Turns Around a Point

Nice job teaching it completely wrong. However, if someone asked you to invent a fusion maneuver that combined eights-on-pylons with turns around a point perhaps this would be how you would do it.

You're not supposed to keep the wingtip on the point.

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When I was taught turn on point I was taught to not look at the point (that’s the observer’s job), but pick 4 equal distance points 90degrees from each other around the point (easy in iowa around a crossroad when there were field lines every 1/4 mile denoting 80 acres). Then just fly smoothly from one way point to the next, the “observer” will see a perfect turn on point, and that was “from what I was told by old school guys” the reason for turn on point being a required test maneuver. A hold over from way back, WWI era pilot training, but has been kinda shifted to be a training crutch for pattern preparation. I guess I’m old school in thinking that if you can’t land from downwind with a towel over the panel and engine at idle, you should be doing more high altitude slow flight, stalls , and spins until you can feel the plane… I’ve never flown fast and heavies, and I know they would be different, but basic pilotage like turn on point should cross correlate?
 
Flatiowa said:
When I was taught turn on point I was taught to not look at the point (that’s the observer’s job), but pick 4 equal distance points 90degrees from each other around the point (easy in iowa around a crossroad when there were field lines every 1/4 mile denoting 80 acres). Then just fly smoothly from one way point to the next, the “observer” will see a perfect turn on point, and that was “from what I was told by old school guys” the reason for turn on point being a required test maneuver. A hold over from way back, WWI era pilot training, but has been kinda shifted to be a training crutch for pattern preparation. I guess I’m old school in thinking that if you can’t land from downwind with a towel over the panel and engine at idle, you should be doing more high altitude slow flight, stalls , and spins until you can feel the plane… I’ve never flown fast and heavies, and I know they would be different, but basic pilotage like turn on point should cross correlate?
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I don't know about "old school" but I cover instruments all the time. It has consistently show itself to be the single most effective way to fix problems with maneuvers, especially landings. It even turns out to have an important place when a glass transition is combined with an early aircraft transition.

I gave up trying to find a real reason for most maneuvers except (a) there's something historical and (b) to develop the skill to divide attention.

Arguably, the private ground reference maneuvers, performed at traffic pattern altitudes and traffic pattern speeds, just might have something to do with the traffic pattern. After all, when the Tower asks for a 360 on downwind for spacing, I doubt they are expecting you to drift a mile away or float over the runway. But that's an ad hoc explanation, like most.

or maybe it's for sightseeing (turns about a sunken battleship in Hawaii)
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midlifeflyer said:
…Arguably, the private ground reference maneuvers, performed at traffic pattern altitudes and traffic pattern speeds, just might have something to do with the traffic pattern…
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Whoa; I wouldn’t go that far now. The PPL ground reference maneuvers do a better job demonstrating the effect of wind on flight path and aircraft control that anything else in my mind.
 
dmspilot said:
Nice job teaching it completely wrong. However, if someone asked you to invent a fusion maneuver that combined eights-on-pylons with turns around a point perhaps this would be how you would do it.

You're not supposed to keep the wingtip on the point.

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Something looks wrong there. The wind would have to be coming from the left side (west assuming it’s a north up picture) for the shallower/steeper bank things to make sense.
 
TCABM said:
Whoa; I wouldn’t go that far now. The PPL ground reference maneuvers do a better job demonstrating the effect of wind on flight path and aircraft control that anything else in my mind.
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I guess you are right. The effect of wind on flight path and aircraft control is pretty unimportant in the traffic pattern.
 
luvflyin said:
Something looks wrong there. The wind would have to be coming from the left side (west assuming it’s a north up picture) for the shallower/steeper bank things to make sense.
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It's correct. With a strong enough wind from the north, for example, there'd be no bank at all @ 9 o'clock.
 
I think what I mean is being misinterpreted, it is still ground reference and the effects of wind must be corrected for, but instead of focusing on the point your flying around focusing on the waypoints you will fly through to make it happen. When I’m turning down wind to base, or base to final I’m looking at the numbers, not a pivot point to turn around, but a location to go to
 
dtuuri said:
It's correct. With a strong enough wind from the north, for example, there'd be no bank at all @ 9 o'clock.
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Ok, I see that. But what about the 12 and 6 o’clock positions. At the 12, the wind from North would be pushing you to the inside of the circle. It’s showing steeper bank there. That would tighten up the turn and take you even farther to the inside. You need shallower there. At the 6, the North wind is pushing you to the outside of the circle. You need steeper bank there to tighten it up and stay on the circle. Wouldn’t you?
 
Flatiowa said:
I think what I mean is being misinterpreted, it is still ground reference and the effects of wind must be corrected for, but instead of focusing on the point your flying around focusing on the waypoints you will fly through to make it happen. When I’m turning down wind to base, or base to final I’m looking at the numbers, not a pivot point to turn around, but a location to go to
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Dunno about misinterpreted. If you look back to the very beginning of the thread, you'll see I agree with you. The only difference is, you are thinking in terms of a series of points along the circle. I'm thinking in terms of the circle. That's a pretty minor disctinction.
 
luvflyin said:
At the 12, the wind from North would be pushing you to the inside of the circle. It’s showing steeper bank there. That would tighten up the turn and take you even farther to the inside. You need shallower there. At the 6, the North wind is pushing you to the outside of the circle. You need steeper bank there to tighten it up and stay on the circle. Wouldn’t you?
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No because if you try to stay tangent to the radius (12 o'clock) the wind would blow you toward the point — you need to fly a little pointed outward to compensate, which is done by increasing bank slowly. Same for the downwind sector, except pointed inward and shallowing the bank slowly. So the bank angle is the same at 12 and 6 o'clock and both are crabbed into the wind.

