Help me clear up my brain fart

I'll bet you had a young, relatively low time instructor.

Slips for landing are common and safe. I use them all the time. Well, not
all the time, but I like to come in high and slip away excess altitude. That
way, I always have the field made no matter what the engine decides to do.

Keep the ball centered in cruise and in turns, unless you're slipping in a
turn. A lot of times I throw in a little top rudder in the base to final
turn to bleed off excess altitude. You don't want to skid in a turn, but
when slipping the tendency when you get slow is for the high wing to drop,
thus bringing you automatically into a wings level attitude. If you're
skidding, the bottom wing can drop out and you can end up upside down in a
hurry. Not fun at 1000' agl. Just watch your speed, don't get too slow and
you'll be fine. And of course the ball will be out of the box when you're
slipping.

And unless you're flying a B52 or an Ercoupe, you'll have to slip with the
ball out of the center to land in a crosswind unless you feel like folding
up your landing gear. Remember, a good laning is any one you can walk away
from. A great landing means you get to use the plane again.

20 degrees of bank is pretty conservative. You'd have to use airliner
patterns with that shallow a turn, which will put you way out of gliding
range to the runway. Not safe at all. As long as you keep your turns
coordinated, maostly being careful not to skid (ball towards the high wing)
30 degrees is common. I often go 45 degrees in the pattern, but I fly the
same plane all the time (mine) and it's more forgiving in the stall than
most.

JMHO, and worth what ou paid for it.

mike regish


"Ekim" wrote in message
om...
"Never cross control!!!"
"Keep that ball centered!"
"Never use more than 20 degrees bank!"
"Too high on final - go around. Never slip unless its an emergency
landing."

These are things that were hammered in my head by my numerous CFIs
during pattern training as a student pilot. Now that I have my PPL,
you would think I should have this understood. Unfortunately, now this
is really twisted up in my head.

Was all that preaching JUST to reduce the chance of invoking a deadly
spin in case the wings are accidentally stalled? It seems to all
contradict everything about slips on final and the famous
"low-wing-into-the-wind" crosswind landings?

In my mind, as long as I keep my airspeed sufficiently high and keep
the nose pointed down, (ie. keep my AOA under control) things like a
steeper banks and routine slip to landings should be relatively safe.
Right?

Thanks,
Ekim