Flight Instructor · Phase 3 · Lesson 28

Steep turns and steep spiral

AI.IV.AAI.IX.AAI.IX.B61.183(i)61.187(b)(1)(iv)61.187(b)(1)(ix)Ground 0.8 hr · Dual 1.5 hr

FAA references verified 2026-08-13. Part 61 citations re-verified 2026-08-14 against live eCFR at title 14 currency 2026-08-12 · v1.1, 2026-08-14

CFI Candidate

Date

Supervising Instructor

Aircraft N41459 Warrior Ground only Flight time Ground time

Objective

The candidate teaches steep turns and the steep spiral from the right seat. At the end they can explain load factor and the overbanking tendency to a Student in terms the Student can feel, fly both maneuvers to commercial tolerance while narrating, and catch the specific error each maneuver produces before it becomes a recovery.

These two maneuvers are together because they are the same lesson in aerodynamics seen twice. Both are steep, both punish an unattended pitch, and in both the airplane will do something the Student did not ask for if they stop flying it for a moment.

Ground: 0.8 hr | Dual: 1.5 hr

Lesson steps: the elements, in teaching order

Check each element as it is taught. Leave anything not done blank. Sign and date once at the bottom.

1. Load factor in a level turn, taught so a Student can feel it rather than compute it FAA-H-8083-3C, aerodynamics 2. Overbanking tendency, and why it appears where it does FAA-H-8083-3C 3. Steep turns: entry, the pitch and power that hold altitude, and the rollout lead AI.IX.A 4. The stall speed increase with bank, taught as the reason for the airspeed limit AI.IX.A 5. Steep spiral: a constant-radius gliding descent around a point in a wind AI.IX.B 6. Engine management in a prolonged glide, and clearing the engine AI.IX.B 7. The steep spiral as the shape of an emergency descent over a chosen field AI.XII.B 8. Teaching a maneuver where the Student's instinct is exactly wrong AI.IV.A

Element 8 is the teaching content. In a steep turn a Student who is losing altitude will pull, which tightens the turn, increases the load, and loses more altitude. The correct action is to reduce bank first. Every Student does the wrong thing, and telling them once before the flight is not the same as being able to say the right sentence in the second it is needed.

Element 7 is the emergency thread appearing where it naturally lives, per US-5.6, rather than as a scenario. The steep spiral is what an emergency descent over a field looks like. Say so, and the maneuver stops being an exam item.

Schedule

Block	Minutes
Ground: the candidate teaches the preflight ground lesson on steep turns and the steep spiral. Graded. Part 1	20
Ground: critique of the brief, the threshold and floor, the exchange briefing	12
Flight: parts 2 and 3, demonstrate then talk through, elements 1 to 7	90
Ground: part 4, critique and debrief, candidate first, element 8	16
Total	138 minutes, 2.3 hours

Ground 48 minutes, flight 90 minutes. Reconciles with the declared 0.8 ground and 1.5 dual.

Equipment

Instructor: FAA-S-ACS-25 at Areas IV and IX. FAA-H-8083-3C. The airplane. A ground reference point suitable for the spiral, with a landable field near it.

Candidate: headset, the flight manual for the airplane being flown, their written preflight ground lesson, the maneuvering speed and the airspeed limits for this airplane looked up in its own approved material.

Airplane: normal category, dual controls, within weight and balance for the maneuvers as flown.

Capture

Cockpit recording: optional. Not one of the four P7 lessons.

Instructor actions

Make the candidate look up the airspeed limits in this airplane's own material, in front of you. Not from a handout, not from memory, not from the airplane they trained in. Requirement 5 is absolute and this is the lesson where the habit is cheapest to build.
Take the brief as a Student. Ask what load factor means in a sentence with no arithmetic in it.
Grade the brief before the airplane, against this lesson's standards.
Brief clearing turns and the altitude budget for the spiral before engine start. A steep spiral needs altitude that has to be there before the maneuver begins.
In part 2, watch where they look through the steep turn. A candidate flying a steep turn on the attitude indicator is not teaching a visual maneuver.
In part 3, fly the instinct errors. See the script. Pull when low, every time.
Clear the engine in the spiral, and see whether the candidate teaches it. If they do not mention it by the second turn, that is a finding.
Part 4, candidate first.

