P-Factor The term P-factor is defined to means asymmetric disk loading. It is an extremely significant effect for helicopters.

When the helicopter is in forward flight, the blade on one side has a much higher airspeed than the other. If you tried to fly the blades at constant angle of attack, the advancing blade would produce uite a bit more lift than the retreating blade. !or airplanes, the same effect can occur, although it is very small. !or the effect to occur at all, you need to have an angle between the propeller axis and the relative wind. To be specific, imagine that the aircraft is in a nose-high attitude, but its direction of motion is hori"ontal #i.e. the relative wind is hori"ontal$. Then the downgoing blade will be going down and a little bit forward, while the upgoing blade will be going up and a little bit backward. The downgoing blade will effectively have a slightly higher airspeed. %ince it is on the right side of the airplane #In a typical &merican engine$ it will tend to tor ue the airplane around to the left and you'll need right rudder to compensate.

The situation is depicted in the figure above. The airplane is in level flight, with a () degree nose-up attitude. The motion of the blade through the air is the resultant found by adding the rotational motion #perpendicular to the thrust line of the aircraft$ and the motion of the airplane as a whole #hori"ontal$. The motion of the downgoing blade is shown with solid lines, while the motion of the upgoing blade is shown with dotted lines. *ou can see that the downgoing resultant is longer than the upgoing resultant. This is the real story on P-factor+ the advancing blade sees more relative wind, while the retreating blade sees less relative wind.

Asymmetric loading (P-factor) When an airplane is flying with a high angle of attack, the bite of the downward moving blade is greater than the bite of the upward moving blade; thus moving the center of thrust to the

right of the prop disc areacausing a yawing moment toward the left around the vertical axis.

his asymmetric loading is caused by the resultant velocity, which is generated by the combination of the velocity of the propeller blade in its plane of rotation and the velocity of the air passing hori!ontally through the propeller disc. With the airplane being flown at positive angles of attack, the right "viewed from the rear# or downswinging blade, is passing through an area of resultant velocity which is greater than that affecting the left or upswinging blade. $ince the propeller blade is an airfoil, increased velocity means increased lift. herefore, the downswinging blade having more lift tends to pull "yaw# the airplane%s nose to the left.

P-Factor
P-factor is the term for asymmetric propeller loading, causes the airplane to yaw to the left when at high angles of attack. The descending right side of the propeller #as seen from the rear$ has a higher angle of attack than the upward-moving blade on the left side and provides more thrust. This occurs only when the propeller is not meeting the oncoming airflow head-on