C172 Will Not Stay Level

A C172 or any other single-engine prop plane will eventually roll to the left due to left-turning tendencies (not adverse yaw, which only has to do with roll rate and use of aileron).

Some planes have rudder trim that can help with this, but it’s tuned for a specific angle of attack of the tail/rudder, thus a fairly narrow airspeed band, and it’s rarely perfect. The trim tab on a 172 is fixed (actually bent to shape), whereas the rudder can be trimmed in flight on a Cherokee or its variants.

Instantaneous wind changes or turbulence can also affect stability and under certain circumstances, including the stability (or lack thereof) inherent to the aircraft can actually cause spiral divergence in which it basically starts a roll and continues to roll and drop the nose, eventually entering a spiral. Late recovery can exceed aircraft limitations or cause ground contact.

So the short answer is that this is fairly typical behavior.

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