Dutch Roll

An aerodynamic property of an airplane design that couples yaw with roll. Swept wing planes can be particularly bad, which is why most (if not all) of them have yaw dampers to reduce any yaw. As the plane yaws, the forward moving wing has both faster motion through the air and reduced effective sweep, tending to lift that wing. This is the beginning of a series of hard to control left/right/left oscillations. Some jets may have an altitude or speed restriction if the yaw damper is in-op or it could be a “no-go” item.

The “coordination exercise” (rolling left and right while keeping the nose on a distant point using a bit of opposite/uncoordinated rudder) should not be called “dutch rolls”. I can do the exercise in the Cessna 182, but it has little or no actual Dutch Roll tendency (although my passengers sometimes think my normal flying consists of one long coordination exercise).

The exercise is discussed in the Student Pilot’s Flight Manual, 12th Edition on page 85, the Flight Instructor’s Manual (6th) on page 4-7 and the Basic Aerobatic Manual (3rd) on page 78). True Dutch Roll is described in the Advanced Pilot’s Flight Manual (9th) on page 10-25.