What degree of bank angle is used by jetliners when making large wide turns? (2024)

Turns for airliners when flying over 250 knots are normally around half standard rate. Assuming 280KIAS, that gives a bank angle just over 20 degrees. The radius of the turn would be just under three NM.

You won't see higher bank angles than around 30 degrees typically. At airliner speeds that would lead to unacceptably high g forces for passenger comfort.

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convair880mfan wrote:

I was watching a flight tracking site on the internet and saw aircraft making a very wide arc to line up with a runway at SEA. It seemed like the airliners were tracking northerly up the Puget Sound and then making a very slow wide turn to line up with the to-the-south active runway. Was wondering what degree of bank is used for very slow turns like this? Thanks for any information!

Sign up for a Cessna demo flight and find out!

OP, here's a math exercise for you: watch a few of the planes turning base and final, time how long it takes, and get an approximate ground track to get the turn radius. Look up the winds aloft, and then get an idea of the airspeeds. From that, some trig:

https://code7700.com/aero_turn_performance.htm

That should get you a decent SWAG at the bank angle

Unless handflying, pilots don’t get to choose the bank angle…. Well some planes have a half-bank switch the pilots can select…

The pilot directs the course via the flight control panel (tactically) or the FMS.FMGC (strategically) and the autopilot follows its algorithms to turn the aircraft at the bank angles it was programmed to do by some software engineer or hardware engineer.

Flying manually, the pilot can bank the aircraft to remain within +2.5 to -1.0 g envelope in a clean configuration or +2.0 to 0.0 g envelope in a dirty configuration. That is Part 25 certification. But with passengers aboard pilots keep it mostly around 0.9-1.1 g in the middle of the envelope for passenger comfort.

KAUSpilot wrote:

25 degrees of bank is the limit for the autopilot and flight director in my aircraft (B744/748). This only takes the load factor to 1.1 G in level flight, which is still comfortable. Additionally this allows the aircraft to inadvertently bank an additional 15 degrees (to 40 degrees) before stick shaker occurs (protection against stalling in turbulence, wake upset, etc), even if flying at minimum maneuver speed for the present flap configuration. Bank angle is limited to 15 degrees on takeoff until a speed of V2+10 achieved. Bank angle may go to 30 in a hold in order to maintain the required track. The autopilot/flight director uses a shallower bank of 17.5 degrees applied at 2 degrees per second if the aircraft is already tracking within 45 degrees of the required heading and is within 2.5 NM of the route in LNAV. Otherwise the aircraft increases its bank by 3 degrees per second until 25 degrees of bank is achieved and is held there until rollout.

LNAV can command 30 degrees of bank on most or all Boeing models. I’m not as familiar with the 747, but the Autopilot in LNAV will command 30 on the 767, 777, and 787.

HDG SEL is limited to 25 degrees on all Boeing models except the 787 and 777-9, in which it will also command up to 30 degrees at lower airspeeds.

Starlionblue wrote:

You won't see higher bank angles than around 30 degrees typically. At airliner speeds that would lead to unacceptably high g forces for passenger comfort.

Aren't g-forces completely independent from the speed of the aircraft? i.e., would you not feel the same 1.5g in a 45 degree bank at 70 knots in a Cessna as you would at "airliner speeds"?

rjsampson wrote:

Starlionblue wrote:

You won't see higher bank angles than around 30 degrees typically. At airliner speeds that would lead to unacceptably high g forces for passenger comfort.

Aren't g-forces completely independent from the speed of the aircraft? i.e., would you not feel the same 1.5g in a 45 degree bank at 70 knots in a Cessna as you would at "airliner speeds"?

Yes. The Cessna will just have a much tighter turn radius than the airliner.

rjsampson wrote:

Starlionblue wrote:

You won't see higher bank angles than around 30 degrees typically. At airliner speeds that would lead to unacceptably high g forces for passenger comfort.

Aren't g-forces completely independent from the speed of the aircraft? i.e., would you not feel the same 1.5g in a 45 degree bank at 70 knots in a Cessna as you would at "airliner speeds"?

G forces are indeed dependent on bank angle only.

However, I was talking about standard turn rates. For a standard rate (or half standard rate) turn, the bank angle will increase with speed. Thus G force to maintain the desired turn rate increases with speed.

rjsampson wrote:

Starlionblue wrote:

You won't see higher bank angles than around 30 degrees typically. At airliner speeds that would lead to unacceptably high g forces for passenger comfort.

Aren't g-forces completely independent from the speed of the aircraft? i.e., would you not feel the same 1.5g in a 45 degree bank at 70 knots in a Cessna as you would at "airliner speeds"?

A 45 degree bank at 70 knots in a Cessna feel like a stall, or extremely close to it. The maneuvering speed of a 172 is 97 knots.

ojjunior wrote:

So what was the turn degree for landing in the old Kai Tak?

On heading off the IGS, it was a 47-degree turn to align with runway 13. But you’ll note in videos none of the jetliners are exceeding 30 degrees of bank angle.

Starlionblue wrote:

However, I was talking about standard turn rates.

"Standard Turn Rate" - Does that mean a certain change in heading per second?

3 degrees per second.

360 degree turn in two minutes.

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