Best way to lose altitude

Good question. Wind was gusting at 20 knots 20 degrees off of the runway heading. Touchdown was a little fast but smooth, gust pushed me back up a foot or so vertically and plopped me back on the runway, a little bouce or two after from gusts/suspension in the mains. Entirely my fault for not letting the speed bleed off more but as bounces go out was minor, just sloppy and embarrassing.

Ok - the only reason I ask is because the club I used to belong to has had several PIOs over it's 50 year history and almost all the pilots described their bounce as "minor". Trying to land at high speed is what does it, your situation could have easily ended up with tens of thousands of dollars of damage to your firewall. If you were unlucky and the prop grazed the runway, you could add an engine teardown to that.
 
Ok - the only reason I ask is because the club I used to belong to has had several PIOs over it's 50 year history and almost all the pilots described their bounce as "minor". Trying to land at high speed is what does it, your situation could have easily ended up with tens of thousands of dollars of damage to your firewall. If you were unlucky and the prop grazed the runway, you could add an engine teardown to that.

I have a video if you want to judge. It seemed minor to me and by excess speed I mean only a few knots faster than normal. I wasn't trying to plop it down at 65 KIAS or anything.
 
Yep, most airplanes will not spin (or even stall properly) out of a full deflection low airspeed slip to land configuration. In most airplanes, the elevator is sufficiently blanked by the fuselage during a hard slip to prevent stalling/spinning.

A note on slips from the FAA Airplane flying handbook:

"Unlike skids, however, if an airplane in a slip is made to stall, it displays very little of the yawing tendency that causes a skidding stall to develop into a spin. The airplane in a slip may do little more than tend to roll into a wings level attitude. In fact, in some airplanes stall characteristics may even be improved."

Aside from actual experience, I totally missed that the almighty hallowed FAA text indicates the same thing.
Nothing wrong with my reading comprehension, how about yours?

The text doesn't say the same thing you did, but refers to the effect gravity has on the yawing tendancy when the first wing to stall is on the same side as the component of gravity, such as in a skidding stall. During a slipping stall, the gravity component tends to offset the yaw moment of the applied rudder. It isn't enough to make the plane "stall-proof" in my experience.

As to my "thumping" of the FAA texbooks, just yesterday (early today?) I pointed out a mistake in their labeling of the altimeter hands in another thread, so I'm not above a quarrel with good ol' Uncle Sam where appropriate.

dtuuri
 
Nothing wrong with my reading comprehension, how about yours?

The text doesn't say the same thing you did, but refers to the effect gravity has on the yawing tendancy when the first wing to stall is on the same side as the component of gravity, such as in a skidding stall. During a slipping stall, the gravity component tends to offset the yaw moment of the applied rudder. It isn't enough to make the plane "stall-proof" in my experience.

As to my "thumping" of the FAA texbooks, just yesterday (early today?) I pointed out a mistake in their labeling of the altimeter hands in another thread, so I'm not above a quarrel with good ol' Uncle Sam where appropriate.

dtuuri

More typical spin and deflection from you. :rolleyes: I said most airplanes will not spin out of a slip to land configuration. It's a pretty simple point. You can confuse the issue and again talk AROUND points by jabbering about gravity or dihedral or whatever, but the text says, "it displays very little of the yawing tendency that causes a skidding stall to develop into a spin". That's the same dang thing I said. It also says stall behavior "may even be improved". In some airplanes that means the thing just won't even stall properly. I've experienced this. You're spinning this into an argument over whether airplanes can be made to stall in a slip or not. This discussion started as whether or not they will SPIN from a slip. Again, you're dancing around the simple, direct issue.

My most direct and clear statement to you was made in post 64, which you have not addressed, and just deflected with talk of gravity and hinting at the possibility that Uncle Sam (the FAA) is wrong. I don't even care much about what's in the FAA Handbook. I care about reality. The reality is if you take a Citabria/Decathlon/172 and do as I stated in post 64, you won't spin. If you think you will, you could refresh your experience in these airplanes. I really don't mean that in an insulting way. I just think you are misremembering the conditions that actually led to your claimed ability to spin from a slip in these airplanes.
 
Last edited:
Flying a 172 and landing on a 12000 foot runway? There really should not be much to talk about, keeping a tight pattern or whatever.
 
Well, yes. However, no safety was compromised in the slightest, but I will sheepishly admit that I was trying to set a personal speed record from my departure to the destination. Again didn't do anything unsafe but, yes, I was screwing around somewhat. So, you're entirely right and if this wasn't a huge runway I wouldn't have hesitated to setup the approach again.

