The Steep Turn Solution

Today, after a big hiatus due to lousy weather and an even lousier flu, I flew solo to whip these steep turns. It's been a long time since I flew, and I have been waiting to put to practice all of the mental turns I've had looping through my head for weeks.

I decided to just focus on the basics, and just kept going back and forth, with a few little coordination exercises just for good measure. I wanted to just go back to "first principles" and work through the turns step by step. The most significant adjustment was that I didn't use the trim at all this time. Most often, my instructor has me trim as I establish the bank, and then as I roll out, I need to trim back to straight and level. I made the choice to just muscle through the turns, which ended up working out much better today.

It may just be a matter of sheer practice, but I felt that the control pressures gave me better feedback about what the plane was about to do. In any event, while not every turn was a winner, I was significantly better than before, and more consistent. The other adjustment was to pick a spot on the windshield for a horizon reference, something that we've done before, but not emphasized. This time, I was narrowly focused on the horizon as I entered the turn, and things started out a lot more stable.

It meant that I gave up a few seconds of outside scanning, but in a steep turn, the world spins by pretty fast anyway. The end result was that I was more stable in the turn entry, and I could better anticipate the altitude fluctuations and arrest them before they busted minimums. After going around on the carousel for an hour or so, I decided to work on my landings.

I entered the pattern, and did a bunch of approaches, making extra sure to stay on the right side of the power curve. As is my habit, I still hold a bit too much speed sometimes (especially solo, when the throttle has to be way out for a normal descent), and I made sure to bleed off energy before final. On my first approach, I had to correct for a slight crosswind down to about 100 feet AGL, and I had to make a conscious effort to keep lined up. It's been a long time since I had a real crosswind touchdown, so even a bit of practice at altitude is good.

I focused on short- and soft- field landings again, and my touchdowns were very smooth. I switched directions and did a right-traffic approach, which had me going with the wind, so I had a bit of a lopsided final, but it worked out. Then I came around on the shorter, narrower, crosswind runway for a full-stop. This highlighted that you need to have a mental "abort" point, since I floated just a bit long and used up all the runway. I'll make the excuse that I was looking hard into the sun, so my height judgment may have been a bit off, but if I had gone any further, I would have been in trouble. I should have had a point in mind that if I had not touched down, I would have gone around. That's the problem with practicing on a 9,000 foot runway. You don't get in the habit of making that calculation, when it's very important. Another lesson for the future....