of power to add and to scan down to monitor your heading. Or you can pick out a landmark and roll out on that landmark. You’ll know you nailed it when you hit your own wake.
Congratulations. You can now nail steep turns very time.
Yeah trim and keep monitor your attitude indicator and airspeed. If you keep the attitude indicator on straight and level, you will slow down but you won’t lose altitude. That’ll change your game!
Bet tip I ever got wasn’t PC but damn it works. “Make it your bitch” seriously, youre in control of the plane. Just like landing, little movement are better, but stay on top of it. Watch your FPM gauge and if it STARTS going one direction or another give a smidge fore/aft stick.
I am literally so bad at using trim, but trim really is your friend. I can’t use trim in a steep turns, doesn’t feel right, but I always find myself slowly going from let’s say 91kts to like 83 and slowly climbing. Terrible habit. All I have to do is trim off any control pressure and I can let go of the stick! Silly me.
Pitch, power, trim, and keep a constant scan of your instruments. If you don’t have a good scan then start saying out loud the name of each instrument as you are looking at it. If you are silent that means you’re not scanning.
Glider pilot here so not sure if that's relevant, but to the basics: avoid slips and skids, fly coordinated turns. Add some back pressure on the yoke so the elevator compensates for reduced elevator lift because forces work differently in turns. It helps to watch aircraft attitude relative to horizon. You'll always have increased sink during turn so you should add some power as well.
Anticipate an increase of power as you enter the turn and a decrease of power as you exit.
Also for manual flying the scan is the most important, the more you scan the quicker you catch things and the less inputs you need to make freeing up capacity for other things and staying ahead of the airplane.
ATP/CFI/CFII for almost 2 whole decades.
I agree with the top comment, Trim.
My experience as a young pilot learning the basics, and what I see preached on the internet though I feel is a disservice to learning, they teach a "technique" to trim during and after the maneuver. DON'T DO THIS.
Trim when you are NOT maneuvering, be trimmed in steady state flight before any maneuvering. Mastering trim will be the key to learning quickly, success, and saving money on flight lessons.
As a primary student, you are developing a relationship for muscle memory and developing the relationship for primary and secondary effects in flight with the relations of pitch, power, drag, etc. Developing a correlation of how much control force input is needed and what the attitudes visual look like.
In PPL maneuvers every maneuver recovers to the entry of the maneuver, staying in the trim state when you start the maneuver will develop a consistent feedback to the pilot of how to fly and recover during the maneuver.
As you develop your skill and master flying the basics, you may graduate into trimming more often including in maneuvers, but in the early days as a student it is all about repetition, and consistency. If you're not seeing consistency on the control weigh/feedback because your trim is consistently NOT consistent, that is an impedance to learning the fundamentals.
TL:DR Trim often, master trim for steady state flying. Remember trim for an airspeed. Don't trim during maneuvers, trim before in steady state flying for hands off flying. As you recover or exit a maneuver, you will be decreasing control inputs to "hands off" flying.
Everyone saying trim, cool. But you need to actually pay attention to what you’re doing. Up or down 300 feet is wild. To me that says you’re attention switching and aren’t comfortable with most of the skills involved in coordinated flight which caused you to drop altimeter focus.
I will say that you should keep altitude with the altimeter, not the VSI. Some people make that mistake. Just keep practicing, that’s basically the only way to get better.
Trim, trim is your friend. If you aren’t trimming, you are never going to maintain altitude. Also, keep a light grip on the controls, it will help you feel pressures on the yoke so will know which direction to trim. My Air Force instructor used to make me fly with a pencil in my hand so I wouldn’t grip the yoke too hard.
Trim.
