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P-Factor: Is it nonsense?

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Kingfisher

Well-Known Member
Joined
Aug 14, 2013
Messages
448
Location
Perth, WA, Australia
During flight training, I learnt that there are 3 left turning tendencies during take-off. P-factor is named as one of them.
The explanation of P-factor in my Jeppesen flight training book is something like this:

“During high angle of attack flying, the right half of the propeller disc creates more thrust due to the higher relative angle of attack for the down-moving blade. This effect makes the aircraft yaw to the left.” Not an exact quote, but similar.

Question: Since the propeller acts as a gyroscope (which is acknowledged in the chapter about gyroscopic precession in the same book), this thrust force imbalance should act on the airframe as if it was applied 90 degrees later with respect to the props rotation. It should therefore pitch up the nose of the aircraft for a clockwise propeller rotation. Is this correct?
 
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