I don't like the selection of roads in that example, though. I'd prefer them oriented to cross with no crab.
 
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luvflyin said:
Ok, I see that. But what about the 12 and 6 o’clock positions. At the 12, the wind from North would be pushing you to the inside of the circle. It’s showing steeper bank there. That would tighten up the turn and take you even farther to the inside. You need shallower there. At the 6, the North wind is pushing you to the outside of the circle. You need steeper bank there to tighten it up and stay on the circle. Wouldn’t you?
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The labels steeper and shallower at 12 and 6 are not relative to each other, they are relative to the aircraft's previous position. In other words the bank at 12:00 is steeper than at 9:00, and the bank at 6:00 is shallower than at 3:00.
 
dmspilot said:
The labels steeper and shallower at 12 and 6 are not relative to each other, they are relative to the aircraft's previous position. In other words the bank at 12:00 is steeper than at 9:00, and the bank at 6:00 is shallower than at 3:00.
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Ok. I think I’m getting the picture now.
 
So there I was…

Had a guy come to me to get him prepped to renew his CFI. “So teach me a turn about a point…”

AND HE DID! Wow!

Been a CFI (albeit mil comp) for ten years. Can teach it, have taught it… but until a few weeks ago had no clue how good a maneuver it really is, or can be.
 
Tools said:
So there I was…

Had a guy come to me to get him prepped to renew his CFI. “So teach me a turn about a point…”

AND HE DID! Wow!

Been a CFI (albeit mil comp) for ten years. Can teach it, have taught it… but until a few weeks ago had no clue how good a maneuver it really is, or can be.
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So ..sarcastically or is there a story?
 
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No, was just very impressed! A simple understated maneuver CORRECTLY taught really was a lot more useful than I ever imagined.

I’ve taught a couple students since and it really made a difference.

Kinda goes to show how it’s rarely the what and most often the who.
 
Army flight training had no ground reference maneuvers at all, when I went through. Being a CFI, I was shocked.

We had a guy reinvent the traffic pattern into some kind of triangle before we got on the radio and gave him steerage onto final.
 
Tools said:
No, was just very impressed! A simple understated maneuver CORRECTLY taught really was a lot more useful than I ever imagined.

I’ve taught a couple students since and it really made a difference.

Kinda goes to show how it’s rarely the what and most often the who.
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That still leave the question...what was the CORRECTLY taught method he showed you?
 
Flatiowa said:
When I was taught turn on point I was taught to not look at the point (that’s the observer’s job), but pick 4 equal distance points 90degrees from each other around the point (easy in iowa around a crossroad when there were field lines every 1/4 mile denoting 80 acres). Then just fly smoothly from one way point to the next, the “observer” will see a perfect turn on point, and that was “from what I was told by old school guys” the reason for turn on point being a required test maneuver. A hold over from way back, WWI era pilot training, but has been kinda shifted to be a training crutch for pattern preparation. I guess I’m old school in thinking that if you can’t land from downwind with a towel over the panel and engine at idle, you should be doing more high altitude slow flight, stalls , and spins until you can feel the plane… I’ve never flown fast and heavies, and I know they would be different, but basic pilotage like turn on point should cross correlate?
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This is how I teach them too in good ole Iowa. Fly over your points without ever leveling the wings. vary your bank angle to compensate for wind. Easy peasy.
 
It’s an entire book chapter, albeit not super long. He just had a very very methodical way about it.

I need to update my maneuvers manual… when I get around to that, I’ll paste it here!
 
midlifeflyer said:
That still leave the question...what was the CORRECTLY taught method he showed you?
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I'm guessing it's the method described by the AFH. You would be surprised how many people get it wrong. OP to start. I also had students come to me from previous instructors that told me they were taught the same flawed method as OP posted. Finally, the instructor I used to help me get my CFI was a retired inspector who used to do CFI check rides, back when most had to be done at the FSDO. He said he would ask simple questions like, "where is the steepest bank?" and applicants got it wrong all the time.

So yes, I don't have any trouble believing that Tools was impressed that someone taught it correctly.

The first homework assignment I was given when I started my CFI training was to come back and teach a lesson on turns around a point. I thought, "why wouldn't he pick something more challenging?" Now I know why.
 
This was one of the ground sessions that took about an hour to complete with Private students.

I based most of my instruction on Bill Kershner's books. Patience was required, due to the non-intuitive nature of the groundspeed/bank angle/aim point solution.
 
This reminds of a turn around a point I did inadvertently. IR training flight from Brown Field SDM to Palomar CRQ. Heading up V23 to OCN, probably at 3 or 4 thousand. Controller starts vectoring for traffic. More than just a couple vectors. When he was done with that cleared me direct OCN. So I spins the OBS, center the needle to see where I was and pick a heading to fly to start out direct OCN. Needle swings to the peg. I do it again. Needle swings to the peg. One more time. CFI says take the hood off and look to the left. Yup. I was doing a 3 degrees per second turn around the OCN VORTAC.
 
IK04 said:
This was one of the ground sessions that took about an hour to complete with Private students.

I based most of my instruction on Bill Kershner's books. Patience was required, due to the non-intuitive nature of the groundspeed/bank angle/aim point solution.
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That was a key point for me. One day at the flight school, I listened to a ground lesson on turns around a point. The instructor said something which I ended up incorporating in my teaching. The groundspeed/bank angle/aim point solution is an explanation of theory. But we don't fly theory. We fly real airplanes in the real world where wind predictions are just that - predictions. Theory allows us to anticipate but ultimately its about doing what's needed to fly that constant radius circle and a constant altitude and airspeed.

Most common analogy is crosswind landings. The second most common error I see with those is thinking the goal of a crosswind landing is to land on one wheel. I've seen pilots land on the downwind main when the crosswind component on the runway surface was zero.
 
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