Ego will always get you in trouble flying, because ego is always looking for trouble.:lol: By yourself? Go for it, what doesn't kill you will make you a better pilot. When you have passengers though, you must resist the temptation.
 
I was just going to congratulate you for asking
" Best way to lose altitude"


But then in your post you asked:
So, long question short: what's the best way to loose altitude quickly?


Sorry. It's a pet peeve.
 
One of my old flight instructors told me how he slipped a 727 into LaGuardia once....
 
I was just going to congratulate you for asking
" Best way to lose altitude"


But then in your post you asked:



Sorry. It's a pet peeve.

maybe he wants to do two things at once?
 
I said most airplanes will not spin out of a slip to land configuration.
I think it's irresponsible to encourage readers of this forum to fly nose-high with a bootful of rudder at low altitude by alleging immunity from "stalling/spinning" -- and I'm bored with trying to deal with somebody whose brain is always stuck on transmitting insults.

dtuuri
 
I think it's irresponsible to encourage readers of this forum to fly nose-high with a bootful of rudder at low altitude by alleging immunity from "stalling/spinning"

:rolleyes2: Now you've moved past evasion, spin, and misdirection to being straight up disingenuous. Lots of pilots are afraid of steep slips because they think the more uncoordinated the airplane is, the more easily they will enter a spin should the airplane accidentally stall. It's just not generally the case with slips. I'm advocating pilots learn the flying qualities of their airplane, not some parroted crap their kid wonder CFI told them, but has no experience with. I'm pretty sure I made that clear in another post. But since you have no legs to stand on, you've just reverted to this silly claim that I'm "encouraging" pilots to fly around at low altitude with the yoke in their lap and lots of rudder. Yeah right. I still think you should find one of these airplanes, just go do it, and report back. I don't see that happening though, because I think you know what the results will be. This isn't a quantum theory proof here. It involves a simple exercise in a simple airplane. This is a pilot forum. I assume this means many here actually have access to airplanes and are able to fly them.
 
Last edited:
Slipping hard at the runway is fine for solo pilots or hauling pilot, or passengers well versed in GA, there's nothing dangerous about it. For the majority of passengers though, if you full slip at the runway, you will cause a mess, emotionally for sure, physically quite likely.

Look at your Best Glide airspeed. Any speed below that will increase your rate of descent and decrease your rate of forward motion, often referred to as "flying behind the power curve" because you have to add throttle to maintain altitude as you slow down.

With no throttle in and the stall horn chirping, most GA planes are dropping at a nice steep angle with no excess energy to the point of building strain forces causing stress on the plane, or having to misalign forces and vectors causing stress on your passengers. Just slow down and your drag increases, simple and smooth.

Oh no doubt. 90% of my flights are solo:).
"But I'm a loner, and a loner's got to be alone."

Yep, if you've flown nothing but Cessnas, you might think they come down fast power off, full slip, and full flaps. Then if you get some experience in certain old taildragger or aerobatic types, you realize that Cessnas don't slip or come down worth a crap. :)


That was me before I discovered the awesomeness of taildraggers with huge rudders:D, and a stick is sooo much more fun than a yoke!
 
Last edited:
Ok - the only reason I ask is because the club I used to belong to has had several PIOs over it's 50 year history and almost all the pilots described their bounce as "minor". Trying to land at high speed is what does it, your situation could have easily ended up with tens of thousands of dollars of damage to your firewall. If you were unlucky and the prop grazed the runway, you could add an engine teardown to that.

Huh?

A PIO has NOTHING to due with speed, or altitude, or anything like that, it's caused by not knowing some basic fundamentals and not having control over your aircraft.

You can take a 172 and cross the threshold at VNE for landing and not PIO the thing, you'll end up never touching down on the runway due to too much energy, but a PIO, that's not in the cards.
 
A PIO has NOTHING to due with speed, or altitude, or anything like that, it's caused by not knowing some basic fundamentals and not having control over your aircraft.

You can take a 172 and cross the threshold at VNE for landing and not PIO the thing, you'll end up never touching down on the runway due to too much energy, but a PIO, that's not in the cards.

True- I happened to see a pilot with bflynn's old flying club doing T&G's in a Warrior over the weekend. He did several in a row wheelbarrowing the nosewheel on the ground with the mains in the air! Too fast, but no PIO. :) If I was his CFI we'd be doing some retraining before he flies solo again.
 
Huh?

A PIO has NOTHING to due with speed, or altitude, or anything like that, it's caused by not knowing some basic fundamentals and not having control over your aircraft.

