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To maintain airspeed in a steep spiral, why must you pitch down as your bank angle increases?

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Aerodynamics

I am referring to this instruction:

On the downwind side of the maneuver, the steeper the bank angle the lower the pitch attitude must be to maintain a given airspeed. Conversely, on the upwind side, as the bank angle becomes shallower, the pitch attitude must be raised to maintain the proper airspeed. This is necessary because the airspeed tends to change as the bank is changed from shallow to steep to shallow.

To me, it sounds like it would be the opposite. If your bank angle increases without adding any back pressure to maintain level flight, the nose would drop and your speed would increase. However, this instruction tells you that as your bank angle increases in the downwind, you must pitch down to maintain airspeed. It seems like you would need to pitch up instead. 

Is it because of how your indicated airspeed varies between tailwinds and headwinds?

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1 Answers



  1. Russ Roslewski on May 16, 2022

    It’s because you’re trying to maintain a specific ground track as well, a constant radius around your center point. So on the downwind leg, you have a tailwind and therefore a higher ground speed, meaning you need to turn tighter, i.e. bank steeper to maintain that radius. With that steeper bank, if you were to maintain the same pitch attitude, it would require more back pressure on the yoke which causes additional drag which would slow you down. So you let the nose drop a little to keep the airspeed up.

    It’s the same effect as steep turns, where you have to increase the power a little as you roll in to the turn, in order to compensate for the increased drag and keep your speed from dropping off. Only in steep spirals, you don’t have the ability to use power, so you have to lower the nose.

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