Steep turn

[Gravedigger]

Should an ATPL pilot in a level D sim be able to make it around a reverse 180 steep turn without the prompting help of the other pilot calling out altitude and heading deviations?  Oh and also the amount of thrust that is set in regards to A/S?  Just a poll.  I mean back in the private days on your flight test your examiner would not warn you of altitude loss.  I am all for helping a brother out ex giving a heads up on LOC ALIVE etc. I understand CRM and will not let the guy turn into a smoking hole,  but if you suck at a steep turn and its day 7 in the sim and you still suck at it. Maybe just maybe you suck?  Don't freak out and blame it on me.

[rudderless]

My vote is "YES!"  Basic maneuver on a CPL flight test.  At any point after that, you should be able to do it on any aircraft you intend to fly commercially, and
especially after 7 days in the sim? 

[Slick Goodlin]

Yes, IMO the steep turn is there as a scanning exercise.  The turn is just introduced to make the plane fly on 'hard mode' and the pilot's IFR discipline and airplane handling skills suddenly become glaringly obvious.

Having said that, [i]when[/i] is the PNF calling out the deviations?  In training I call out anything more than +/-20 feet, 2 knots, or about a degree of bank.  I'm also really anal about coordination.  When I jump in as PNF on a ride I only call out deviations that start to tickle the tolerances called out in the flight test guide (also roughly where our company SOP'ed deviation calls would happen).

[Gravedigger]

You call out 2 knots or a degree of bank???????????  A degree of Bank??? C'mon

[Gravedigger]

Like I said I am all about CRM and helping a brother out with sop calls and deviation calls which is what I meant by a smoking hole in the ground. Believe me I can't do a perfect steep turn..... I will admit to it. I can not hold + or - 1 degree of bank or 2 knots perfectly around a reversing 180. But I sure as hell don't need a PNF calling out my heading to turn the other way. 

[Slick Goodlin]

[quote author=Gravedigger link=topic=281.msg927#msg927 date=1434431146]
You call out 2 knots or a degree of bank???????????  A degree of Bank??? C'mon
[/quote]
In training?  Yes, I try to get to that point.  A degree of bank was maybe extreme, it was late when I wrote that, but I call out any visible deviation in bank.  Again, this is just in training where I need to drive home that they have to be scanning all the time.  I also do take the time to teach [i]how[/i] to do a steep turn without sucking, I'd just be an ass if all I did was complain about their lousy performance without guidance on improving.  I do both simulator and in-aircraft training, BTW.

The big problem I find with people who are bad at steep turns is they either a) fixate too long on one thing, or b) fly the airplane with reference to control pressures rather than attitudes.  Like I said before, at that stage of the game the steep turn exists as an unforgiving instrument exercise.  Most of the difficulty, IMO, comes from having to know the relationship between different things.  A change in bank angle will require a change in pitch and power to maintain speed and altitude (this is why I call it when the trainee is slacking), a power change will require a pitch change to hold altitude, and rudder coordination directly effects drag but also messes with your required pitch.  Notice most of that stuff is centred around the attitude indicator.  Steep turns are easy enough though if you fly them primarily off the AI and skid ball/butt, with just quick reference glances at speed and altitude.  On a smooth day it shouldn't be impossible to make even a jerk PNF like me stay quiet.

The only other issue I can think of that's more sim-specific is that a lot of people over control them.  There's usually a very tiny time delay between moving the controls and the sim responding, short enough that you couldn't time it in your head but long enough to cause overshoots of whatever your target attitude is if you're abrupt with the controls.  Trouble here often manifests itself as pilot induced oscillations.  Is your sim partner consistently low, for example, or are they bouncing off all the steep turn limits?  I find the key to sim success is smooth and deliberate movements of the controls with lots of anticipation of altitudes, headings, attitudes and whatever else.  Like anything else, it can be learned so long as the student accepts that they need to learn it.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

What angle of bank do you roll to and maintain in your steep turn exercise?

And what type of airplane is it?

[Slick Goodlin]

[quote author=Chuck Ellsworth link=topic=281.msg943#msg943 date=1434466968]
What angle of bank do you roll to and maintain in your steep turn exercise?[/quote]
Forty five degrees, as per the PPC flight test guide.

[quote author=Chuck Ellsworth link=topic=281.msg943#msg943 date=1434466968]
And what type of airplane is it?[/quote]
I've gone back and forth on this but I've decided that since the work plane is somewhat unique I don't want to out myself today.

[Colonel]

Many pilots struggle with steep turns,
and it's a pity.

For any given aircraft type and altitude
and weight and airspeed and temperature
(if one is to be pedantic) ...

You must raise the nose X degrees and
set the power to Y (RPM or MP or N1)
to maintain altitude and airspeed at
the given angle of bank (45, 60, etc).

All you have to do is figure out what X
and Y are.

Hint:  in a real aircraft, you will feel a
constant (and light) +ve G during a
sustained steep (45 or 60 deg) turn. 

This physicial cue is unfortunately missing
in a sim, which after all is a video game,
not an aircraft, and makes it harder to
do a steep turn in a sim, than in a real
airplane.

Here's an interesting steep turn technique:



Bounce it off the water.

[David MacRay]

[quote author=Colonel link=topic=281.msg975#msg975 date=1434511954]

Here's an interesting steep turn technique:



Bounce it off the water.
[/quote]

That looked scary.