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Level Turns

A level turn is a turn at a chosen bank angle in which altitude and airspeed are maintained. It is the first maneuver that makes bank, pitch and rudder work as a single set, and the first where getting one of them wrong shows up immediately on the altimeter.

Fundamentals of Flight — FI.VIII.B

Why you learn it

Nearly every heading change you make in the air is one of these. Every course correction on a cross-country, every entry to and exit from the traffic pattern, every leg of the pattern itself, every turn back toward the field at the end of a practice session. It shows up in nearly every phase of flight, which is why it is worth being precise about something that looks this ordinary.

Bank, pitch and rudder all change at once here, and the airplane only stays where you put it if all three arrive together. That habit, and the spatial orientation that comes with it, is what the maneuver is really building.

Both halves of the definition are the work. Rolling into a bank is easy. Holding altitude and airspeed while the bank is there is the maneuver, and it is the half that gets graded.

What the airplane is doing

You bank with the ailerons. In a left turn the left aileron rises and the right aileron lowers, so the right wing produces more lift than the left and the airplane rolls left. Once the wings are banked, the lift they produce is tilted with them. Part of it now pulls sideways, and that horizontal component is what turns the airplane — nothing else does.

The rest of the lift is still holding the airplane up, but there is less of it than there was, because it is only the vertical share of a tilted force. Left alone, the airplane descends. You replace what the bank took away with back pressure on the elevator, which increases total lift until the vertical component again equals weight. That is why the elevator, not the throttle, is what holds your altitude in a turn.

Two things follow from needing more total lift. Load factor goes up, and so does stall speed. And induced drag goes up with it, so at a constant power setting the airspeed will sag a little in a turn — mild in a shallow bank, worth adding power for in a steep one.

The lowered aileron also makes more drag than the raised one, so the nose tries to yaw away from the turn while you are rolling in. That is adverse yaw, and rudder cancels it — pressure in the direction of the roll while the roll is happening, much less of it once the bank has stopped changing.

What the bank does on its own

Shallow banks, roughly under 20 degrees, tend to roll themselves level — lateral stability wins — so you hold a little aileron into the turn to keep them. Medium banks, roughly 20 to 45 degrees, mostly stay where you put them. Past that, the outside wing travels faster than the inside wing and makes more lift, and the bank tries to steepen on its own, so you hold a little aileron out of the turn. Which of the three you are in tells you which way to expect to hold the ailerons.

Flying one

1. Clear the area.
2. Pick a visual reference and note the heading.
3. Roll in with coordinated aileron and rudder to the bank you want — 15 to 30 degrees is where you start.
4. Add back pressure as the bank increases, not after it is established.
5. Relax the rudder once the bank has stopped changing, and hold the bank with whatever aileron that bank asks for: a little into the turn if it is shallow, close to neutral if it is medium, a little out of the turn if it is steep. Hold the pitch attitude that is holding your altitude.
6. Trim once the turn is stabilized, if you are going to hold it.
7. Lead the rollout by about half the bank angle.
8. Release the back pressure as the wings come level, or you will balloon.

Roll in and roll out at the same rate. Most of what makes a turn look sloppy happens in those two transitions, not in the middle.

Where you look

Outside, most of the time. The horizon across the cowling gives you pitch, the angle of the cowl against the horizon gives you bank, and your peripheral view of the wingtip confirms it. Learn the picture at each bank angle and you will not need the panel to set one.

Then cross-check inside. The attitude indicator confirms the bank, the altimeter and vertical speed confirm the altitude, and the inclinometer confirms your feet are doing their job. Keep the glances short — head-down time in a turn is time you are not looking for traffic. In instrument conditions that priority inverts and the cross-check becomes everything, which is why the outside habit has to be solid first.

What goes wrong

Altitude drifting. Almost always a timing problem. Back pressure that arrives after the bank lets the nose down; back pressure that stays on through the rollout pitches you up as the lift comes back vertical.

Uncoordinated flight. Feet parked on the floor during roll-in, or held in after the bank is set. It is worth taking seriously early: a slipping turn is untidy, but a skidding turn — too much rudder into the turn — is the one that has killed people on the turn from base to final, because the airplane that stalls in a skid rolls over the top.

The countermeasures are dull, and they are the whole defense. Center the ball with rudder rather than trying to pick a low wing up with aileron. Keep the bank shallow in the pattern; the Airplane Flying Handbook's guidance is to avoid steep banks close to the ground, and there is nothing down there worth the extra ten degrees. And if you overshoot the final, go around rather than tightening the turn to salvage it. The overshoot costs you five minutes. The turn flown to hide the overshoot is the one in the accident reports.

Bank angle wandering. Usually staring at one thing long enough to stop noticing the picture change.

Rolling out late or early. Fix the lead point, not the heading — chasing the heading after the fact just makes an S out of a turn.

Overcontrolling. Large fast inputs, then large fast corrections. The airplane will do everything you want with pressures rather than movements.

Traffic and risk

A banked wing hides the airspace you are turning into. Clear the area before you start, keep the scan going through the turn, and treat traffic advisories or an ADS-B display as a supplement to looking outside, not a replacement.

Aviate first. If something demands attention mid-turn — a radio call, a warning light, a passenger — the bank and the altitude come before the troubleshooting. This is one your instructor will test on purpose: distractions during maneuvers are introduced by a CFI on a dual flight, at a moment of their choosing, and how your bank and altitude behave while you are answering is the whole point of the exercise. It is not something to stage for yourself when you are up alone.

Where you meet it next

Everywhere. The traffic pattern is level turns with a strict altitude and a moving target. Turns around a point, S-turns across a road and the rectangular course are level turns with wind added, so the bank has to keep changing to hold the ground track. Steep turns are this same maneuver taken to 45 degrees, where every effect above gets large enough that you cannot ignore any of them. And on the checkride the examiner judges your turns constantly without ever calling them a task.

Build it in that order: shallow banks first, then medium, describing the control pressures out loud as you feel them so your instructor can hear what you are noticing. The lessons on straight-and-level flight, steep turns and the ground reference maneuvers are in the ground school, and you can fly the pattern with charts and live weather in the app.