FTM Exercise 11: Slow Flight

After learning how to set up the airplane for Endurance Flight as described in my last post, it is now time to learn how to fly slower!  That is, to fly the airplane right on the edge of stalling.  Really, slow flight is the range of speed from stall up to the endurance speed.  Check out the video!


Why would you want to fly so slow?  Mostly importantly, during take-off and landing.

The idea was to establish straight and level flight at cruise speed, 105kts.  After doing so, I was instructed to reduce the throttle to idle and raise the nose progressively, as the plane slowed, to maintain straight and level flight.  One trick the FI showed me was that as soon as I reduced the throttle, to roll the trim wheel to the limit for a nose up attitude.  This establishes a relatively steep nose up attitude.  As the airspeed bleeds off, the stall horn faintly starts to sound.  As soon as you hear the faintest sound, apply throttle all the way full.  Then, it is just a matter of adjusting the throttle to maintain altitude.

While we were doing this exercise, there was a lot going on.  For the first time, I found it took a lot of concentration.  Once I watched the FI demonstrate it and then work through establishing it myself a couple of times, I started to get the hang of it.

One of the major points of this flight, other than learning how to establish yourself in stable slow flight, is to experience the substantial reduction in aileron sensitivity.  Normally, when flying in cruise the ailerons are very responsive.  The slightest rotation of the yoke translates into a a bank of the airplane.  In slow flight, the wings are inclined so much, very near stall, that the airflow over the wings is very turbulent and the so the ailerons have very reduced sensitivity.   The yoke feels loose and it takes large rotations to effect a bank.  The rudder and elevator controls remain about the same since they are in the slipstream of the propeller blasting fast moving air along their surfaces.  This is great training to get a feel for this at such a high altitude so that when landing (especially) you are ready for the 'sloppiness' of the ailerons.

We started this flight pretty late and so we flew, excuse the pun, through it.  We landed just as the sun was setting.