Adding turn and bank

[DannyDot]

Re: Adding turn and bank

Thanks for the advice. That is exactly how a feel -- I will have a responsibility to preserve the airplane if it is put back to original condition. I will take this "duty" very seriously :-)

I am leaning toward buying the plane and putting a turn and bank where the left glove box is -- and keep the original door. If not that, I will replace the entire original panel before I would cut a hole in it.

Danny Deger

[DannyDot]

Re: Adding turn and bank

That is correct. You can, and should, do steep turns with the slip indicator steady in the middle. It is essential to have a gyro that can give you turn rate. Airspeed and altitude works for pitch, so you don't need a gyro for pitch. Heck for pitch, you can pretty much just let go of the yoke and fly with the trim tab.

If anyone was able to do a 180 under the hood with only a slip indicator, they got lucky. Try doing some unusual attitude recoveries with only a slip indicator.

Your case of the fog forming around you was much like the clouds above me dumping rain on me. It would also be possible to be in a situation of having it get dark before you could make a runway with good weather. Night flying under a overcast and in the country basically has no horizon reference. This is how Buddy Holly died. It was night VFR under an overcast and in the middle of farm country. No stars above and no lights below. The pilot lost his attitude reference.

Danny Deger

[whake]

Re: Adding turn and bank

I have an electric T & B in my 1945 BC12D, I had an instrument rating but I avoid clouds and our many summer t-storms here in florida, But I like the having the capability of partial panel. It takes very little current from my portable battery, but you have to be careful of length. I mounted mine from the front of the panel and I had to alter the cannon plug to clear the fuel tank.

[Ragwing nut]

Re: Adding turn and bank

I was incorrect in my statement and should have included airspeed which I mentioned above in the quote copied. You have 3 other items feeding you information. Airspeed indicator, altimeter, and attitude of the control wheel itself. You won't be doing loops or rolls without adversly affecting other instrumentation. I did not say it was an accurate method, one to attempt in actual conditions, or was an advocate of not installing one. I have installed them in Taylorcrafts for comfort reasons as well. I was merely making a point it can be done.

Mike

[DanBrown]

Re: Adding turn and bank

Yes, practice under the hood with a safety pilot, even if you never expect to get into IMC. It has happened to me many times in the past. One escape route is to find a configuration where the airplane will decend stably hands off. When I trim mine to 55mph in a power off glide, it decends straight ahead, hands and feet off the controls, with no tendancy to turn. IMHO, if caught on top, it would be possible with practice to descend on a South heading through clouds and using the compass and small rudder inputs to keep from turning, keeping the ball centered with the alerons.

I have flown aircraft with a small electrical turn indicator. They are available from Aircraft Spruce, but expensive and I don't know about current draw to operate from a small battery. There is also the problem of getting field approval for an installation with such a setup.

[Dusty]

Re: Adding turn and bank

I got my PPL, and have taken a couple checkrides, with no turn indicator. A GPS for heading data makes it MUCH easier than using a compass, but my PPL checkride was with a compass only. If the ball's in the center, the compass isn't moving, the tach is set where you normally keep it, and the airspeed is where it's supposed to be, you're mostly doing everything right.

So, let's say you're trucking along in your Tcart and the weather's coming down. If you're dumb enough not to descend in order to maintain ground reference, that T&B isn't going to do you a bit of good. If you need to turn around - the turning radius of a Tcart is what - 200'? If nothing else works, land. There's a road every couple miles throughout the Lower 48.

A x96 Garmin has everything you could ever want while wandering around in the clouds in a fabric airplane (one that REALLY does NOT like ice, by the way) with no heated anything. I'd trust a GPS signal much farther than I'd trust just about anything bolted to the dash of any Tcart I've ever been in. I've never - not one time - lost the signal in my Garmin while flying (not true for the older serial models that "listened" to one satellite at a time). It's been riding around with me for about 600 hours now, most of that in or near mountains in AK. The obstacle data is REALLY nice while scud-running. You can't trust it to have everything, but it tells you where known things are so you can spend your time looking for the unknowns.

