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Thread: Side-slipping
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Old 4th May 2004, 18:02
  #56 (permalink)  
IO540
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: EuroGA.org
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FNG

"the point of side slipping is indicated above, and it's surely something that every pilot needs to be famliar with. "

Do you really mean EVERY pilot? With gear down and max flaps, I can descend at about 2000fpm and if that isn't enough then I should have started the descent a few miles further back. It doesn't do the engine that good to do this, either. It's also a good way of making rear passengers sick.

"The point of recommending some tailwheel flying is that it may educate pilots out of attempting to land too fast"

Why not just teach them to fly the correct airspeed? If you can't teach a PPL to fly a specific airspeed (plus or minus say 5kt) on final, then he (or the instructor) doesn't have a hope.

Something vastly more important than side slipping is teaching people how to trim correctly. I know many people aren't taught this properly. I was shown how the trim wheel is used to cancel the yoke pressure, but was never told that the trim setting in effect determines the airspeed. Yet lack of this understanding is at the root of speed control problems.

Changing the student to a very different aircraft just to fix speed problems is very wasteful. Currency ON TYPE is so important. And if it is a PPL holder, the chances are that he isn't doing enough hours to stay current anyway.

Those that do lots of hours can of course play around and no doubt they will benefit, just as a car driver benefits from driving different vehicles. But these are not viable solutions to what is basically poor teaching, or trying to teach someone who is just wasting their own money.

I have done plenty of c**p landings (none heavy in the damaging sense; just very untidy, bouncing/balooning etc) and in hindsight 95% of them were the result of landing too fast. As for the other 5%, they don't worry me because perfection cannot be attained in this activity, certainly not in variable winds etc.
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