Avoid?

[Immelman]

I haven't had the nads to try this in a cessna.. have slipped them with flaps up, of course. In pipers I'd do the full-flap-forward-slip dance often when practicing short (power off) approach work in the pattern. It is a lot of fun, actually.

 

[FN FAL]

We landed safely on the main landing gear, the plane rolled for a while; then the cornstalk resistance made the plane flips upside down..."Once again, the NTSB search parameter of "slips" tosses me another "odd ball" crash. This one really isn't the pilots fault...I believe the report said a failed intake valve caused the engine roughness. We can all be possibly caught off guard with how well our planes glide after the engine quits or gives us only partial power, no matter how good we think we are as pilots. However, knowing how to slip our planes and knowing how our planes handle when we have no means to "go around" is something to think about.

The original poster asked if the term "AVOID" slipping the plane with flaps, meant that it prohibits that action in the POH? I don't know the answer...and I cannot suggest anyone to operate contrary to what their POH says. What I do know is...I did a search of the NTSB database using the date limits of 1/1/79 to present and the word "slip" and "cessna" as a search parameter and came up with 30 pages totalling almost 300 accidents and incidents that used the word "slip" in them. (not to mention how many pilots "slipped" their plane in because their feet "slipped" off the ruder peddals)

I don't have the time to go through all these accidents and incidents, but what was reflected in most was...some pilots are either too affraid or too unskilled to slip high wing cessnas in for landing or are not that great at judging base to final turns in their evaluation of pattern height in relation to where they need to be in configuring the plane for landing.

Other than the engine failure incidents accidents, these down wind, too high, too fast, porpoising, no flaps used, landing crack ups are not what we would like to see as the reason for high insurance rates, injuries, deaths and property damage in regards to the GA flying of light aircraft.

Any suggestions from the CFI's and GA pilots out there? What's going on with these senseless accidents?

 

[urflyingme?!]

I was told that we weren't supposed to slip the 72 because it bled speed off to quickly. My instructor said, "See, you point the nose down real low like this!"

 

[comander]

I have done it numerous times, and all of my instructors have also,never new I was in some type of danger .

 

[Lead Sled]

If you put 20 single-engine light aircraft pilots in a hangar and ask them about slips to a landing you will get 21 (or more) opinions. Several years ago I was asked by an FAA inspector to help them clean up a mess left over from an "old school" designated examiner who taught that "real pilots don't use flaps". This guy had over 35,000 hours of dual given and had been a designee for something like 40 years. The problem was that, for years and years, his flight school used aircraft that didn't have flaps - Piper Colts, Champs, and Cessna 120s. Finally he updated his fleet with Cessna 150s, but his teaching techniques didn't include the use of flaps. This guy would train all of his students himself, but prior to the checkride, one of his staff instructors would sign off the recommendation. The checkride would be given by "No Flap Frank". After a while the FAA got wind of what was going on and pulled his designation. I was asked to provide a some remedial training to a few of his graduates.

Slips do have their place. However, heavier aircraft, regardless of whether they have one or more engines or are piston or turbine powered are best flown using flaps and power in the pattern. That being said, a while back at one of my 6-month recurrents at FlightSafety, my sim instructor announced that I had contaminated fuel and failed both engines ten miles from the airport. With both engines out, there was no hydraulic power for the airbrakes and the gear had to be blown down. I used flaps and slips to make the landing. As a CFIG it sure would have been embarrassing not to have been able to put the airplane on the runway. Does a pilot need to know how to do slips. Absolutely. Just make sure you heed the warnings and cautions in the POH.

'Sled