Definition
A turn in which the airplane is banked between approximately 20 and 45 degrees. In a medium banked turn, the airplane will tend to remain at the bank angle the pilot has set, requiring little or no aileron pressure to hold the bank.
Plain English
A turn with a moderate amount of bank — not shallow, not steep. Once you set the bank, the airplane tends to stay there on its own.
Context Anchor
Seen in flight training when learning and describing turns by bank angle: shallow, medium, and steep.
Derivation
“Bank” in aviation means the sideways tilt of an airplane’s wings. “Medium” means the middle range, so a medium banked turn is the middle category between a shallow bank and a steep bank.
Why Pilots Care
A 30-degree bank produces a standard rate turn of three degrees per second, which is the expected rate for instrument flying and traffic pattern turns while keeping the aircraft coordinated.
Intuition Check
Do not read “medium” as vague or casual here; it refers to a specific middle range of bank angle, about 20 to 45 degrees. “Banked” means the wings are tilted, not that the airplane is turning around a bank of land or money.
Example Sentence 1
The instructor demonstrated a medium banked turn at 30 degrees of bank, showing how the airplane held the bank with the controls neutral.
Example Sentence 2
During the IFR checkride, the examiner required a medium banked turn to intercept the final approach course.