HarryC is right, rudder can not turn a plane....alone. You are also right.....

When you kick the rudder on an aircraft which has some sort of dihedral, as you said, you end up with one wing lifing, therefore the lift vector will cause the airplane to make a turn. However, if a plane does not have any dihedral, just try to kick the rudder and watch what happens....nothing....except you will be flying through the air sideways.


This is how a 3 channel trainer flys....lots of dihedral.



My $0.02


SloFlight (Micah)