Exercise 11 – Slow Flight

In this lesson, you may practice the takeoff and landing, flight for best endurance and also learn to enter, recognize, manoeuvre and recover from the slow flight speed range.

Planned Activities

• Exercises 3,10, 11 and 16

Reference Material

• FTM (Flight Training Manual)

• Aircraft Information Manual/Pilot Operating Handbook (POH)

• Ground Instruction Notes

Preparation

• Review the mandatory calls required when departing or arriving at an airport.

• Study the endurance profile in the POH.

• Understand the power vs. airspeed curve in the FTM.

• Be able to answer the following questions:

1) What is the procedure for entering slow flight from cruise?

2) Why do we need to add power if we want to fly at a slower airspeed than endurance speed?

3) What does a HASEL check stand for and when do we need to do one?

4) What are the symptoms of Slow Flight?

5) Which way does the aircraft tend to yaw during slow flight and why?

6) What controls airspeed and what controls altitude during slow flight?

7) How will flap affect your aircraft during slow flight?

• Write down your questions.

Tips/Rules of Thumb/Theory

• When communicating always state: who you are, where you are (position and altitude) and what you want/what you are doing.

• When holding short for take-off, turn the nose slightly towards the arrival path and check for landing traffic.

• Slow flight is not a specific speed, it is a speed range. Announce when you are entering slow flight.

• Each time you take-off and land an aircraft, you transition through slow flight.

• Fuel consumption is very high and engine damage could result from overheating during prolonged slow flight.

• When practicing slow flight in gusty wind conditions, increase airspeed accordingly for the gust factor.

• During slow flight, the lower the airspeed, the less effective the ailerons will be. Therefore, rolling out of a turn will take longer than under normal flight.

• Use the left and right side of the windscreen and your peripheral vision to help maintain a constant pitch attitude in slow flight.

• To keep roll coordinated, the pressure applied to the rudder is approximately the same amount of pressure you feel in the control column when deflecting the ailerons. Remember rolling out of a turn is the same process as rolling in.

All of this information on pilot training and flight training in Canada is also available at www.myflighttraining.ca.