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5 Answers

Commercial Steep Spiral Entry

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Aerodynamics, Commercial Pilot

I am currently working on my FAA commercial certificate and fly a C152. I am having trouble with steep spirals lately. I think the entry is where I am having trouble at. I've tried searching on this but I had no luck. Most resources just state that you must do the spiral not more than 60 degrees of bank and with the same radius. It does not seem to state how to enter the maneuver. I asked a few people and the answers are usually different. Some people like to enter this maneuver on the downwind and some like to enter it on the upwind. Also, there are different answers on where you should put the aiming point to start the maneuver. Some say you should put the aiming point just to the left of the left main gear, some say it should be directly over the left main gear and some say it should be to the right. To add, once you got the aiming point correctly, you should keep it in the same location to maintain the constant radius, right? I can seem to find a good illustration of this. I think this is one of the reasons why I am having trouble with this maneuver since I cannot seem to understand what I should do to complete the maneuver correctly. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

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5 Answers



  1. Gary Moore on Jul 06, 2021

    https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aviation/airplane_handbook/media/11_afh_ch9.pdf

    Page 9.4

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  2. xiotee on Jul 06, 2021

    @Gary Moore Thank you for your answer. I checked this out already but it just says reference point. What I don’t understand is where should the reference point be while you enter and do the maneuver. Like for eights on pylons, you put the reference on the edge of the wing, for steep spirals should it be under the main gear, directly under you, etc?

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  3. KDS on Jul 06, 2021

    Given that your steepest bank should be on the downwind if you intend to make any turn of constant radius to a point on the ground and you are limited to making a bank no greater than 60 degrees, you cannot go wrong entering downwind. However, if you notice in the illustration in the reference Gary provided, the entry was made crosswind. Since that is an FAA handbook, you should not be faulted for doing that. Because the maneuver is supposed to simulate an urgent or emergency situation, it is unrealistic to say that the maneuver must be entered in any specific direction. Putting all of that together says it just does not matter which way you enter the maneuver as long as you bear in mind that your bank angle will need to change, and you need to plan accordingly so as not to go beyond 60 degrees when downwind.

    If you are having issues at the entry to the maneuver, I would just guess that it is because you are making so many changes all at the same time. You were at cruise speed and now you are going to gliding speed and changing your angle of bank and changing your focus from holding straight and level to remaining reference a point on the ground. Since you are supposed to clear the area before beginning the maneuver, possibly slowing down a bit as you do that before rolling into the maneuver would ease the workload.

    Do not think of the maneuver as one where the reference point should be visually aligned with any part of the aircraft. The goal is to be at a constant horizontal distance from the reference point. How that will look in relation to the airplane will change because your bank is going to change and your altitude is going to change as you go through the maneuver.

    Of course, your best bet is to talk about it with your instructor. Ask him if he sees you doing something that could be improved upon. Maybe ask him to demonstrate just the first 360 degrees of the maneuver and see if you note him doing anything different than what you are doing. The last thing I could suggest would be to ensure you are doing your spirals to the left. The airplane does not care if it is left or right, but your view of the point will be a lot better to the left.

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  4. Mark Kolber on Jul 07, 2021

    Waaaay to easy to overthink this maneuver. Here’s what I think is the single most important statement fro the page Gary cited.

    “similar to the turns around a point maneuver.”

    That’s it. The steep spiral is a gliding, descending turns around a point. And like the private pilot maneuver the reference point is whatever you choose with the goal being to maintain a constant radius. The other similar maneuver is the emergency descent.

    The handbook shows the reference point as the center of a runway, but that’s only because, in the real world, that’s where you want to end up! Thinking in terms of what the maneuver is intended to simulate really helps,

    One of the scenarios I’ve seen is the steep spiral to a 180 power off accuracy landing, but only at very quiet airports.

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  5. Gary Moore on Jul 09, 2021

    Mark said it better 🙂

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