Help me clear up my brain fart

On 11 Nov 2003 04:25:56 -0800, (Ekim) wrote:

"Never cross control!!!"
"Keep that ball centered!"
"Never use more than 20 degrees bank!"
"Too high on final - go around. Never slip unless its an emergency
landing."

These are things that were hammered in my head by my numerous CFIs
during pattern training as a student pilot. Now that I have my PPL,
you would think I should have this understood. Unfortunately, now this
is really twisted up in my head.

Was all that preaching JUST to reduce the chance of invoking a deadly
spin in case the wings are accidentally stalled? It seems to all
contradict everything about slips on final and the famous
"low-wing-into-the-wind" crosswind landings?

In my mind, as long as I keep my airspeed sufficiently high and keep
the nose pointed down, (ie. keep my AOA under control) things like a
steeper banks and routine slip to landings should be relatively safe.
Right?

Thanks,
Ekim

Ekim, my opinion (being a freshly minted pilot) is that the
information you were given may depend on the size and width of the
runway you train from as well as the attitude of the CFI's.

Where I trained, the runways are long and wide. The instructor was
constanty telling me to keep my speed up on final. All approaches
were made with 1500 rpm on the tachometer. This made for wide
patterns and necessitated the use of flaps on final. Why did he teach
this? Many reasons, but mostly for safety's sake. It's really hard
to stall/spin in the pattern if you keep your speed up. The other
reason involves a bit of conjecture on my part. The FBO is located at
the opposite end of both runnway's that are in most common use. If
you land short, and the C172 can land impressively short, you have a
long taxi back to the ramp. If you land hot and long, the taxi is
that much shorter.

At an airfield that has a short grass runway, the approach might
necessitate a steeper descent using some slipping.

Keeping some power on may be considered a method for preventing shock
cooling the engine, I don't know. But there are many methods for
landing including cutting the throttle completely and turning in
sooner to take advantage of the more rapid rate of descent.

Mike wrote:
Keep the ball centered in cruise and in turns, unless you're slipping in a
turn. A lot of times I throw in a little top rudder in the base to final
turn to bleed off excess altitude.

I used this technique just this weekend. I was on base and realised
that I'd turned in a bit early and was high. So as I turned on final,
I added a lot of top rudder and held the turn and kept the speed up
and spilled off most of the excess altitude in a cross controlled
turn.

I fly a lot with a friend who owns a Waco UPF-7 biplane. Like most
biplanes, it doesn't have flaps, so the approach is controlled by
slipping. Being a biplane and having all that drag, the Waco drops
like a rock once the approach speed is reached and the throttle is
chopped. Without slipping, the rate of descent reaches 2,000 fpm. We
always end up high on final, to make sure the runway can be reached,
whereupon the left wing goes way down and a LOT of right rudder is
applied and we come down like a broken elevator.

I once watched a video of a C-130 approaching to land at an airstrip
under hostile fire in Vietnam. It stayed high until I assumed it
wasn't going to land, then it lifted up a wing and kicked in opposite
rudder and dropped like it had been shot down. If I hadn't been
watching, I would have said it wasn't possible to handle that size an
airplane like that. But it worked.

Corky Scott