You can take a 172 and cross the threshold at VNE for landing and not PIO the thing, you'll end up never touching down on the runway due to too much energy, but a PIO, that's not in the cards.

Too much energy sure seems to be an exacerbating factor, though. Is it possible to PIO without "excess" energy?
 
I had a commercial pilot passenger in the right seat (and also my father) so no worries about scaring them. Non-pilot passengers would have been an immediate go-around. I don't need any puke to clean up off the G1000.

I had a gopro pointed out the side window and had the autopilot (off) set for 1400 feet if I recall. You can see the airport environment right when you hear the Otto call out "altitude", which means that I was 200' below the selected altitude. So it was 900 to 1100 at the threshold, give or take.

And with a 12,000 runway I still landed with about 7,000 remaining so it wasn't that bad.

Well done. 12,000 feet! Wow... you really could have been the space shuttle with that much runway. :)
 
Too much energy sure seems to be an exacerbating factor, though. Is it possible to PIO without "excess" energy?

Speed provides the energy for the effect, and the more you have the stronger the effect yes, but the effect itself is generated by a ham fisted pilot who likely hadn't re trimmed all the way down final and has been holding 20 pounds with their wrist and bicep for 2 minutes by now.

Without correct trim, you have neither stability nor finesse, and from there PIOs are typically born.

My first 2 instructors never brought up trim on final. The third guy was, "Why are you holding pressure? Always trim it out." Improved my landing quality and consistency instantly.
 
Well done. 12,000 feet! Wow... you really could have been the space shuttle with that much runway. :)

Reminds me of my first flight into Stewart International (KSWF) in Newburgh, NY in a C172. We were practicing landings a few miles west, at Orange Co. Airport and my CFI asked if I'd like to see Stewart. Approaching runway 9 (11,800ft), I was thinking, "holy cow, that's a longgg runway!".

Found out later that Stewart was one of the Shuttle Emergency Landing sites:). JFK as well.
 
Last edited:
Well done. 12,000 feet! Wow... you really could have been the space shuttle with that much runway. :)

Bangor, Maine was an alternate for the space shuttle. :p 11440' x 200'

It actually used to be longer and wider but when they decommissioned the shuttles Bangor decided it didn't need quite so big of a runway.
 
Last edited:
There still are.

They just tend to be plugged up with big airliners.

Someday, I want to land on the lakebed at Edwards. 35,000 feet. Think that's enough?

Yeah, but a lot of them got torn up and redeveloped.
 
Yeah, but a lot of them got torn up and redeveloped.

The only one I'm aware of anywhere near locally is El Toro.

Most of the former bases closed in the 90s are still airfields of one sort or another. Even Ford Ord turned into Marina Airport.
 
The only one I'm aware of anywhere near locally is El Toro.

Most of the former bases closed in the 90s are still airfields of one sort or another. Even Ford Ord turned into Marina Airport.

Grant County (MWH), where JAL used to train 747 pilots. I flew a media charter over there when the SST stopped by. 13503 x 200.

Bob Gardner
 
Landing at Griffiss Intl (KRME) Ex-Air Force Base. Landing on the numbers only guarantees you a 1-mile taxi to the turn-off.

Back when it was an AFB they used to do MITO (Minimum Interval Take Off). Launch everything ASAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCnCXAhPDts
 
Are people really that scared of a forward slip to a landing? It's in the PTS and required for checkrides these days. I can already tell that some people have made up their minds about this but IMO it's just like extending full flaps--just remember to lower the nose and maintain final approach speed. I just don't get where the spin-phobia comes from :dunno: You won't spin if you don't stall.

Stall, spin, bounce, endless float--It's all about airspeed on final.

And I wouldn't hesitate to slip a C172 with up to 30 degrees of flaps. My school has 40 degree 172M's and no one has ever lost rudder or elevator authority slipping them with full flaps. I don't recall seeing any placards against it and it and the POH says:
Steep slips should be avoided with flap settings greater than 20 degrees due to a slight tendency for the elevator to oscillate under certain combinations of airspeed, sideslip angle, and center of gravity loadings.
Two paragraphs laters, the same POH says:
If flap settings greater than 20 degrees are used in sideslips with full rudder deflection, some elevator oscillation may be felt at normal approach speeds. However, this does not affect control of the aircraft.
My instructor said he has experienced the oscillation once with full 40 degrees of flaps and it was maybe startling but not compromising. I've never had an issue with it.
 
There still are.

