While flying above a grove of oak trees, I asked my student Bob to perform turns around a point. During the downwind turn, he drifted away from his starting point, a big oak tree. What happened next surprised me. Bob went out on a limb and continued the maneuver around another, similar-looking tree—hoping that I wouldn’t notice. Silly Bob.
Turns around a point is my favorite ground reference maneuver, even when Bob does it. Some instructors prefer eights around pylons or S-turns across a road, but I’ll take this maneuver for its practical value and educational potential, any day.
The FAA says the maneuver helps students develop their subconscious control of an airplane and deepens their understanding of the relationship between bank angle and turn radius, and wind drift correction, while turning. The FAA says that the maneuver is a “logical extension” of S-turns across a road. Nevertheless, I always introduce S-turns across a road after turns around a point. Why? Unless your student is named Euclid, it’s difficult to maintain a turn radius that produces an authentic half-circle without having a specific pivot point about which to turn. Evaluating the resultant half-circles for geometric accuracy often seems highly subjective (unless your student is named “Bob” and an oak tree is involved).
Turns around a point are equally important for reasons the FAA doesn’t discuss. It turns out this maneuver is a powerful myth buster if taught correctly. I’m speaking of the downwind turn myth. This is a longstanding aviation myth that suggests a downwind turn (from a headwind to a tailwind) might cause the airplane to stall from a loss of wind speed over the wings. Believing this is similar to believing that putting hand lotion in your fuel tank will make your landings smoother, softer, and younger looking. To set the record straight, turning with the wind doesn’t rob the wings of airspeed. Turns around a point debunk this myth empirically.
Performing turns around a point in any wind requires always turning from upwind to downwind during the maneuver. The airplane, however, never experiences a loss of airspeed as a result of the airplane moving with the wind. It is true that the effects of wind shear and perceptual illusions might cause the wing to stall when turning downwind, but not the downwind turn itself. The revelation here is that an airplane’s changing groundspeed has no effect on the lift produced by
the wings.
Turns around a point also can teach the student to be cognizant of the bank angle and airspeed as she maneuvers around any ground reference. Turning downwind during this maneuver requires an increase in bank angle and a commensurate increase in angle of attack to hold altitude. With the power constant, this results in an increase in induced drag and a decrease in indicated airspeed. Learning to limit oneself to 45 degrees of bank (the maximum permitted by this maneuver) helps protect against low-altitude accelerated stalls.
Controlling the bank angle and airspeed also help to minimize the effects of the perceptual illusion the student might experience when turning downwind. As the airplane turns with the wind, its increasing groundspeed results in the terrain moving faster relative to the side window frame. This creates the illusion that the airplane is approaching the surface (i.e., losing altitude). Without a trained counter response, the student might instinctually pull aft on the yoke, which steepens the bank and reduces the airspeed. For the unwary, the result often is a low-altitude accelerated stall. Turns around a point help the student to properly interpret the meaning of accelerating ground movement while countering the instinctual response to pull aft on the yoke in a downwind turn.
Aside from the FAA’s stated benefits of teaching turns around a point, you now have two additional “hidden” reasons supporting this maneuver’s training value. In my book, that’s a lot of bang for your bank angle.
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