Simulated Student script notes

Not in the study guide.

When	Play	What the candidate should do
Steep turn entry	Roll in slowly and add no back pressure until the nose drops	Name the timing: back pressure comes in with the bank, not after it
Steep turn, established	Lose altitude, then pull to fix it. The universal instinct	Reduce bank first, then pitch. This is the sentence the lesson is for
Steep turn, established	Let the bank increase past the target without noticing	Overbanking tendency, element 2. Name the cause
Rollout	Roll out `30 degrees` late every time	Lead the rollout, and name the reference
Steep spiral entry	Enter without clearing turns and without checking the wind	Both are brief items
Steep spiral	Hold constant bank so the radius grows and shrinks with the wind	Same lesson as turns around a point, one lesson later. Point that out
Steep spiral	Never clear the engine. Say nothing about it	Element 6. If the candidate misses it, do not prompt, and raise it in the debrief
Steep spiral	Let the airspeed increase steadily through the descent	Pitch for the airspeed, and name why the number matters
Once, in the spiral	Let airspeed build past the threshold and do not offer the airplane	Take it. Out loud. Three-way. Then say why

Student actions

Teach the preflight ground lesson on steep turns and the steep spiral.
Demonstrate steep turns in both directions from the right seat, narrating throughout.
Demonstrate a steep spiral to the ACS standard, narrating throughout.
Talk the Simulated Student through both maneuvers, correcting what goes wrong.
Teach engine clearing in the glide as part of the maneuver.
Take the airplane at the threshold, out loud, three-way.
Critique, self-critique, then listen.

Completion standards

Identical wording in the study guide.

The candidate delivers the preflight ground lesson on steep turns and the steep spiral, covering all seven items of the brief, and explains load factor and its effect on stall speed without using arithmetic the Student has to do in the airplane.
The candidate flies steep turns in both directions to commercial pilot tolerances from the right seat while narrating continuously, and does not go silent through either roll-in or either rollout.
The candidate flies a steep spiral to commercial pilot tolerances, maintaining a constant radius around the point through at least the number of turns the current AI.IX.B task requires, and clears the engine at the interval they briefed.
The candidate talks the Simulated Student through a steep turn in which altitude is lost, and directs a reduction in bank before any change in pitch.
The candidate names the overbanking tendency as the cause when the Simulated Student's bank increases, rather than only directing a correction.
The candidate takes the flight controls using the three-way exchange, out loud, in both directions, including at least once when the airplane was not offered.
The candidate delivers a critique naming the error, its probable cause, and the correction for at least two of the errors flown.
The candidate delivers a self-critique before hearing the instructor's.

Standard 4 is the one to be strict about. "Bank first, then pitch" is a sentence that has to be available in the second it is needed, and a candidate who gets there after a pause has not yet got it.

Falling short does not block lesson 29. No proficiency gate (Decision 9). It triggers policy/REMEDIATION-VISIBILITY.md.

Common errors

Error	Instructor response
Teaching load factor as a number to memorize	Standard 1. A Student needs to know it doubles the stall speed problem, not to compute it in a turn
Directing a pitch correction when a Student loses altitude in a steep turn	Standard 4. This is the error the lesson exists for
Flying the steep turn on the attitude indicator and teaching it that way	Element 3. It is a visual maneuver with an instrument cross-check
Rolling out late, in both the demonstration and the correction	Element 3. Name the lead
Never clearing the engine in the spiral, or mentioning it once at entry	Element 6, standard 3
Entering the spiral without an altitude budget for the recovery	Threshold item. Brief it before start
Constant bank in the spiral, so the radius breathes with the wind	Element 5. It is lesson 27's error at a steeper angle
Airspeed increasing steadily through the spiral, unremarked	Standard 3
Going silent through the roll-in, which is the busiest second	Lesson 26
Reciting the airspeed limits from a previous airplane	Requirement 5. Look them up in the airplane you are in

Intervention threshold

Verbatim in the study guide.

