Chapter 10: Performance Maneuvers
- Author
- Nathan Genereux
- Published
- Wed 03 Sep 2025
- Episode Link
- https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/aviationacademy/episodes/Chapter-10-Performance-Maneuvers-e37ibma
Welcome to Aviation Academy, the podcast that helps you master the skies! On this podcast, we'll dive into the world of performance maneuvers, which are designed to help pilots develop their skills beyond the basic flight maneuvers like straight-and-level flight, turns, climbs, and descents. These maneuvers are crucial for enhancing a pilot's proficiency in flight control application, maneuver planning, situational awareness, and the ability to divide their attention. This episode will provide insights from the
Airplane Flying Handbook (FAA-H-8083-3C) to help you understand the technicalities of each maneuver.
We'll discuss the "why" and "how" of these maneuvers, including:
- Steep Turns: Learn about single or multiple 360∘ and 720∘ turns with bank angles between 45∘ and 60∘. We'll explore the higher G-forces, overbanking tendencies, and the increased power and pitch control needed to maintain altitude and airspeed.
- Steep Spirals: Discover how this maneuver is used for rapidly dissipating substantial amounts of altitude while remaining over a selected spot. We'll discuss how a pilot maintains a constant radius around a surface-based reference point by correcting for wind drift by steepening the bank on downwind headings and shallowing the bank on upwind headings.
- Chandelles: Uncover the details of this maximum-performance, 180∘ climbing turn that concludes with the airplane in a wings-level, nose-high attitude just above stall speed. We'll break down the two phases of the maneuver: the first 90∘ with a constant bank and continuously increasing pitch, and the second 90∘ with a constant pitch and continuously decreasing bank.
- Lazy Eights: This maneuver develops the proper coordination of flight controls across a wide range of airspeeds and attitudes, and it is the only standard flight training maneuver in which flight control pressures are constantly changing. We'll explain how the maneuver is made of opposing 180 turns with both a climb and descent to each segment. You'll learn how the maneuver's name comes from the sensation of using the airplane to slowly draw a symmetrical "eight" on its side
