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Ground Reference Maneuvers
Wind is the whole game in ground reference maneuvers: your groundspeed changes around the track, so your bank angle has to change with it — steepest when the wind is behind you, shallowest when it's on the nose. Fly all three maneuvers in the 3D view — the gold ticks on the track mark where the bank runs steepest — or switch to the classic diagrams. Same physics either way.
Turns around a point at 95 knots airspeed, correcting for a 12 knot wind from 360 degrees. Groundspeed 83 to 107 knots. Up to 7 degrees of crab. Bank 24 to 37 degrees — shallowest upwind, steepest downwind.
Turns around a point — the same physics as the 2D sim, seen the way the examiner sees it: constant radius over the ground means the bank is steepest at the downwind point and shallowest upwind. The gold arc on the ring marks the steepest-bank stretch (straight downwind of the pylon) and the washed-out arc the shallowest; the windsock shows the wind doing it. Hold the circle for a full corrected lap and the tree glints gold. Switch to “No correction” to watch the circle drift downwind.
Source. FAA Airplane Flying Handbook, Chapter 7, Ground Reference Maneuvers (FAA-H-8083-3C), p. 7-3, Drift and Ground Track Control — wind and groundspeed; p. 7-5, Turns Around a Point — bank steepest downwind, shallow upwind; p. 7-13, S-Turns — shallowest banks headed directly upwind. Retrieved from faa.gov 2026-09-08 and frozen in this site’s repository, where a test checks every quoted phrase against that copy. The bank and groundspeed figures the sims display are computed from the wind triangle at the airspeed and wind you set; the handbook gives the relationships, not those numbers.
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Next step
- ACS maneuver tolerances (printable)
- 3D windsock — read the wind you are correcting for
- Find your weak areas — the free 24-question Readiness Test, scored by knowledge area.
- Create a free account for the full bank: 2,074 verified questions with the FAA source on every answer, a timed practice exam, and a missed-questions drill.
The Private Pilot Quick-Review Study Guide covers this in the maneuvers chapter — setup numbers, ACS tolerances and the checkride traps for every maneuver. It is in CFI review and not on sale yet; the guide page has the list for launch notes.