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Old 10-03-2024 | 09:57 PM
  #26  
JohnBurke
Disinterested Third Party
 
Joined: Jun 2012
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Originally Posted by Elevation
Really what we're getting at is abuse v. fatigue from normal use. I'm not prepared to sit at an EAA chapter or FBO telling starry-eyed youths that Elroy is a fool for foward-slipping his Champ. I'm also not prepared to call you a pansy for choosing not to slip a Beaver, PV-2 or whatnot.
Not really a matter of manood or pansyhood, with regard to sideloads on big airplanes, but germane to the discussion, it doesn't take a whole lot to break off the tail, and as we all now know, a pilot can manage it at lower speeds. Having grown up in Pawnees and Ag Trucks and Air Tractors and Thrush aircraft, flying under powerlines, and all manner of Cubs, 180's, Aeronicas, 185's, 120's and 140's and so on, much as stick and rudder and seat of the pants is near and dear to the core of how I think and what I do, I don't spin airplanes any more and I don't slip...and I'm a guy that for a long time was very comfortable feeling the airplane through gear-down, full-flap slips, with full control input. Those small airplanes, 206's and 207's, we were quite sure of the cause, and the fix, and we were able to document it at the time, to the FAA's satisfaction. Ancient history, now.

Originally Posted by Elevation
I teach these at taxi speeds, and you talk about groundlooping to park. We actually may be doing something similar here.
Perhaps. The argument might be made that swinging the tail into a parking spot is a controlled, or incipient groundloop, though to my thinking it's little more than unlocking or swinging the tail. The groundloop represents more of a departure from control, a ground lomcovak, if one will. At taxi speed, it's quite different than at landing speeds, where it begins to drift and then snaps, and for a moment feels like a flat spin gone wrong. I don't want someone to be fearful of a groundloop, any more than they should be preoccupied with crashing when they should be flying the airplane, but I find a focus on keeping the long axis headed the same direction as travel to be most productive. To each his own. Perhaps different shades of the same can of paint.
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