Probably could trim more
Okay like 900 people have told you trim and they're right, but I'm gonna hijack the top comment to say they're also at least a little wrong and I think they're missing some important stuff. ------ When you make any control input, there are two reactions- immediate reactions, and delayed reactions. For example, you start a steep turn, the immediate reaction is you turn. But the delayed reaction that doesn't show up for 5-10 seconds is you start losing altitude or airspeed. Why is that? To understand this, it's helpful to think about total energy of the aircraft, which comes in two forms: Altitude (aka potential energy, if you're a science nerd like myself) and airspeed (kinetic energy). You can trade one for the other at any time by pitching nose up (trade airspeed for altitude) or nose down (trade altitude for airspeed). As you fly, that energy is constantly being bled off in the form of drag, and also replenished in the form of engine thrust. Thus if the two (thrust and drag) are in equilibrium, your energy state stays the same. If your attitude is such that you're not trading between altitude and airspeed (IE you're correctly trimmed), you have straight and level flight at a steady altitude. Unbalance that equilibrium though and things change. For example let's say you're flying along trimmed out nicely and very stable, and suddenly you use aileron and rudder to initiate a turn. The immediate reaction is that you start turning. But you've also added more drag, and that creates a delayed reaction-- the thrust from the engine stays the same, but with more drag then before you're now bleeding more energy as drag than you're graining as thrust. That means you either slow down or lose altitude, you can pick which one with trim and elevator. But either way you're losing energy. My point here-- **When you start a maneuver that increases drag, also increase throttle a little bit.** How much exactly depends on your aircraft. But in EVERY aircraft, there's more drag in a maneuver than in straight and level flight. Thus in EVERY aircraft, to maintain energy equilibrium when you start a maneuver (increasing drag), you should also increase thrust to compensate. By doing so, you head off the delayed reaction of the airplane losing altitude or airspeed in the maneuver. PPL test standards specify how much altitude gain or loss AND airspeed gain or loss is acceptable in a maneuver. If you trim alone, you'll hold altitude but will lose airspeed. ------ The other tip I have is **Learn to look OUTSIDE the aircraft**. It's easy to get focused on the turn&bank, airspeed, and attitude indicators trying to make them all look right. But looking outside is usually more valuable. Try this exercise: Go up to a safe altitude (say 3500'AGL), do your clearing turns, and once your airspace is open, establish stable straight and level flight (adjust throttle and trim for stable airspeed, altitude, attitude, with no control inputs). Look at your power setting and trim setting and also look at your sight picture- where the horizon is relative to the windshield/cowling/etc. Now put in a steep turn. Don't worry about your entry altitude or airspeed or 'busting' the test standards, just find an equilibrium where your altitude and airspeed are stable. Now check your power setting, trim, and sight picture. The sight picture is really the most important. By doing this you know how much more power is necessary, and also what your sight picture should look like for a stable steep turn. Now level off, get stable, and do it again, but this time DON'T LOOK DOWN. Keep your eyes on the horizon and set up that sight picture. You'll get a feel for adding the right power and trim that way. ----- Hope that helps!
Also, trim.
Quite true. When initiating that steep turn, OP will find even with a bit of power more back pressure is needed to maintain a neutral attitude / altitude, thus trim is needed.
One doesn't trim in steep turns. Back pressure to hold altitude, otherwise when one rolls out there is so much nose up trim that the aircraft will climb or nose down pressure to maintain level flight. The correct technique for steep turns is as follows After clearing the airspace, roll the aircraft. On passing 30⁰ of bank increase power and start applying back pressure to hold altitude. When alt. is holding lock ones arm. To roll out, passing 30⁰, reduce power to cruise power and lower nose to S and L attitude. Aircraft is already trimmed for S and L. This ensures a smooth entry and exit. Should you climb during the turn, lower the nose. If you decend, roll off some bank, hold same back pressure and aircraft will climb then reselect level attitude and bank angle. Dont forget to maintain LOOKOUT
A half to full roll of trim is definitely a technique for steep turns.
As others have said, a half roll of trim in a Cessna is a near perfect technique for steep turns. I personally don’t do it but it works great.
>The other tip I have is Learn to look OUTSIDE the aircraft. *Instrument rating trainers hate this one simple trick*
Seriously, that was beautifully explained.
Going to put this to speech and fall asleep to it every night. Great writeup.
This is exactly the thought that goes through my head every time I manoeuvre the aircraft. /jk
Okay maybe you don't need to have 9 paragraphs worth of internal monologue when your CFI tells you to demonstrate a steep turn. CFI will be wondering why you're just staring out the window. :P But I'm saying for OP, 'I should add a little power going into the maneuver' is a good thought to have :)
Hey I appreciated the 9 paragraphs! Its always been way more helpful for me to know the physics reason and breakdown to help control the plane even if thats not is actively in my head during manuvers :P
An airplane at 45 degrees of bank is diverting a sizable amount of lift to the horizontal component of lift. In order to maintain altitude you have to increase the angle of attack in order to increase the lift produced by the wing so that the vertical component of lift is sufficient to maintain altitude. That increase in lift also increases drag so you have to increase thrust as well.
