the.com/yaw
the head-shake of every machine that flies, swims, or drives drunk on physics.
means To turn or swing about a vertical axis, so that a vehicle's nose veers left or right while its body stays roughly level.
from A sailor's word before it was a pilot's. 'Yaw' surfaces in the 16th century as a nautical term for a ship that wanders off course, drifting its head from side to side instead of holding a true line. Its deeper roots are murky — possibly related to Old Norse 'jaga,' to move to and fro or hunt back and forth — but the trail goes cold there. When aviation borrowed the language of the sea for its three axes — pitch, roll, and yaw — the old word for a swerving hull found new life describing a swerving nose in the sky.
- the axis
- rotation around the vertical, like saying no
- named for
- old nautical word for veering off course
- plane trio
- pitch and roll are its rebellious siblings
- rudder's job
- on aircraft, controls yaw left and right
- dutch roll
- yaw and roll coupling that nauseates passengers
aircraft yaw control — rotation around vertical axis controlled by rudder in planes and helicopters
ship yaw drift — naval vessels experience yaw in crosswinds, measured in degrees off course
yaw rate sensor — gyroscope device in cars measuring rotation speed, critical for electronic stability control systems