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'Received the following from someone
I had shown the test my friend had performed and the math exercise I did. More
food for thought!
"I did an article about this a few
years ago, and did the same tests myself using a Cherokee Arrow. My impression
was that in the heat of the moment it is difficult to maintain bank angle,
airspeed etc where you want them, and besides, you need to turn more than 180
degrees because you are essentially doing a procedure turn. I discussed the
whole question with Dick Rutan, who at some point did, or had done (I forget
which), a bunch of tests for some flight display he was doing or something, and
had concluded that 45 degrees is the optimum bank angle for minimum loss of
altitude in a power-off turn. I think that can be shown mathematically in a more
direct, purer way than the letter suggests, but I don't remember how. Perhaps
the best thing to do would be to go wing-vertical at first, and than gradually
level out through the turn, maintaining 1 G.
If the crux of the matter is
time spent in the turn versus rate of descent, you would think that since speed
would increase in proportion to the 2nd or 3rd root of descent rate, it would be
a bad idea to let speed build up; but apparently not. In any case, extra speed
is extra insurance against a secondary stall when rolling out of the
turn."
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