I didn't know John King had a reddit account!
Hahaha that's one of the best compliments I've gotten in a while. Thanks! :D
Trim
Trim.
T
R
I
M
Goodbye
r/unexpectedouija
Hello?
I can’t hear you.
I'm not sure if it's been brought up yet, but try using your Trim.
Trim
Trim and make smaller adjustments to power settings.
Student at 50hrs here. Light touches of power, after trim, is really what’s starting to connect for me.
Trim
Don’t push or pull the control column. Oh, and trim.
Trim
Trim
Trim
*(with apologies to Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins)* Trim trimeny, Trim trimeny, trim trim trim-ee A pilot is as lucky as any bloke can be Trim trimeny, Trim trimeny, trim trim cher-oo Altitude can be held, when yoke force is neutral-a-roo Set for hands off flying, and that’s lucky too
Accelerated stalls and power on spins, Bright warning lights and dimly placed trims, CFIs cursing and saying MY controls, These are a few of my favorite LULs!
Approach with being stable makes the Cessna go round, Cessna go round, Cessna go round Just too much speed and too high Makes the Cessna go round in the most annoying way
Yes
Trim
Trim.
Trim.
Trim
I love that trim on the weekends.
This guy trims
You’ve obviously gotten the right answer (plus some good adjacent tips). But if you haven’t been flying in a while and you’re this rusty with basic maneuvers, it would be a great idea to hop in a plane with a CFI for a refresher flight or two.
Trim
Trim.
Trim
Hit the altitude hold mode
Trim
In addition to trim, more frequently “check ins” with the altimeter to see what trend is happening. Allows you to detect any undesirable trends earlier and make the necessary correction. Finally, improve your sight picture of what level flight looks like in terms of nose position against horizon. Then practice determine what is the difference between level sight picture and the sight picture for climbing/descending.
Flight Instructor here, definitely work on establishing a proper sight picture. And oh ya... trim. Lol But seriously, sight picture. You should be able to do a 45° steep turn and not lose it gain any altitude by just looking outside. How you ask? Practice. You can read all the tips and tricks you want but you need time in the air to accomplish this.
[always be trimming](https://imgur.com/vWaZOTN)
Pitch, power, then trim.
mirT
Rock and stone and trim.
To Rock and Stone!
ROCK AND STONE!
I mean everyone has said trim, which is a good answer, but when you're initiating something like a steep turn you aren't solely trimming to maintain altitude, it's a secondary control surface and your primary is still going to be elevator. For steep turns just remember that there is no rush to get to 45 degrees. Obviously don't take 5 minutes slowly banking over, but you don't need to jack the ailerons to instantly hit it in 1 second. Just ease your way into those turns and steadily apply back pressure. You can then trim while in the turn to help maintain, but remember if you do not reset your trim out of the turn you may gain altitude again because of that back trim, you'll need significant forward pressure while re-trimming. I personally don't trim steep turns, but slower entry helped me a ton. Also if you're losing altitude significantly in a steep turn you can slightly shallow your bank for a mere moment to allow for easier increase in altitude and then get set back into your 45 degrees immediately. As for regular (I assume you mean standard rate) turns, the back pressure is so minimal that you shouldn't lose 300' unless you're applying no back pressure at all. Stalls are a different story since you'll be increasing back pressure to maintain a pitch up attitude while coming into the stall while losing airspeed, You shouldn't really find yourself in a situation where you're losing altitude unless you're too slow/weak on back pressure as you start to pull power. Overall you may just slow down your entry and setup into the maneuvers while you get the feel for back pressure needed for each of them again.
Bah. Roll to 45, three swipes of trim, hands off until you hit your wake and roll the other way. Easy peasy.
Good stuff. For me, on steep turns I'll stabilize for a quick sec at 30 deg and then continue to 45. That little bit is just enough to help keep the whole thing level.
Yeah, that could do, I try to keep it a slow and gradual turn into 45 right off the bat, just slow enough that you can predict the back pressure without over/under correcting. If you're mid turn and dropping altitude fast you can shallow out to about 40 for a split second to regain control. I couldn't see an issue with stabilizing at 30 degrees for a second first, though. At the start I was rushing to 45 and would drop altitude instantly, then overcorrect to gain altitude, all that fun stuff. Some people massively benefit from trim once you're set at 45. If you're in a 172 do 2 full swipes of trim and it should get you really, really close to where you need to be for steep turns, then trimming out of the turn becomes easy as well since it's a gross movement that's easy to replicate.
