The lazy eight

Two symmetric 180-degree turns, each combining a climb and a descent, in continuously changing pitch and bank.

13 min read · The commercial maneuvers

After this lesson you can

  • Describe what the airplane's nose traces against the horizon and why the maneuver is named for it.
  • State the pitch, bank, and airspeed at each of the four reference points: 45, 90, 135, and 180 degrees.
  • Explain why the two halves require different control pressures even though the resulting path is symmetric.
  • Recognize the ACS tolerances and the errors that most often break symmetry.

The Airplane Flying Handbook makes an unusual claim about the lazy eight: it is the only standard flight training maneuver in which flight control pressures are constantly changing. Every other maneuver in this module has at least one segment where something is held fixed. The lazy eight never stops moving all three of pitch, bank, and airspeed at once.

That is also its teaching purpose. Holding one parameter steady is a correction exercise. Coordinating several parameters that are all changing together, smoothly and predictably, is an anticipation exercise, and it is graded that way: the examiner is watching for the regularity of the variation, not for any single value hit exactly.

The AFH offers a useful comparison: think of the lazy eight as an S-turn across a road, with a climb added to each 90-degree segment on the way up and a descent added on the way down. The airplane's longitudinal axis, watched from the cockpit, traces a symmetric figure eight lying on its side across the horizon.

The rest of this lesson

  1. 1.The geometry: two 180s, four reference points
  2. 2.The 90-degree point: four things happen at once
  3. 3.Coordination: rudder pressure changes with both speed and direction
  4. 4.Flying one half
  5. 5.ACS standards, symmetry, and common errors
  6. 6.Attention, traffic, and altitude: the risks the ACS ties to the lazy eight

These 6 sections, their figures, the checks along the way and the end-of-lesson quiz come with the CPL track. Paid once, yours for good.

See what the CPL track costsEvery module 1 is free to read, no account, no card.

Key terms

Try to recall each definition before turning the card.