Turning advice
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OK so I’m coming back to Falcon after a long break. I’ve been flying some of the early training missions and have a question about basic turns when just flying around for fun, practising my basic flying skills.
Say I’m in NAV mode just flying around. I’m at 85% power, I want to turn left from heading 360 to heading 270. If I’m pulling a 2G, level turn, when should I start my roll back to wings level (e.g. at 5/10 deg before my planned heading)?
Is there a rule of thumb that I can use for different turn parameters (e.g. higher speed/G turns)?
Similarly for levelling out after climbs/descents. The T38C flying fundamentals suggests that if your VVI is 6000 fpm or less, you can use 10% as a rough figure, which seems to work quite well for the F16 - is this your experience?
I’ve tried the search function and read all the manuals I can lay my hands on, but I can’t find anything about turns.
Thanks for any help and apologies if I’ve missed some obvious resource.
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i found that rolling out 2 degrees or so past the heading you are aiming for tends to work, now this is a snappy roll not a smooth gentle one.
all i can say is practise and see what’s up
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OK so I’m coming back to Falcon after a long break. I’ve been flying some of the early training missions and have a question about basic turns when just flying around for fun, practising my basic flying skills.
Say I’m in NAV mode just flying around. I’m at 85% power, I want to turn left from heading 360 to heading 270. If I’m pulling a 2G, level turn, when should I start my roll back to wings level (e.g. at 5/10 deg before my planned heading)?
Is there a rule of thumb that I can use for different turn parameters (e.g. higher speed/G turns)?
Similarly for levelling out after climbs/descents. The T38C flying fundamentals suggests that if your VVI is 6000 fpm or less, you can use 10% as a rough figure, which seems to work quite well for the F16 - is this your experience?
I’ve tried the search function and read all the manuals I can lay my hands on, but I can’t find anything about turns.
Thanks for any help and apologies if I’ve missed some obvious resource.
For the 360-270 depends if you’re doing a tactical turn or check turn and if you’re within a tactical or domestic formation. Generally in Tac turn you kind of fluidly rollout on the new heading, I suppose starting 5 degrees before the final heading would work, but for me it’s kind of one fluid motion as I rollout on the new course. The key is the flying contract turn which is 2-3 Gs, generally 380-420 knots, and buster power at a bank somewhere between 60-70 degrees. Check turns are simply 30 degrees or less at 2 Gs or less.
For leveling during climbs it depends on how light you are and your climb rate. Straight from a real world F-16 manual, if the VVI is pegged, which is greater than 6,000 FPM, you generally want to half your pitch approx 2,000 feet below the desired altitude, this will give a nice smooth finish as you complete the ascent.
Good luck in the quest for knowledge!
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Just play with it, and be glad its not a compass - in which case banking throws it out and you have to lead or lag the rollout accordingly…
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posting links to such manuals on the forums is… frowned upon. DESPITE them mostly not being covered by copyright law. Oh well.
You can find perfectly permitted AFIs here: http://www.e-publishing.af.mil/
You may want to keep an eye out also for the dash one (basic flight manual), the dash thirty four double sticks (basic weaponeering and avionics manual), and the AFTTP3-3.1v5 (Basic Employment Manual).
Those you wont find at the above link though, and you probably wont see them linked here on the forum.
If you click the link in my signature, there is some other docs you might find useful - a formation guide for instance, as well as some other Falcon manuals. Possibly those might help.
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Sorry, I hadn’t appreciated that posting such links was wrong - I should have read the rules more carefully - I will now.
I will investigate the resources you mention - thank you for all your help.
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Best thing to do to sort this out is to practice turns, fuel is free in BMS.
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It’s hardly authoritative but I found:
The lead comes from the AOA projected onto the azimuth plane and the roll rate. The more AOA the more heading will backtrack on rollout so be aware at slower speeds. If the roll backtracking is a noticeable factor then it’s a more sporty maneuver than simple navigation flight justifies. The more bank angle the more offset between heading and flight path (sine). AOA is G and projection is bank angle. Both must be reduced in concert to maintain altitude but G matters most at high bank and bank matters most at low G. A habit of reducing G first and bank second is a good starting point with blending being an improvement.
At 350-400 KIAS and moderate load 2.5-3.5G I find that a 15 degree total lead is barely sufficient. The rollout is manageable if load is reduced to 2G starting at 15 degrees lead complete by 10. Bank is on mental autopilot whatever is needed to keep the FPM on horizon. The next step is a transitional one where I reduce bank to 45 degrees prior to 5 degrees of heading lead just to get it on the scale. The last step is synchronizing the remaining heading change with eliminating the remaining bank. I aim for half bank at halfway to target heading and so on. At the end the small rate at small bank is very manageable.
At higher loads the lead increases but the subsequent goals remain the same. I want to hit 2G at 10 degrees to go and 45 degrees at 5 to go. Considering this is navigation-like turning and I probably want to play it cool and make life easier for the wingman. Double those figures, down to 2G 20 to go and on the bank scale by 10. To add a few more gates 30 bank by 5 and FPM/tadpole overlap at 5 bank.
In any case practice roll outs and roll ins together using the exact same gates for both directions. They should be indistinguishable from each other except for the reversal of time. Pick a set of gates that works and run through them both directions. Find gates that are just barely attainable and a set that leave acceptable margins. Add additional constraints like ±10 knots or ±50’ to replicate operational distractions.