They just tend to be plugged up with big airliners.
I can think of two exceptions in Michigan alone: KSAW and KOSC, both former military bases (both Air Force I believe). KSAW was Sawyer, and KOSC was Wurtsmith. I think there's some jet traffic in and out of Sawyer, but KOSC doesn't even have a tower, AFAIK it's strictly a GA haven.
 
When we fly the ASK-21 glider and have stayed aloft all day in thermals... Sometimes the thermals prevent us from coming back down or the pilots just refuse...

We dump full dive brakes, slip it, stick full forward... That babby comes down like a rock!!!
 
I can think of two exceptions in Michigan alone: KSAW and KOSC, both former military bases (both Air Force I believe). KSAW was Sawyer, and KOSC was Wurtsmith. I think there's some jet traffic in and out of Sawyer, but KOSC doesn't even have a tower, AFAIK it's strictly a GA haven.

KPSM, old miltary base, 11321 x 150 ft. Class D, no big jets other than the occasional KC130 tankers doing flight training.
Wonder if they'd let us have a contest to see how many times we could take off/land in one length.
 
Landing at Griffiss Intl (KRME) Ex-Air Force Base. Landing on the numbers only guarantees you a 1-mile taxi to the turn-off.

Back when it was an AFB they used to do MITO (Minimum Interval Take Off). Launch everything ASAP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCnCXAhPDts

Wow, that video really drives home the level of waste of resource the Cold War was, holy crap.
 
Something in the original post bothered me. You said that you did a forward slip and pulled back. You need to make sure you keep the nose down far enough when doing a forward slip.

Apparently that didn't alarm anyone besides me which would not be surprising given that I'm just an old worry wart anyway.
 
Wow, that video really drives home the level of waste of resource the Cold War was, holy crap.


Waste of resource?:confused: Being a Cold War Veteran, I've heard the Cold War called lots of things, but "waste of resource" has never been one of them. At the time, without the benefit of hindsight, the resources spent seemed very worthwhile given the alternative was potential world annialation.
 
Waste of resource?:confused: Being a Cold War Veteran, I've heard the Cold War called lots of things, but "waste of resource" has never been one of them. At the time, without the benefit of hindsight, the resources spent seemed very worthwhile given the alternative was potential world annialation.

Well, the waste was making the alternative potential world annihilation in the first place.

It didn't have to be that way.

But yes, once you have a choice like that, a lot of resources are going to get used that might have been used for other things.
 
Something in the original post bothered me. You said that you did a forward slip and pulled back. You need to make sure you keep the nose down far enough when doing a forward slip.

Apparently that didn't alarm anyone besides me which would not be surprising given that I'm just an old worry wart anyway.

I thought we covered this already. :lol:
 
Waste of resource?:confused: Being a Cold War Veteran, I've heard the Cold War called lots of things, but "waste of resource" has never been one of them. At the time, without the benefit of hindsight, the resources spent seemed very worthwhile given the alternative was potential world annialation.

They only prevented the world annihilation risk after presenting it. We were determined that communism could not succeed because it challenges the the European financial empire that we are part of. If Americans would have had the chance to realize that America was the Proto communist nation and that Marx was inspired by the Founders, then the the fallacy that had been sold as America since the Civil War would have been in Jeopardy.

If we would have listened to Eisenhower, things would have gone differently, and all that resource consumed just to quell fear could have gone to programs to eliminate fear. As a Cold War Warrior, I hate to tell you, you were duped. It just wasn't as obvious to you as the soldiers today since they are actually killing people for it, not just making people stand in line for food. Remember, to the Soviets, we were the threat trying to yoke them to the same families they had just revolted fro, same as the ones the founders revolted agains and eventually lost to. They didn't want to lose their revolution as we did. The funniest part about it is they lasted just about as long as we did.:lol:
 
Thanks for posting that link. Amazing.

What's even more amazing is the number of B52s, B47s ( to mention just two types, ) lost during the fiftys, sixtys , etc. Due to accidents, both by mid air collision, in air explosions, weather related accidents and also the many atomic weapons lost during some of these accidents and never recovered. During this time both the KC 97 and the 135 were used as tankers. Many of these were lost also. Eisenhower was proved right about all this right up to the present day. ( all the old SAC bases had very long runways due to the sorry engines on the 52s 47s and their loads on takeoff). The KC97 was also reluctant with a full load. Monster corncob engines always overheating, catching fire, electric prop blades coming off , etc. Then there were several shot down by the Russians, described at that time as lost due to weather. They were actually doing elint missions and or flying camera tri met missions.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top