Steep turns

50 degrees of bank, both directions: five more degrees than the private test, and a very different airplane.

12 min read · The commercial maneuvers

After this lesson you can

  • State the load factor and stall-speed increase produced by 45, 50, and 60 degrees of bank.
  • Sequence the entry so bank, back pressure, and power all arrive together.
  • Diagnose an altitude deviation in a steep turn from its most likely cause, not just its symptom.
  • Apply the half-the-bank-angle rule to roll out precisely on the entry heading.

Every private pilot has flown a steep turn. The commercial test asks for the same maneuver at 50 degrees of bank instead of 45, and that five-degree difference is not cosmetic. It changes the load factor, the stall speed, the power required to hold altitude, and the amount of elevator force the pilot has to hold for an entire 360-degree turn.

The Airplane Flying Handbook places steep turns between 45 and 60 degrees of bank and is explicit about what the maneuver is for: developing smoothness and coordination, an awareness of the airplane's attitude without looking only at the nose, and the discipline to keep scanning for traffic while flying precisely. None of that changes at 50 degrees. What changes is the margin for error.

This lesson works through the physics first, because the physics explains every one of the common errors that follow: why the airplane wants to descend, why it wants to overbank, and why recovering with elevator alone makes both problems worse.

The rest of this lesson

  1. 1.What five degrees costs
  2. 2.Why steep turns are flown at or below Va
  3. 3.The entry: bank, back pressure, and power together
  4. 4.Reading an altitude deviation
  5. 5.Overbanking tendency and coordination
  6. 6.ACS standards and common errors
  7. 7.Where attention goes during a steep turn
  8. 8.Disorientation in the steep turn, and how the scan defeats it

These 8 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.