Slow Flight

On Sat, 08 Sep 2007 11:03:45 -0700, Ol Shy & Bashful
wrote:

There is little doubt in my mind that the ability to do slow flight at
the very edge of stall speed will do more to prevent accidents than
1000 hours of cruise speed flight. Is there anyone here who is
proficient that lands their aircraft more than 10kts above stall
speed?

This brings up a question in my mind.
When you say slow flight at the edge of a stall I think of Minimum
Controllable Air Speed or MCA. Slow flight, to me, is considerably
more comfortable and a bit above the stall warning horn. I was taught
steep turns with the horn on all the way around. Of course I was
taught accelerated stalls out of steep turns as well :-))

I teach all my students to slow fly with the entire range of
configurations for the particular aircraft they are flying. Gear up/
down, flaps up/down/in-between. I want them to be comfortable flying
at the very edge of the stall speeds and spend a lot of time
maneuvering right on the edge of a stall "nibble". It does more for

I think that definition of slow flight and MCA depends on the
instructor(s) as around here a lot of them teach slow flight, whereas
as few still teach MCA.

pilot confidence and ability than anything else I can think of. They
learn proper control useage and how their particular aircraft responds
while in the low speed areas. Playing with different angles of bank
while at low speeds and flying with a modicum of accuracy does a lot
for proper control use.
If you think about it, how many accidents occur in the low speed
spectrum? Either from a stall, or from a high sink rate on approach,
or poor control use during an emergency or off airport landing, or
something similar?
In my opinion, the pilot who is comfortable throughout the entire
speed range of their aircraft is a properly trained pilot and one who
will not get into an inadvertant stall, or spin.
What are your thoughts?

Amen!

A couple of thoughts or observations: I see a lot of pilots with quite
a few hours who still fly mechanically. IOW they never go outside the
original basics. These are the pilots who never learn to be flexible.
They are the ones you don't want to get behind (or have behind yo) in
the pattern at Oshkosh where the tower tells you what to do and when.
They are the ones who have a problem getting down when the wind
changes on final. If the wind changes and they find themselves high
on final it never occurs to them a slip would be appropriate to still
put them on the desired spot, or to apply just enough power to put
them on that spot instead of applying lots of power when they see they
are going to come up short.

With an engine failure they have to recognize what has happened and
think of each step. They rely on the stall warning horn and or light,
rather than feel in the controls. When I was in primary training the
flight envelop was by feel. Yes, we used the gages to get in the
neighborhood, but beyond that is was learning to feel what the plane
was doing. OTOH when I was in primary training a lot of things were
done differently than they are now.

As to inadvertent stalls, not all can be avoided no mater how well the
pilot is trained. I've had three inadvertent stalls. One was in level
flight at 5500. Two were on final due to wind shear that was well
beyond what had been forecast and I was carrying extra speed. Nothing
was bent in any of the events, nor did I need to change my shorts (or
count seat cushions).

And we all have to realize that on rare occasion mechanical parts fail
and nature does conspire to put us in a heap of hurt. In those cases
we have to use our training to minimize the damage if possible.

Roger (K8RI)