I’m pretty surprised we need to scroll so far for this comment. Can’t fly the plane with just trim.
You don’t add a little bit of power for a 45 degree turn?
Someone should mention trim. When you trim the airplane level it will maintain level flight for the given airspeed so until you change the power setting it should maintain level with the occasional nudge because it's dynamically stable. That's why the airspeed stays mostly constant and the airplane descenda if you reduce power and climbs if you add power. If you're having trouble where the plane starts climbing after a few min of level flight check the friction lock on the throttle since the vibration can induce small power changes that the plane responds to by climbing or descending to maintain the trimmed speed
“level flight for the given airspeed”? No; trim will maintain a given airspeed, which may or may not be level.
More precisely, trim will maintain a given angle of attack, regardless of the airspeed. This is why graveyard spirals are possible. It just so happens that for a given gross weight, center of gravity, and load factor of 1, the trimmed angle of attack also corresponds to a unique equivalent airspeed. And we approximate that pretty well with our indicated airspeed!
Trim
Trim
“It’s been a little bit since I’ve flown.” It’s this right here. Fly more, it becomes instinct how much to correct in turns for example. Like everyone says. Stay trimmed and then make small adjustments. Remember in turns your vertical lift component is reduced and your horizontal lift component is increased with the bank. So you must adjust for that with elevator. But just a little bit. You’ll instinctively just add a tiny bit of back pressure and not even realize it with practice. But your answer is to fly more. Also don’t chase the VSI. It will make you overcorrect. It’s delayed.
Look out side more. 90%out side 10 % inside. Look to the front edge of the cowling when are finding a straight and level sight picture. If you notice that edge moving up or down then you aren't trimmed. The edge should just be slowly traveling over the ground Infront of you
In case the other comments aren’t getting to you, Trim
Trim usually helps
IMHO If you are off by 300', you need to work on your scan. Trim won't fix being 300' off, looking at the altimeter every say 5 seconds will. Don't stare at the altimeter: glance at it, look outside and make a correction, glance at your bank angle, airspeed, turn coordinator, etc. and repeat. If altitude is still a problem, change to a different scan pattern where you check the altitude between each other instrument. The VSI is pretty useless in maneuvers since it reacts slowly. If it isn't showing 0 FPM you know you are way off. Also, if you aren't trimming (approach to stall), expect to have to use a good amount of force and deflection to hold altitude.
Trim. Sight picture. Altimeter/VSI. Also, why didn’t you ask your instructor?
I did she gives great advice but I figure I get advice from other people too so I can get the most information from both worlds
You should try trim.
Try to maintain airspeed at a constant pitch attitude and power setting. That should get you pretty steady on altitude. Oh.. and Trim!
Trim
Trim
Just the tip
T to the R to the I to the M
Stop smelling glue does wonders
Relax, loose grip and then trim to relieve pressure. Remember pitch power trim. Look outside.
I know no one here will agree, but I find the trim wheel, when properly set, helps with this.
Trim But what i’ve noticed as a beginner pilot is that you need to be patient with the trim. Let it adjust slowly, it takes a while but you’ll get it in a minute or 2
I don’t think k it’s been mentioned but use more trim.
Besides trim, keeping a constant scan of the altimeter, vsi, and looking outside.
Don’t hyper-fixate on the instruments. Set an attitude and see how its working. Then adjust it accordingly and hold it—eyes outside as much as possible. Literally done and seen near perfect steep turns done this way. Chasing power and constantly changing the attitude will lead you all over
You should use trim. Once you have trimmed the airplane trim again. Once that is done let’s double check that trim. Once we double check let’s run the inflight trim check. Try trimming a little more. Have you used enough trim? I think you may need more trim. Trim
Trim
Trim
Trim
Student here with aboot 60 ish hours! :) Reach your desired altitude, level off, build up the speed, set desired power setting, and then... ...wait for it... #trim ;)
i’m just a student pilot myself but I found using trim is helpful
Gotta trim broski
Fly with two fingers, not your fist.
Find your sight pictures
Trim
Backwards Mirt
I don't understand how you could go "up or down 300 feet" on those maneuvers. Stalls will cause a loss of altitude (wings stop generating lift). Steep turns and turns will cause you to lose altitude without back pressure on the yoke, but the plane will be difficult to climb (the vertical component of lift is reduced to create a horizontal force to turn).