[flyguy]

Re: Adding turn and bank

I was just in a situation yesterday that was pretty hairy even with a GPS and a turn and bank operating correctly. Decided to turn back because the bad things just kept piling up and there comes a point where you say, "Ok, that's it, I get the message." Anyway was flying in deep low-level haze that was at least down to minimum visibility and had to turn back into the sun. Total white out, and the sun blasting into my eyes made it where I could hardly see the TNB and almost impossible to see the GPS mounted on top of my dash. Wound up in a white out over a glassy reservoir with zero ground reference. TNB is not very sensitive and I was having problems drifting off heading. It really never got out of hand, but it was pretty sloppy flying with me drifting back and forth on heading. I returned to base OK, but it was a little disconcerting because I am used to pretty well being able to nail things down in those kind of situations.
If anyone thinks you can do IFR with an inclinometer ball I would suggest that you take up a C-150 and center the ball in a 30 degree or so bank at cruise power and then let go of everything. I guarantee the ball will stay centered while the plane will proceed into an ever tightening spiral with the final result that the wings will come off. The ball will be centered nicely right up to the time that things start breaking off the plane.
I think it could be done with a compass on a south heading as said, but the lag and the appearance of turning the wrong way that a regular ball-type compass gives would make it tricky even for experienced pilots.
I suspect this will promote a little interesting discussion and I don't mean to offend, but there may be some less experienced or less skilled pilots who will read the entries here. If you don't have some device that gives you immediate, undelayed, turn rate information and you're not comfortable using "needle ball and alcohol" you want to be extra careful to stay away from any possible IFR kind of situations.
Darryl
After reading Dusty's entry above I guess I should add that if you are not comfortable and able to use whatever guages you have in such a situation having a turn and bank will probably not avoid the typical disastrous results that we read about in the paper the next day.

[flybikefarm]

Re: Adding turn and bank

That's why you should always carry a cat and duck with you. George

[Howard Wilson]

Re: Adding turn and bank

That's why you should always carry a cat and duck with you. George

Ha Ha, Haven't heard that one for a while. What was it? Put the cat on top of the instrument panel 'cause they always land on their feet therefore knowing which way is up, so when the cat leans to the left you turn to the left to keep the cat straight up??? And when the cat gets confused or won't cooperate you take the duck throw it out the window and keeping him in sight follow him down. Hopefully the bottom of the cloud deck isn't cumulus granitus!! (or something like that)

[DannyDot]

Re: Adding turn and bank

I have not flown with GPS yet -- I haven't flown in a while. I agree that the heading information from a GPS might be good enough to keep the wings level or perform a 180. If the ball is centered and the heading is constant, the wings are level. Same idea as a turn and bank. I think before I put a turn and bank in an original panel, I will give it a try. GPS would be a good idea anyway.

Danny Deger

[crispy critter]

Re: Adding turn and bank

Keep in mind also that in a thick cloud cover a GPS can momentarily loose signal or fall behind (lag so to speak)due to low/slow signal strength while in heavy cloud cover.

[flyguy]

Re: Adding turn and bank

That doesn't sound so good for guys making GPS instrument approaches (in the clouds!!) Wonder if that applies to the WAAS signal also? Do you have a source for that information? I know sometimes GPS does experience delays, particularly in turning, but didn't know about clouds.
DC

[Dusty]

Re: Adding turn and bank

If anyone was able to do a 180 under the hood with only a slip indicator, they got lucky. Try doing some unusual attitude recoveries with only a slip indicator.

I should have added in my initial post that I've done many unusual attitude recoveries with only required instruments, and don't consider myself lucky at all. Find an instructor that's proficient with minimal instrumentation and get some training. It's not that difficult to do, but it's not something you want to learn right after the ground disappears.

Keep in mind also that in a thick cloud cover a GPS can momentarily loose signal or fall behind (lag so to speak)due to low/slow signal strength while in heavy cloud cover.

Absolutely not true.

http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/pubs/gps/sigspec/default.htm

Wonder if that applies to the WAAS signal also?

WAAS signal is also not affected by weather. It actually corrects for (mostly imperceptible) interference caused to all radio signals passing through the "weather" in the ionosphere - that's it's purpose.

Certified GPS units tell you when they've lost the WAAS signal. Many handhelds do not, not that you'll ever notice at Tcart speeds.

[Pearson]

Re: Adding turn and bank

Somewhere I saw an advertisement for a GPS that had a simulated instrument panel layout on the screen. I don't think it had an actual ADI. But it had an RMI and an IVSI, in addition to speed. With all that, I suppose you could do a 180 out of a cloud. I don't recall the model of many of the details because it was so expensive I KNEW I would never be able to afford one.

[crispy critter]

Re: Adding turn and bank

The IFR approved GPS's are not known for loosing signal in the clouds but most hand helds are because they don't have the antanna strength.