Originally Posted by HarryC

Some contributors seem to have a fundamental mis-understanding of what the rudder is for.
If you want to steer with rudder, get a boat!
An aircraft is NOT turned with its rudder, if anything the rudder is there to assist the fin to keep it straight on into the airflow, not turn it out of the airflow. Aerobatics such as flat turns, knife edge etc are a different thing - normal balanced flight and proper turns which is what beginners should be doing, use the rudder to keep straight on into the airflow and not to turn or to hold the nose up etc.

An aircraft turns by using the enormous power of the wing lift to move it sideways when the wing is banked. The fin keeps it straight on into the flow thus also making the plane rotate as it changes direction. If the fin does not do the job properly then rudder is used to help it keep the plane going straight on into the airflow. In power planes the slip ball tells the pilot what to do to keep the ball centred, in gliders a yaw string is commonly used. Turns should always be made with the ball/string in the centre, using the rudder if required to keep it there. Turns are never made by pushing the rudder to make the ball/string go off centre. Bank is controlled by ailerons, not by rudder. If you have enough dihedral then a secondary, not a primary, effect of using rudder is to get bank but only after yawing out of balance. Rudder controls yaw, if you want to bank you use the ailerons. If you get adverse yaw while rolling then use rudder to stop it, but that is rudder being used to keep the plane straight to the flow, not to turn it.

You use ailerons to control bank, rudder only if required to keep the plane straight on into the airflow, and as much elevator as required to keep the nose up, even at extreme angles of bank it is the elevator not the rudder that is used to keep the nose up. Please note that a "normal" turn at 90 degrees angle of bank is impossible, by then it has become an aerobatic knife edge manoeuvre, not a normal turn. In general beginners should not be messing about with the rudder during turns as that is the way to get into a spin when turning low and slow coming in to land. Any decent trainer model will not need rudder for turns.


If the nose is dropping and the plane is losing height then it is simply a matter of pulling back further on the elevator. The amount you have to pull back goes up exponentially with the angle of bank, so as the bank gets steeper the extra that you have to pull back goes up more rapidly than the same change at small angles of bank.