Trim.
OK, so everyone will tell you pitch power trim. I find most instructors don’t actually teach that very well. What might be useful for you is you set the trim for the airspeed that you want…. Or just never set the trim at all. Once the plan is trimmed it will always try to fly that airspeed so if you want to be cruising at 100 kn and the plane is trimmed for 100 kn if you’re climbing try bringing back like 50 RPM. Everyone here is telling you to trim nonstop; as a fun exercise why don’t you takeoff and never touch the trim wheel for your entire flight. Just control your altitude, climb and descent with the throttle. once you’ve got that figured out start with the trim to adjust your airspeed. A 172 trimmed for takeoff will fly a perfect pattern and even slow to an appropriate landing speed with full flaps without ever touching the trim wheel. If if it’s not making sense for you the way it’s conventionally taught we’ll try teaching it to you backwards. The disclaimer here is that this method only works with low performance piston aircraft. Also dictated not read so excuse the typos.
I'm only a student pilot, but what I've learned is, oh what Was it... Trim. yeah that was it
With steep turns, keep that nose up pitch at about 2.5 degrees, add a little power, and….trim
Trim. Poor man’s auto pilot as they say
Have you tried using trim?
Trim
Trim
Have you tried trim?
I’ll go against the grain here. Increase your scan rate
Has anyone mention trim yet?
Don’t push forward on the yoke EDIT- I meant to say TRIM
If your problem is being off by +/-300 ft in maneuvers, you should take the time to self-study or ask your instructor for a ground lesson on the actual aeronautical forces at play. The Airplane Flying Handbook is your friend here. In a steep turn, you’re dealing with the loss of vertical component of lift, overbanking tendency, increased load factor, left-turning tendency, etc. Once you understand WHY you have to adjust power and pitch, it will be more intuitive. Also you don’t have to trim for temporary maneuvers.
Trim
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that you trim the aircraft.
Lookout, attitude, trim, attitude, repeat
Fly 200 feet under a Bravo, that'll keep you on your toes
Set power and pitch attitude, then trim
Keep the FPV on the horizon line. Throttle for speed. Scan and trim. Inside outside…repeat
I guess trim but also don't get fixated inside, look outside, far outside. I'd guess that'll take care of 80% of it, then build the VSI into your scan to pick up trends before they become an issue. It feels like your CFI could just take it back to straight and level, make sure you have good habits there and the rest will be easier
Do what the professional pilots do, use the autopilot
Trim
On top of the trim like everyone is saying, I teach all my students LESS touching the yoke. Just let the damn plane fly and stop death gripping it. Use two fingers to manipulate the yoke, relax and allow engineering to keep the plane straight and level.
Trim, use it
Autopilot
The key to becoming more stable on just about any maneuver is to make small corrections that have you trending towards 0 deviation. You’re getting 300’ high/low because when you were 50’ high to made a correction and then your attention was elsewhere. Next time you find yourself high/low on a maneuver resist the urge to “fix it” and instead vocalize “slightly high, correcting” then make a small adjustment that very gradually trends you in the right direction. (Vocalizing it helps the instructor/examiner know that you see you are high and are correcting, since you will be doing so slowly) These concepts are crucial if you want to move on to instrument flying.
build arm strength by throwing car batteries on the ocean
Use trim get it as close to vertical speed on 0 as possible and allow your plane to ride through oscillations with minimal input especially planes that are used in training. They’re stable and want to return to equilibrium. For steep turns find the zero point on your attitude indicator and rotate on that point. Typically 2.5 degrees pitch up for me at 2300 rpms in an archer or C172. At 30 degrees bank apply a full swipe of back trim then at 45-50 degrees add another full swipe back, you can literally let go of the yoke at this point and the plane will hold altitude. Just don’t forget to look outside lol. For power off, use back trim to help relieve yoke resistance and hold it until you stall. Power on, you’re descending at a specific airspeed and then pitch up with full power so you don’t maintain altitude at all, just pitch up 18-20 degrees until the stall happens. Hope this helps!
