Interesting. There seem to be a couple of significant differences in the
weather conditions between your flights and mine - I wonder how much they
contribute to the drag of the slip and the subsequent float distance. First,
I had zero wind, and in my experience a 10 mph headwind makes a *big*
difference in the rollout distance, and probably cuts short the float as
well. Second, our field elevation is 1500' MSL, so there's a 5500'
difference in the density.

"Tom Serkowski" wrote in message
om...

So it was a nice sunny day with no lift here in CO, so I took another
pilot up in the L-13 for some fun. Temp was about 60F and wind down
the runway at around 10 mph. Our airport elevation is 7000' MSL.

Tried a few slips at altitude, and entering at a bit under 50 KIAS the
ship flew very nicely with full rudder and the low wing still well
above the horizon. Stalls were nonevents with a very noticeable
reduction in sound level before the 'break' which involved the nose
going straight forward and a slight drop. Overall, no big deal.

Entered downwind at around 600' and this was actually too low to fly
the pattern in a slip all the way. Used a slip on the turns to base
and final, then a slip the last 150' or so of altitude. Flared just
beyond the approach end, touched a bit farther than I would have with
spoilers and got stopped less than 500' beyond the threshold.

My friend then repeated the performance, again using less than 500' of
runway.

I then decided to turn final at a "normal" height and did some
slipping S-turns. Got to the same flare point as before but with
about 5 knots more airspeed, so flew along sideways as I began the
flare. DIdn't realize how low the tail was until it tapped the ground
and dropped us in a bit sideways. Side load was no worse than some of
my students trying a X-wind landing. We used about 1000' of runway
this time, but I never touched the wheel brake, either - as I was
aiming to stop where we did.

-Tom