TiredSoul

Jay, you be learned one solution to every problem.
Teaching you will learn many solutions to the same problem.
An experienced instructor is differentiated by the amount of tools in their toolbox.
Again, we’re not your enemy here.

JayMahon

I'm hearing you out here. Take a look at my original advice to the OP's problem.

1st advice is to setup the same every time, assess distance on the base and make the call to setup final well.

2nd advice is to practice for when the setup puts you too high with too much speed on final and how to correct.

3rd advice is to practice for when the setup puts you too low so you may not make your landing point given your normal practiced approach.

I get the advice about "there's not just one solution to every problem", my advice is built on that truth as outlined above. Since you understand there are many ways to skin a cat, you seem to have taken exceptional issue with the method I used. Slips in Full Flaps works for many aircraft (especially low wings) and historically the forward slip was the method of final approach in older aircraft without flaps. Though I made my disclaimer about the advice being for my experience in the 172, I guess I could have been more specific in the statement about slipping with flaps directly applying to my aircraft type. My bad, correction accepted.

Let me ask you this. Do you understand the frustration of being called out on the carpet for giving advice to a student who is weak in an area and asking for help? Was I factually incorrect in the advice I gave to the student? Do you think that level of frustration increased or decreased as the challenge became more and more questionable as slip in flaps does seem to apply to 172 models across the board? What about the student who made the OP, do you think this back and forth was helpful or hurtful to their situation?

Happy to own my own arrogance and pride. Was this back and forth illuminating? Very. I'm not on a site with extremely experienced pilots to find an echo chamber. Friction makes us all sharper.

TiredSoul

Yes.

That’s not advice.
CA.IV.M.S3 page 32 Commercial Pilot ACS
If you need to throw the kitchen sink at it and “put her down hard” you’re not doing the right thing.

FAA-H-8083-3

JohnBurke

That's the problem. You were being taught, and took it personally. You still do. You see it as taking a shot at you.

Slipping...I'll take a different approach. I'm not a big fan of slips, and I say that as someone who learned to fly in a J-3.

I come from a world where we slipped big airplanes...four engine airplanes, down canyons just like a super cub, with flaps. I also come from a world where everyone who did that was a mechanic, and we worked on those airplanes in the off-season. After finding a number of attach brackets and fittings broken due to side loads from slipping, I'm not a fan. Not just big airplanes, either. I worked for an operation years ago with a number of Cessna 206's and 207's, and we slipped a lot, and had a lot of broken attach brackets. I've seen it on a number of light airplanes now.

Full slips with full flaps can be done. Cessna's issue with it was one of loss of pitch authority by "blanking" the tail. It has partially to do with that, and partially to do with where the downwash goes as the wing camber changes with flap application. Think about download on the horizontal stab, when you think about where the downwash is going.

As for getting an airplane down on a spot, it's one thing if one is playing to a contest in a spot landing competition. It's another matter if one is executing a forced landing following an engine failure. While the FAA likes to describe short fields that seem to feature smooth, hard surfaces, and soft fields that don't (but are always practiced off a dry, hard field with imaginary obstacles, reality doesn't typically fit either model. In my experience, most short fields are soft or rough, and most soft or rough fields tend to be fairly short. Either way, slamming that airplane down looks good in a contest, but doesn't necessarily win points in real life, and the point of the exercise in training is to manage one's energy and approach path to the landing point...not to force it onto the ground as one passes the point. It's a big-picture exercise, rather than merely focused on where the airplane touches down.

From a practical point, if 200' makes the difference...then you're already having a bad day.

If one makes the approach with a few extra knots, uses slipping to increase descent rate and adjust path, that drag vanishes when the slip is removed. The extra energy leads to float. The point of the exercise is to manage the energy and approach path such that one arrives at the landing point without excess energy that one needs to fudge by forcing the airplane down .

As noted above, there are a lot of ways to skin a cat. Making the approach with extra energy and slipping. Staying high to avoid coming up short. When to slip, when not to slip. Using an aim point short of the intended landing point. Some back country practices such as retracting the flaps as one touches down (generally not something you want to teach). I've even seen beta in various forms used, on aircraft that are capable; there are some significant hazards associated with that.

Ultimately, the idea is to account for wind and adjust the path to arrive on target. When I was a kid, spraying, we had a 150 that was for running out to fields to inspect the fields. We'd land on roads or other convenient spots, inspect the field, and fly back. I spent a lot of time playing with the 150, and one of my things was flying traffic patterns at all different altitudes, pulling power and seeing what it took to get on the grass runway. Extend, turn now, shallow, slip, flaps, no flaps. I tried patterns at 100', slow, fast (relatively speaking, in a 150), and engine failures just after takeoff, on the crosswind, joining the downwind, mid field, abeam the numbers, etc. What I found was a lot of ways not to make it to the runway, yet each attempt was part of a learning curve. It had practical applications; if an engine quit spraying a field, what were the options? How to use them? How much of the envelope remained to use, and how comfortable was I willing to prepared to be, to use it? All of it? The FAA ACS/PTS is a test standard; it's a theoretical exercise, but it has practical ramifications.

For your single engine students, it's never a matter of if they'll have an engine failure. Only a matter of when. There are a lot of tools in the toolbox. Teach them to use them all.

rickair7777

Unless you're at BUR or DCA.

TiredSoul

Unless you’re at SouthWest and going into Burbank or Chicago Midway.
Then you dump that mother on the deck like you don’t want to use it again.

TransWorld

Kind of like landing on an aircraft carrier…

JohnBurke

You can use it again, if you don't mind a neon sign in the cockpit and a station wagon fused to the landing gear.

I believe there's an STC for that, now.

TiredSoul

JayMahon

I’m not a complete a-hat so shoot me a text or give me a call.
I’ve send you my info.
I could type it all down but that’s too much work.
Not to beat you down further.

LongRoadAhead

Update:

Wow this thread went off the rails rather quickly LOL! Anyway went back up yesterday knocked out the PO 180. For the record it was in an old 172P and I slipped it all the way down final with flaps 20. Thanks again to everyone for the insight, on to CFI.