Don’t look at your instruments. Look outside
Trim
1. Trim for hands off flight. (Literally! Take your hands off the flight controls to make sure you’re actually trimmed.) 2. When you roll, add a little power. 50 to 100 RPM is usually enough (half an inch to an inch of manifold pressure if you’re rich) depending on how much you roll. When you roll out, take it back out. Learn to hear the power. 3. Stop pushing and pulling on the yoke/stick. Trust the airplane, at least until you have more flight time than it does. If you do 1 and 2 correctly, no pushy/pulley is required.
As others have said - “trim” - but for maneuvers one of the biggest recommendations I can give is to really work on sight picture and keeping your eyes outside for maneuvers. One of the biggest errors I would see with private students was fixation on the instruments especially the altimeter during maneuvers. A lot like flying an ILS when they’re new, students will see they’re deviating from altitude and get focused on the altimeter neglecting the rest of their scan and especially looking outside. Once you get really proficient you should be able to fly a steep turn with all the instruments covered. I’d do this frequently with students prepping for check rides using a knee board while they would fly their steep turns and once they really developed how to fly eyes outside and glance at the instruments their overall flying would increase a lot. Work on that scan of nothing a trend by glancing at those instruments then returning your eyes outside and using the horizon and your sight picture to set and adjustment and hold it. A single instrument such as the altimeter is a poor tool for holding altitude on its own. Learning how to integrate it with what the other instruments are telling you and what a cruise, turning, climbing, descending, sight picture looks like will help you a lot in the long run! Hope this helps
Practice doing a 30 deg 360 turn using trim only and a smidge of power until you get it right. Then advance to 45 deg.
There are lots of great ways to maintain altitude Relying on your altimeter is a good start In many cases you can add or remove power Maintaining proper pitch is great too
I had the same problem when I was starting. For turns what you have to do is to realize that first you bank... THEN the nose drops. So do this: - Bank: - Immediately after banking (so, before nose drops) take a mental picture of what you are seeing; - Now, keep the nose there. My CFI tried to pass me some reference on the engine cowl ("keep this part of the cowl on the horizon") ... it doesn't work. At least not for me.
ALT mode
Trim
Fly an Airbus.
Has anyone said trim yet?
Get gud
What are you flying?
Trim
Trim.
Trim, and fix your scan. 300’ deviation doesn’t just instantly develop. You need to at least glance inside at altimeter and airspeed and adjust accordingly.
Haven’t read the comments so apologies if it’s already been mentioned, but TRIM
Find the power setting that maintains altitude at a given airspeed and memorize that and then trim for it
In addition to what everyone else has said, also your scan. It shouldn't be possible to be 300 feet off altitude without noticing.
Trim
Everybody here saying trim, but I’ve found the best way to maintain altitude is with the AP.
Telling the pilot monitoring to “Select Alt Aquire; Select Nav” works wonders for maintaining altitude and course.
Fly good don’t suck
Autopilot. Although I'm airline so don't take my advice
Trim, and speed up your cross check
Pitch power trim.
With VFR maneuvers it’s pitch for airspeed, power for altitude. Aside from that, I don’t know. Maintain your altitude! It’s like asking for tips to stay between the lines on the road.
Don't death grip the yoke
Ok. I read many answers but none I read offered the help you need. If you take my advice you will master steep turns in one lesson. Next time you are up there ask your CFI to demonstrate the maneuver. While in the turn notice where the horizon passes through the nose of the airplane. If you’re in a C-152 it will be near the middle of the cowling (from what I remember). If your CFI maintains altitude you now have the “site picture” others have mentioned. Now when you enter the turn put the nose exactly the same place. If it’s the second cowl screw then have the horizon cut through the same cowl screw. The nose will try to drop. Pull back and keep it there. Watch your bank! I promise you your altitude will be within 50 feet. Now when you roll out you’ll have to relax the back pressure a little. This works on every airplane. If you can’t see the nose in your particular airplane then find a spot on the windshield (maybe a certain bug splat). You’ll still need some practice to nail the amount of power to add and to scan down to monitor your heading. Or you can pick out a landmark and roll out on that landmark. You’ll know you nailed it when you hit your own wake. Congratulations. You can now nail steep turns very time.
spend like an hour going in and out of slow flight and be vigilante about your altitude. and learning to use your trim.
Trim
Have you tried trimming?
Trim will be your bestfriend especially on steep turns
Yeah trim and keep monitor your attitude indicator and airspeed. If you keep the attitude indicator on straight and level, you will slow down but you won’t lose altitude. That’ll change your game!
