Item — HN Reader

I feel like “roll” is a bad word for what’s happening here. In my brain, when I hear “roll”, I’m thinking a 360 degree rotation in either the vertical or horizontal axis (or both).

This is far from that (even in the real life footage linked in the sibling comments). This is more like a “Dutch wobble” or “tilt”.

But I’m not an aviator, so what do I know.

3 comments

What you describe might be called a loop. In aviation, “roll” describes any rotation (not necessarily full 360) around the longitudinal axis, as “yaw” around the vertical and “pitch” around the lateral axis.

ETA: 360 degrees pitch is a looping, 360 degrees roll is a aileron roll or slow roll, a 360 degrees roll and pitch is a barrel roll, and 360 degrees yaw is “a 360”, ie a full circle turn.

"Roll" is the name for one of the three axes in aviation. "Vertical" and "horizontal" aren't very descriptive in three dimensions.

You could reasonably call yaw the "horizontal axis", but then assigning "vertical" to either of roll or pitch – and what do you call the other one then? They're arguably both vertical, depending on which side you look at the plane from! Additionally, at least "horizontal" implies an Earth-centered focus, which doesn't help while in, say, a barrel roll :)

Best to avoid the ambiguity entirely and use specific terms, just like how port and starboard avoid the "my left/right or yours" ambiguity nicely by always referring to the ship's frame of reference.

In any case, it sure beats a Dutch crunch.