The instructor takes the airplane when:

Bank exceeds 60 degrees at any time.
Airspeed exceeds the maneuvering speed for the actual weight of the airplane as flown, or reaches 1.2 Vs1 slow, in either case without correction applied.
Altitude passes 1,500 ft AGL descending in the steep spiral or any air work.
Nose-low pitch in a steep turn is not corrected within two seconds.
Load factor is increased while the airplane is already outside the bank target.
Either pilot is unclear about who is flying the airplane.

Hard floor: all air work is terminated by 1,500 ft AGL. North Aero policy, not regulation (US-3.4), and it is also the altitude the current AI.IX.B task requires the steep spiral to be completed by. Read the task on the day and use the higher of the two.

The maneuvering speed limit is stated as a rule, not a number, because it changes with weight and because the number belongs to the airplane being flown. The candidate looks it up before the flight, in that airplane's own approved material, and says it in the brief.

Positive exchange of controls, both directions, every time.

Student preparation

Verbatim in the study guide.

Read:

FAA-S-ACS-25, tasks AI.IX.A and AI.IX.B, in full. Write down the tolerances and the completion altitude for the spiral.
FAA-H-8083-3C, the performance maneuvers chapter and the aerodynamics chapter on load factor.
standards/MANEUVER-LESSON-SHAPE.md, addition 2.

Deliverable: Two things. First, write the preflight ground lesson you will teach on steep turns and the steep spiral. This is one of your seventeen P3 plans, covering a performance maneuver at private standards. Second, look up the maneuvering speed and the flap and gear limiting speeds for the specific airplane you will fly, in that airplane's own approved material, and bring them written down. Not from a study guide, not from the airplane you trained in.

Video Slots

VS-28-1

Type: Exemplar | ACS task: AI.IX.A | Status: empty What it should show: a steep turn flown to commercial tolerance from the right seat, narrated continuously, with the rollout led correctly Reference Critique: not applicable for an Exemplar

VS-28-2

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.IX.A | Status: empty What it should show: altitude lost in a steep turn and the pilot pulling to correct, tightening the turn and losing more Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

VS-28-3

Type: Error | ACS task: AI.IX.B | Status: empty What it should show: a steep spiral flown at constant bank, the radius growing and shrinking with the wind, the engine never cleared Reference Critique: to be written from the Instructor Debrief of the flight the Clip is taken from

Tagged by ACS task. These serve every lesson touching AI.IX.A and AI.IX.B.

This lesson is complete and deliverable whether or not its Video Slots are filled.

Assessment notes

The airspeed lookup is a graded habit, not a formality. A candidate who arrives with numbers from the airplane they did their commercial in has done the exact thing cross-cutting requirement 5 exists to prevent, and they will teach a Student to do it too. Catch it here, where it costs nothing.

Listen for "reduce the bank" arriving first. Not eventually, first. Note the delay in seconds if there is one, because that is the measurable version of the finding and it improves quickly once the candidate knows it is being timed.

The engine clearing miss is worth its own line in the debrief. It is a small thing that is entirely a habit, it is invisible in a well-flown maneuver, and it is the sort of item a candidate adopts permanently the first time somebody notices it is missing.

Tracker Status set by the instructor, named, dated.

Definition of done

Traces to a story. US-5.2, US-5.4
Carries ACS tasks and Part 61 references
Completion standards are observable behavior, naming flying tolerance and teaching quality
Common errors listed, each with the instructor's response
Intervention threshold stated explicitly, with a hard floor
Student preparation named, in the student half
FAA references verified current, 2026-08-13
Passes the design system check
Appears in the program structure and coverage matrix, hours reconciling
Both halves exist
Video Slots named and ACS-tagged, and the lesson states it is deliverable with them empty
Vocabulary matches CONTEXT.md
No em dashes, no POH performance numbers, no pricing
Falling short does not block progression (Decision 9)
Runs the four-part cycle from standards/MANEUVER-LESSON-SHAPE.md
Positive exchange of controls practiced, including from an airplane not offered

Debrief and sign-off

Sign once for the whole lesson. Elements left unchecked above were not taught this session.

Supervising Instructor signature / initials

Date

All CFI lessons