Scudrunners

Hi Colonel,

I am sure you have done skids and slips in a variety of aircraft. We have all heard about the dangers of a skidding turn onto final but I was wondering if this is something like a stall where if your g-loading is low, your chance of an upset is reduced. One might be in a turnback situation after an engine failure and trying to get turned around. Doe the guy quoted below know what he is talking about?

"It is possible to slip, skid, all day long in turns, base to final, whatever, safely as long as the stick stays slightly forward, never pull up.The stall, flip, and no time to recover happens when you pull up or back on the elevator. Any competent instructor will and can demonstrate this with you as mine did over and over. It's that slight pull back that causes the flip, keeping the stick or yoke forward during a slip or skid will not induce the flip and spin that is non recoverable at low altitude. You can even practice the "impossible turn" back to the runway from a climb attitude (at altitude) simply by STICK FORWARD before the quick turn back. I was fortunate to have done all my flight training in a Citabria, but same applies to the RV-6 I now fly, just higher numbers on the speed."

That’s a lot of words to say “don’t stall, dummy.”

Slips are good as long as you want to lose altitude.
Skids are bad unless you want to do a snap roll.

There is a better explanation but it's long and really I think that's too much math to do when you should be flying.

It's interesting and was a good read though, so hopefully he will repost.

the stick stays slightly forward, never pull up

He appears to be talking, in kind of an obfuscated manner, of simply keeping
the G down.

If you aren't pulling any G, the wings aren't working - they have no alpha, so
you cannot exceed CLmax.

Everyone assumes +1G all the time. Hard to stall anything at zero G. In a
turn, that means you are allowing the aircraft to fall - you aren't asking the
wings to produce any lift.

The best example of this phenomenon is when an aircraft is parked on the
ramp. It has no airspeed, yet if you flick the master on, the stall warning
does not activate. This is because the wings are not being asked to produce
lift. You can also do this in flight.

"never pull"

While thats technically true if you aren't pulling you are not turning either which is usually the objective.

Just disconnect the thing that attaches to the little steering wheel to the elevator. No more pulling. Ta Da! Super safe airplane.

I should probably work at Boeing.