Tigerman
One of our club mambers emailed Cessna just before Christmas to find out whether or not we are allowed to sideslip a C152 with flap down. Their reply was along the following lines:
"Many people have got this idea from somewhere, but it's not from us. It may be from a caution, not a limitation, put onto the C172. With full flap down (40 or 30 deg, they didn't say) in a C172, a sideslip will cause a slow, weak oscillation in the elevator. This is easily controllable by holding the control column.
This situation has not been found in test flying the C152, so there is no problem."
We teach no sideslip though to try and instil some better judgement earlier in the approach, so that pilots use either flap or sideslip, but don't need both.
Having said that, if I had a real engine failure and was being thermalled up and over the only decent field to land in, I'd do whatever I had to to land there rather than in a forest.
FNG
regarding "tendency to float", I think some aeroplanes (eg C172) do have a tendency to not stall as sharply as some others (eg Grumman AA-1, AA-5). Maybe this is where the phrase comes from.
And a quickie to anyone flying Tiger Moths, when three-pointing, do you wait until it's just about to stall at 6 inches above the runway and pull it back a bit sharply? I've been doing this for a few weeks and she stalls onto the ground for greasers, and I can feel it slow down heaps as well, ground roll about 100m. Does this sound right? Does it deserve another thread? Definitely NOT an aeroplane to land long! (no brakes...)
and finally
B9
What about a place with a 2000' hill 1/2 mile from the threshold, and you have to fly above 700' on close base to get through the only saddle, chop the power, fly/glide/slip/apply full flap and turn final down the side of the hill to get in to the strip? No point overshooting, you'd just have to do it again anyway. All good fun!
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Confident, cocky, lazy, dead.