License to Learn: You’re too slow for slow flight

On August 30, the FAA released a SAFO or Safety Alert for Operators titled, Maneuvering During Slow Flight in an Airplane. The SAFO explains the FAA’s new slow flight training and testing philosophy for pilots. Guess what? It turns out that all this time, you’ve been practicing slow flight way too slow.

Slow flight was traditionally performed just above the critical angle of attack at minimum controllable airspeed (MCA), with the stall warning horn (or light) wailing in the background. Apparently the FAA now believes that experiencing a stall horn during slow flight at MCA reduces your sensitivity to the sound, making it less likely that you’ll react to an impending stall.

So how slow can you go? On private pilot checkrides, the FAA wants all pilot applicants to “Establish and maintain an airspeed, approximately five to 10 knots above the 1G stall speed, at which the airplane is capable of maintaining controlled flight without activating a stall warning.” Let me translate this for you: The SAFO makes it more likely that pilot applicants will never experience the region of reversed command during their checkrides, much less during the entirety of their primary training. Why? Because the FAA’s new method requires that slow flight be performed at speeds closer to approach speed than to flight at MCA.

Now that’s fiction, right? Not at all. Here’s how the FAA’s SAFO recommends that pilots determine the newer (not-so-slow) slow flight speed to be used during flight training and on every checkride. In level flight, reduce speed until the stall warning horn is heard (FAR Part 23 requires stall horns/lights to activate not less than five knots above stall, and many activate at a higher speed). Next, increase speed slightly by two knots to silence the stall horn. Finally, add 10 knots onto this indicated speed as the upper limit for the slow-flight demonstration (I can assure you that students will favor the upper airspeed limit, not the lower one). Adding five knots plus two knots plus 10 knots gives you a not-so-slow-flight speed of 17 knots above stall.

In a Cessna 172 that stalls at 50 knots at max gross weight, flying at 67 knots (17 knots above stall speed) gives you a 34-percent margin above stall speed. This is faster than the 30-percent margin above stall the FAA recommends for normal landings. The margin above stall increases when flaps are used and/or the flight is conducted at reduced weights. The not-so-subtle irony here is that you have to activate the stall horn to determine your new slow flight speed—so that you won’t activate the stall horn when flying slow. Go figure.

Practicing slow flight at speeds 34 percent or higher above stall speed implies that pilot applicants will have little or no practice operating on or near the back side of the power curve. To counter that argument, the FAA says in its SAFO, “This [region of reversed command knowledge/skill] can be learned in ground training and further consolidated in the airplane while practicing the Stall Task skills in the ACS [Airman Certification Standards].” Ground training? Stall practice? Really?

This is no way teaches a pilot about the region of reversed command. Stall practice is about recognizing and recovering from stalls, it’s not about learning why the airplane needs more power to hold altitude as airspeed decreases. The latter is something a pilot learns best by practicing slow flight at MCA. Slow flight at MCA teaches students the extraordinary coordination skills they need to control the airplane during the landing flare. It easily takes twice as much coordination skill to control the airplane at MCA as at approach speed, so does the FAA seriously think that eliminating slow flight training at MCA will help students as they begin learning to land an airplane? Apparently the FAA does.

Do you see the ultimate irony here? While sounding klaxons to warn about the high loss of control (LOC) accident rate, the FAA has just taken a big step toward dumbing down the airmanship skills needed to prevent LOC accidents. As I’ve written before, I’m not anti-FAA; I’m anti-bad ideas, and this one is a doozy. If the FAA’s SAFO were released under the title of fiction, it would make the New York Times best-seller list.

As a final note, this will be my last column for AOPA Pilot. It’s been a grand time and I’ve dearly enjoyed writing for you (my readers) and AOPA for the past 18 years. Now I’m off to write more books and develop more eLearning courses.

Web: www.rodmachado.com