"music"
Hey everyone, Jason Schappert here
of MzeroA.com, today we're gonna talk about some
Left Turning Tendencies. So often we just call everything
P-factor. If it pulls us to the left, if it requires us to have some
right rudder in there, we just call it P-factor.
But do you know that there's actually 4 types of
Left Turning Tendencies that you're going to need to know and understand.
There are subtle differences as well. Let's work through those 4 together here.
The first, we'll start with the easiest, is P-factor. Really it's
technically called asymmetric propeller loading.
Which says the following, which we've learned for so long, the
descending propeller blade is taking what I call a bigger
bite of air than the ascending propeller blade.
It has that greater angle of attack. Remember our propeller
is simply just a wing. It's created, it has that
critical angle of attack. P-factor is one
of our 4 left turning tendencies. Here's another one:
Torque, or torque factor, which is essentially
Newton's third law: for every action there is
an equal and opposite reaction, and look at this footage
we captured at the Cedar Key Airport. If I apply
full power instantaneously and I don't apply any right rudder
well where does 23 Mike Zulu end up? Well it doesn't end up where we want it to go
Right? But when I have that proper amount of right rudder pressure we're able
to fly out smoothly here. What causes that?
Well when I'm sitting in the cockpit, my propeller turns
in which direction? Right, it's turning clockwise in relation to how the
pilot is actually viewing it. So if for every action there's an
equal but opposite reaction, where is that actually felt?
If it's spinning to the right, it's felt and it's gonna torque me to the left hand side.
So the moment I get full power in there from takeoff
and I instantly get pulled over to the left like you saw here
that's actually torque factor, which is one of our four
left turning tendencies which is pulling us to the left. Once we
actually get flying we interact with some other types of
left turning tendencies, P-factor the previous being one of them, and another one
here which is just a little bit tough to understand and that is
Gyroscopic Precession which operated on gyroscopes.
We know from learning about our vacuum system, operate on 2 principals:
Rigidity in space and precession. A force
applied is felt 90 degrees ahead of the rotation. You don't have to
be a physics major to truly understand this, Right? If we think of
our propeller as a dish, as a gyroscope, that's rotating
and I apply a force to that propeller, it's
felt 90 degrees ahead in the opposite direction.
Which also gives us a slight what? Turn to the left.
Again adding to our left turning tendencies. That's probably the most difficult
to understand. Let's talk about the easiest to understand now
which is spiraling slipstream. This is the corkscrew pattern.
Our propeller, you can kind of see our own wake,
we'll call it, coming off of our aircraft, and that slipstream
impacts the left side of our aircraft's tail. And
when we impact the left side of that aircraft's tail, we push and we
yaw which direction? We end up yawing to the left.
here. You see we call everything P-factor
but in all actuality, P-factor is one of four types of
left turning tendencies. You don't have to be a
physics major to know and understand all of this. What I explained to you is more
than suitable for a private pilot level checkride, so don't sweat it.
Commercial pilots, we would need to step up that knowledge just a little bit in that case, but
certainly this video more than suitable for a private pilot
knowledge test and check ride. Listen I hope you're loving this great
MzeroA.com content. I hope you'll consider us when you're looking for
help with that knowledge test, help with that checkride, help with being that safe
real world pilot. Check out MzeroA.com and our ground school academy at groundschoolacademy.com
Enjoy the rest of your day and most importantly
Remember that a good pilot is always learning. Have a great day guys, we'll see ya.