Always Learning

We climbed to a safe altitude and began practicing full-rudder-deflection forward slips at gliding speed. You sure can lose altitude quickly performing this maneuver! Once I had a good feel for it, my instructor pulled the power to idle, simulating an engine failure at 3,000 feet above ground level (agl). He also gave me a challenge: “See that patch of grass down there nestled within the trees? It’s a private airport. I know the owner and we have permission to land. Do whatever it takes to get set up and land on that field.” Of course, he knew the destination from the start—but it came as a complete surprise to me. It was time to perform emergency procedures, ground reference maneuvers, and—yes—a forward slip to a short-field landing.

We spiraled down to about 1,500 feet on the upwind side of the runway and pivoted around the center of the runway to get into the key position—downwind abeam the touchdown point—at 1,000 feet. Now it was time to execute a 180-degree power-off landing.

My instructor coached me to stay high on the approach and use the forward slip technique we had just practiced to lose altitude and land as near the beginning of the runway as possible. I was experiencing the real-life application of the slip we had just practiced thousands of feet above the ground. With the touchdown point assured, I stopped the slip, kept the airspeed on target to avoid floating down the runway, and managed a reasonable flare for a soft-field touchdown. Success! Multiple soft-field, short-field, and obstacle clearance takeoffs and landings followed on this remote grass runway until I felt even more confident in my abilities. We flew back to my home airport where I couldn’t wait to tell my fellow pilots about the fun I had just had.

This memorable training flight started with a simple request to practice forward slips. Don’t be afraid to ask your instructor to come up with scenarios that will make training more fun for you. He or she can easily customize lessons to keep you engaged and energized.

One of the ground reference maneuvers I used on this flight was the turn around a point, which Nihad E. Daidzic explains in “Keeping Your Distance,” beginning on page 32. While maneuvers such as this can seem awfully abstract when you are first learning them, soon you will be putting individual maneuvers together into a sequence of actions that increases your precision when flying near the ground. This knowledge will allow you to fly more confidently into a greater variety of runways. And, it could save your life one day if the engine ever quits.