The tadpole is going to be a common reference and I found that when the pointer is parallel with the horizon is a good time to reduce my load factor (if it’s a 2G turn, obviously more G is more bank and parallel with horizon becomes 12oc which is no good). About half way pointer to vertical I want to be on-scale with bank and then under 30 AOB by the time the tadpole is unclamped from the side of the HUD reducing to 10 AOB by overlap. As before running those references both forward and backward through roll in and roll out as equal as I can make them.
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For leveling off I find a 6 degree climb at 450 about pegs the VVI tape (6000 fpm). A 0G bunt gained about 250’ and a 0.8G bunt about 600’. Thus I’d give about 1000’ for terminating a MIL climb, first halving the angle by a light bunt and then it should be manageable. For MAXAB climb of 25-30 degree I found a 0G bunt to eat up nearly 2500’ (0.5G 8,000’) and anything more vertical to be very sensitive to initial conditions suggesting a more aggressive invert-pull down method.
The 10% rule seems quite sensible for terminating most climbs or dives but I wouldn’t use it outside 2000 fpm for 200’ to go. What I did discover is that if you take the FPA in tens and double it, that’s a good lead altitude to make your way to 5 degrees. So a 30 degree dive/climb rounds out 6 kft early hitting a ladder rung every 1 kft until you show up at ±5 degrees and 1000’ to go. That should be roughly 2000 fpm and hold it until 200’ to go and merge with the desired altitude then. That works for me and seems to break the problem into two distinct and manageable phases.
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It’s hardly authoritative but I found:
The lead comes from the AOA projected onto the azimuth plane ……
Ummm, yeah …. or just boot the sim and go fly the damn plane.
You know, whichever works.
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It’s hardly authoritative but I found:
The lead comes from the AOA projected onto the azimuth plane and the roll rate. The more AOA the more heading will backtrack on rollout so be aware at slower speeds. If the roll backtracking is a noticeable factor then it’s a more sporty maneuver than simple navigation flight justifies. The more bank angle the more offset between heading and flight path (sine). AOA is G and projection is bank angle. Both must be reduced in concert to maintain altitude but G matters most at high bank and bank matters most at low G. A habit of reducing G first and bank second is a good starting point with blending being an improvement.
At 350-400 KIAS and moderate load 2.5-3.5G I find that a 15 degree total lead is barely sufficient. The rollout is manageable if load is reduced to 2G starting at 15 degrees lead complete by 10. Bank is on mental autopilot whatever is needed to keep the FPM on horizon. The next step is a transitional one where I reduce bank to 45 degrees prior to 5 degrees of heading lead just to get it on the scale. The last step is synchronizing the remaining heading change with eliminating the remaining bank. I aim for half bank at halfway to target heading and so on. At the end the small rate at small bank is very manageable.
At higher loads the lead increases but the subsequent goals remain the same. I want to hit 2G at 10 degrees to go and 45 degrees at 5 to go. Considering this is navigation-like turning and I probably want to play it cool and make life easier for the wingman. Double those figures, down to 2G 20 to go and on the bank scale by 10. To add a few more gates 30 bank by 5 and FPM/tadpole overlap at 5 bank.
In any case practice roll outs and roll ins together using the exact same gates for both directions. They should be indistinguishable from each other except for the reversal of time. Pick a set of gates that works and run through them both directions. Find gates that are just barely attainable and a set that leave acceptable margins. Add additional constraints like ±10 knots or ±50’ to replicate operational distractions.
The tadpole is going to be a common reference and I found that when the pointer is parallel with the horizon is a good time to reduce my load factor (if it’s a 2G turn, obviously more G is more bank and parallel with horizon becomes 12oc which is no good). About half way pointer to vertical I want to be on-scale with bank and then under 30 AOB by the time the tadpole is unclamped from the side of the HUD reducing to 10 AOB by overlap. As before running those references both forward and backward through roll in and roll out as equal as I can make them.
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For leveling off I find a 6 degree climb at 450 about pegs the VVI tape (6000 fpm). A 0G bunt gained about 250’ and a 0.8G bunt about 600’. Thus I’d give about 1000’ for terminating a MIL climb, first halving the angle by a light bunt and then it should be manageable. For MAXAB climb of 25-30 degree I found a 0G bunt to eat up nearly 2500’ (0.5G 8,000’) and anything more vertical to be very sensitive to initial conditions suggesting a more aggressive invert-pull down method.
The 10% rule seems quite sensible for terminating most climbs or dives but I wouldn’t use it outside 2000 fpm for 200’ to go. What I did discover is that if you take the FPA in tens and double it, that’s a good lead altitude to make your way to 5 degrees. So a 30 degree dive/climb rounds out 6 kft early hitting a ladder rung every 1 kft until you show up at ±5 degrees and 1000’ to go. That should be roughly 2000 fpm and hold it until 200’ to go and merge with the desired altitude then. That works for me and seems to break the problem into two distinct and manageable phases.
Thanks for this. I think I need to read it a few times to absorb it and then get in the plane and fly…
What does the abbreviation FPA stand for?
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Flight Path Angle. Not a common abbreviation that. In this usage it means the smallest angle between the flight path and the ground, i.e. the angle of the descent.
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Thanks Blu - does that mean then that in a descent or climb, the FPA is the notional angle between the horizontal line in the HUD and the FPM as it appears below (or above) the horizon respectively?
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Yup! Pretty easy to work out, what with the pitch ladder showing that angle to you in 5 degree increments. Im not sure FPA is an acronym used in the book, but it works. Im more used to seeing dive angle or climb angle.
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