I recently watched Neil deGrasse Tyson explains modern airplanes doing turns and how the fluid level wouldn’t change inside the cabin when turning.
Video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3SCxKTnC5YE
I’ve tried observing this myself and it didn’t always work as described. Reminder: you should still hang on to your drink just in case.
The comment section below the video mentions something called a “coordinated turn”.
What is it? When do pilots perform coordinated turns? Presumably a set velocity is required to achieve this for a given banking angle?
In: 2
The answers already given seem are mostly good, but I’m going to try to give a somewhat simple answer.
The main way an airplane turns is by rolling or banking (leaning to one side like a bicycle or motorcycle). Velocity is one component of the required bank angle. But how sharp the airplane is turning is important as well. A sharp turn at a lower speed can have the same bank angle as a wider turn at a higher speed.
A coordinated turn is a turn where the airplane is banked just the right amount so that the force of gravity plus the force from the acceleration of the turn add up to act straight “down” — toward the floor of the airplane. Put another way, if you were standing up in the airplane, in a coordinated turn you would feel like the floor of the airplane was level side-to-side even when the airplane was banking.
The ailerons near the wing tips are used to roll the airplane. The rudder on the tail of the airplane is used to balance the airplane to keep the turn coordinated. On most (probably all) modern airliners, the airplane will automatically adjust the rudder to keep the turn coordinated. But, the pilot can override this by pushing on the rudder pedals with their feet. There are some times (such as a side slip to loose altitude faster) where an uncoordinated condition is desirable.
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