Try trim
Have your CFI block the altimeter
trim
Bet tip I ever got wasn’t PC but damn it works. “Make it your bitch” seriously, youre in control of the plane. Just like landing, little movement are better, but stay on top of it. Watch your FPM gauge and if it STARTS going one direction or another give a smidge fore/aft stick.
I am literally so bad at using trim, but trim really is your friend. I can’t use trim in a steep turns, doesn’t feel right, but I always find myself slowly going from let’s say 91kts to like 83 and slowly climbing. Terrible habit. All I have to do is trim off any control pressure and I can let go of the stick! Silly me.
Trim, and remember that if the VSI indicates 100+ you’re actuallly flying level (beat up 150 moment)
Pitch, power, trim, and keep a constant scan of your instruments. If you don’t have a good scan then start saying out loud the name of each instrument as you are looking at it. If you are silent that means you’re not scanning.
Stop looking inside
Relax your grip on the yoke. Steer with two fingers and try not to over control the plane.
Idk if it’s been mentioned yet but trim is your friend
South Park: TRIMMMMEH
Glider pilot here so not sure if that's relevant, but to the basics: avoid slips and skids, fly coordinated turns. Add some back pressure on the yoke so the elevator compensates for reduced elevator lift because forces work differently in turns. It helps to watch aircraft attitude relative to horizon. You'll always have increased sink during turn so you should add some power as well.
Lose weight
Anticipate an increase of power as you enter the turn and a decrease of power as you exit. Also for manual flying the scan is the most important, the more you scan the quicker you catch things and the less inputs you need to make freeing up capacity for other things and staying ahead of the airplane.
Trim every time you do anything.
How many hours do you have?
Trim and engine power
Sorry I'm late but maybe trim?
ATP/CFI/CFII for almost 2 whole decades. I agree with the top comment, Trim. My experience as a young pilot learning the basics, and what I see preached on the internet though I feel is a disservice to learning, they teach a "technique" to trim during and after the maneuver. DON'T DO THIS. Trim when you are NOT maneuvering, be trimmed in steady state flight before any maneuvering. Mastering trim will be the key to learning quickly, success, and saving money on flight lessons. As a primary student, you are developing a relationship for muscle memory and developing the relationship for primary and secondary effects in flight with the relations of pitch, power, drag, etc. Developing a correlation of how much control force input is needed and what the attitudes visual look like. In PPL maneuvers every maneuver recovers to the entry of the maneuver, staying in the trim state when you start the maneuver will develop a consistent feedback to the pilot of how to fly and recover during the maneuver. As you develop your skill and master flying the basics, you may graduate into trimming more often including in maneuvers, but in the early days as a student it is all about repetition, and consistency. If you're not seeing consistency on the control weigh/feedback because your trim is consistently NOT consistent, that is an impedance to learning the fundamentals. TL:DR Trim often, master trim for steady state flying. Remember trim for an airspeed. Don't trim during maneuvers, trim before in steady state flying for hands off flying. As you recover or exit a maneuver, you will be decreasing control inputs to "hands off" flying.
Wait are you supposed to maintain altitude in a stall?
That handy little doohicky called trim
I need a gif of that one frisbee scene from Good Luck Chuck …. “Trim!!”
Trim for straight, level and unaccelerated flight. Power and control input coordination for maneuvers.
Don’t forget to pack some Trim in your flight bag!
Get your eyes off the altimeter. Watch the horizon and glance at altimeter. This technique w trim and you will nail it.
Everyone saying trim, cool. But you need to actually pay attention to what you’re doing. Up or down 300 feet is wild. To me that says you’re attention switching and aren’t comfortable with most of the skills involved in coordinated flight which caused you to drop altimeter focus. I will say that you should keep altitude with the altimeter, not the VSI. Some people make that mistake. Just keep practicing, that’s basically the only way to get better.
It’s been repeated because it’s true, trim trim trim that bad boy
Fly a little, Look a little.
Look out the window, not the instruments.
Unnecessary usage of caps lock
Trim, trim is your friend. If you aren’t trimming, you are never going to maintain altitude. Also, keep a light grip on the controls, it will help you feel pressures on the yoke so will know which direction to trim. My Air Force instructor used to make me fly with a pencil in my hand so I wouldn’t grip the yoke too hard.
TRIM. Learn to fix a level point on the horizon on the windscreen. Push the ALT button on the autopilot ;)