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If you have been flying a single-engine airplane for any amount of time you probably have a well developed right leg. If you remember from your ground school days about single-engine airplanes, you will recall that when a single-engine airplane climbs, the descending blade, on a right turning propeller, has a larger angle-of-attack, which pushes more air and causes the airplane to want to turn to the left. You then have to apply more right rudder to compensate for this left-turning tendency or P-factor.

When to Apply Rudder Pressure

For most my students this was pretty easy to comprehend. Eventually it became a habit to apply right rudder pressure during a climb or while practicing slow-flight in the airplane. The biggest problem though was to get the student to stop looking at the “turn coordinator” or “slip-skip indicator.” Of course in the early stages of this training it was inevitable that the student was going to focus on this instrument much to the exclusion of ALL the other instruments.

When You Turn An Airplane

Most the time when you are flying an airplane and especially if you are in a turn, if the turn is coordinated all the centrifugal force of the turn should go through your seat. If you feel like you are either leaning to the left or right, check your turn coordinator because you are probably in uncoordinated flight.

In time you learn to gauge the correct amount of rudder pressure you need to apply in different flying configurations to establish coordinated flight. To help learn this technique, we would try to fly the airplane during the climb by looking out the window at the nose of the airplane. The goal would be to keep the nose straight and to feel like we were leaning to one side or the other. To drive the point home, I would have the student over-compensate but either putting too much pressure on the rudder pedals or not enough.

So, as you start your turn, aileron and rudder pressure should be nearly equal in the direction of the turn. The nose of the airplane should stay relatively in the same place…other than moving across the horizon, of course. By looking out the window we were trying to establish whether the nose moves in the OPPOSITE direction of the turn, which means you were using too little rudder. Or, did the nose move forward of the turn, which means that you were using too much rudder.

Once in the turn the you can relax the control pressures but the reverse applies when rolling out of the turn.

What To Do When It Is Windy

During windy, gusty conditions, you use the same technique to correct for gusts. You use aileron and rudder to adjust for changes in the direction of the nose. If you just use aileron to correct for a dropping wing, you will yaw the airplane; hence, the need for rudder control as well.

One of the biggest mistakes I see though is that students and veterans alike have a tendency to over-control their aileron and rudder inputs which then exaggerates the situation and makes for a jerky ride. Smooth and timely input is what you should strive for.

The CRJ-200 and Turning

The CRJ200 is a little different. As an airplane flies faster, more force is required to move the aileron and rudder. The CRJ200 uses a series of pulleys, cables and a computer input to artificially create the same control pressure feel that you feel in most airplanes. A yaw dampener is installed which handles the rudder inputs of the CRJ while the airplane flies which is especially important when the airplane is flying fast and at high altitudes. Dutch roll is a major consideration on high performance jets. And, like almost every system on the CRJ, there are two yaw dampeners just in case one fails.

Learn more about the CRJ200, download “The CRJ200 Quicknotes Study Guide” here!

So basically, when you are flying the CRJ200, in normal conditions, you very rarely have to use the rudders while in flight, the yaw dampeners do all the work of providing rudder input. But, if you notice that your skid-slip indicator is a little off in straight-and-level flight, you just need to use the rudder trim to correct it.

Finally, the only time you will really need to use rudder pedals on the CRJ200 is when you have a engine failure at V1 or an engine failure in flight or an inadvertent thrust reverser deployment. In which case, you have to aggressively apply rudder control to coordinate the airplane and maintain direction control quickly. There is so much power coming out of the good engine that you have to get the airplane coordinated otherwise the airplane could become uncontrollable. The same goes for a thrust reverser deployment but now it is because of drag. And like during different configurations of flight in a single-engine airplane, depending on which phase of the flight you are in on the CRJ-200, you will have to adjust your rudder input to compensate for different flight configurations.

Most the time, just keep your feet on the floor and you will do fine!

Hope this helps!

To Your Flying Success…

Jeffrey

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