Performance and Ground Reference Maneuvers
Performance fundamentals
Density altitude is pressure altitude corrected for nonstandard temperature, and it is the single most tested performance concept. High density altitude raises takeoff and landing distances, reduces climb rate, and increases true airspeed for a given indicated airspeed. Two rules of thumb: pressure altitude = indicated altitude with the altimeter set to 29.92; density altitude rises roughly 120 ft per degree Celsius above standard temperature. Standard temperature at a given altitude is 15 °C minus 2 °C per 1,000 ft.
Load factor
Load factor grows with bank angle: 60° of bank equals 2 G, and stall speed increases with the square root of load factor. At 2 G, stall speed rises about 41 percent (√2 ≈ 1.41). This is why steep turns and abrupt pull-ups near the ground are dangerous: the wing can stall at almost any airspeed and attitude.
Ground reference maneuvers
The maneuvers test wind-drift correction, not artistic flying. In a rectangular course, S-turns across a road, and turns around a point, you vary bank angle to hold a constant ground track or radius: steeper bank into the wind, shallower bank downwind. In a turn around a point, bank steepens as the wind pushes you away from the point and shallows as it pushes you toward it. For commercial-level eights on pylons, pivotal altitude depends only on groundspeed - never on bank angle or wind - and equals roughly groundspeed squared divided by 11.3, in feet AGL.
Worked example
Pressure altitude 8,000 ft, temperature +29 °C. Standard temperature is 15 − 16 = −1 °C, so the air is 30 °C above standard. Density altitude ≈ 8,000 + (120 × 30) = 11,600 ft. That is the altitude to enter the POH performance chart, not 8,000.
Trap
Steep-turn questions often describe an overbanking tendency at 45°+ - the answer is to reduce bank and add a touch of power, not to pull harder.