Canuck
David Megginson
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2016
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Just for fun, I did some quick math on turn anticipation. In calm winds, if I'm approaching a 90° turn at a waypoint, how early should I start my rate-one turn?
Measuring in time, I'm looking at a circle with a circumference on 120 seconds, and I need to start a 90° turn one circle radius (r) away, so 120 / π / 2 =~ 19 seconds.
I figure in anything but really strong winds, if I start a 90° standard turn about 20 seconds before arriving at the waypoint, I should land pretty close to the correct course (well within tolerances, anyway), and then can quickly adjust to intercept. I tested it in the computer flight sim with today's winds, and it worked out almost perfectly. Let's see how it does in the plane.
The nice thing about this is that it should work for all speeds, since we're measuring in time rather than distance.
D
Measuring in time, I'm looking at a circle with a circumference on 120 seconds, and I need to start a 90° turn one circle radius (r) away, so 120 / π / 2 =~ 19 seconds.
I figure in anything but really strong winds, if I start a 90° standard turn about 20 seconds before arriving at the waypoint, I should land pretty close to the correct course (well within tolerances, anyway), and then can quickly adjust to intercept. I tested it in the computer flight sim with today's winds, and it worked out almost perfectly. Let's see how it does in the plane.
The nice thing about this is that it should work for all speeds, since we're measuring in time rather than distance.
D
