Hypothetical Scenario #1 - Urgent Action required

Are your examininees required to so no-spoiler approaches all the way to landing in glass (K-31/G-103)?

The PTS no longer require no spoilers all the way to landing. An examiner should not be asking for it.

To go all the way to landing, it helps to stay in the slip during roundout. Fine for the pilot, very nerve wracking for instructor, as if the student decides to put it on the ground going sideways you don't have time to react..

I've found the slip to landing very educational for a totally different reason, and explaining this to students helps to "sell" an otherwise unpopular and stressful maneuver. Yes, you are very unlikely to face a spoiler failure -- and if you do, going to land somewhere a lot longer than the airport might be a better option.

The no spoiler pattern is great training to avoid all of beginner's usual mistakes, especially in high stress situations like their first off field landings. The key is to make the pattern big, and with super precise airpseed control -- not too close and too fast, like most early off field landings.

It takes a few seconds to establish slip, and it seems to take a few seconds for slip to really bite and produce a good sink rate. Hence a long final leg is key.

A big misconception is that you do it by flying a super low pattern. Actually a well established slip produces a very nice sink rate and you don't have to be low.

So selling it as "we're going to do a pattern at normal height, but nice and wide and super precise airspeed, to prepare you for off field landings" helps generate some enthusiasm,

John Cochrane