Is slipping allowed?

Does slipping is allowed w/ full flap in RV 9A ?

I hope so because I've been doing it for a year and a half in mine. The plane slips fine and I don't know why you couldn't do it...but I have a lot left to learn.

Depending on what you have been flying before, you may see some differences.
Some high wing Cessna planes will increase the sink rate dramatically with a full slip, without adding indicated airspeed. You can kick the nose straight at the bottom of a landing descent and the sink rate will normalize almost instantly. Very handy. I have noticed in my RV9A, that the change in sink rate is subtle compared to that which I have described. It does work though... and I have not felt any buffet in the tail doing this with and without full flaps.
It will give your leg a workout though... and it looks cool from the ground.
The passenger might not be so happy with the slip skid ball under their armpit...
Exploring the out of coordinations realm of flight is a good skill all the way around. Landing in crosswinds, arriving too high on final.... and God forbid, a dead stick landing to confinded area where a slip literally saves your life... all good things. You won't hurt the plane.
Now get on that excercise bike and build the quadriceps.

I have only slipped my 9A a few times. I rarely ever land without a slip in my Husky. The 9 slips well but I find it is not as comfortable as slipping a high wing draggy airplane like the Husky. The 9 takes a fair amount of rudder pressure-like cramp up your leg pressure. I find that if I am way too high, full flaps will make me drop like a rock-especially if you get it slow. I think the constant speed prop helps here quite a bit. I rarely ever go past half flaps for a normal landing. You do have to be very careful slipping with full flaps in the 9 since you will pick up quite a rate of descent that you will need to slow before you get too low.

It flies just fine in all configurations and control deflections as long as you are aware of what you are asking of it.

Over the past almost 1,500 hrs I slip often. With a fixed pitch propeller RV9A does not slow down. If I am high and/or fast I slip it. Often I slip until a few feet above the runway before I straighten up. The two tools I have for a good landing: slip, if too high/fast, power, if too low/slow. Do watch you speed and give yourself enough margin for stall. So far it worked very well for me.

Following is a landing video taken a few years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuxlcKUWm64

flightlogic said:

....Some high wing Cessna planes will increase the sink rate dramatically with a full slip, without adding indicated airspeed...

Click to expand...

I had a Cessna 170 that was placarded against slips with full flaps. Tried it one day and learned that at the high-speed limit of the flap envelope, a slip would cause a sudden and rapid pitch down, with at least a 200 foot loss of altitude. You wouldn't want to find that on short final.

My Cessna 180 slips fine with full flaps, just as flightlogic described, and that's allowed.

Test your airplane at a safe altitude and remember that retracting the flaps is an available technique (certainly not the only one or even the first one) if you need to recover from an upset.

Dave

docskj said:

I have only slipped my 9A a few times. I rarely ever land without a slip in my Husky. The 9 slips well but I find it is not as comfortable as slipping a high wing draggy airplane like the Husky. The 9 takes a fair amount of rudder pressure-like cramp up your leg pressure. I find that if I am way too high, full flaps will make me drop like a rock-especially if you get it slow. I think the constant speed prop helps here quite a bit. I rarely ever go past half flaps for a normal landing. You do have to be very careful slipping with full flaps in the 9 since you will pick up quite a rate of descent that you will need to slow before you get too low.

Click to expand...

The C/S prop is without doubt, making a big difference, even with a 9. I found that the 9 will drop like a rock, just like the 6 with a C/S. At least with the metal Hartzells.

As the others have said, the -9 slips fine with or without the flaps deployed.

My personal rule is to not to slip it below 60 kts. At 60 it works out fine and gives you enough margin above the stall that if you get slower than 60 you have time to lower the nose before it stalls.

A -9 with a CS prop is just a thing of beauty. So versatile. We've been flying ours for 7+ yrs and closing in on 1400 hours in "high performance" environments. It allows you to dial in exactly the number of HP required at the moment of need, within reason, if you are willing to do so . Oh, yeah, and I've flown plenty of FP machines just fine without whining, but I sure like having air-brakes when you want them.

I had a Cessna 170B that was placarded against full flap slips and found the same thing you did. The flaps would blank out the tail and drop the nose dramatically.
Later Cessnas don't have near the rudder authority of the 170 and therefore can be slipped with full flaps.
All models of RVs slip fine with flaps.

I found it's hard to get much rudder deflection at speeds above 80 mph indicated. Slow the 9A to 75 or less and it'll fly sideways. YMMV.

Steve said:

I found it's hard to get much rudder deflection at speeds above 80 mph indicated. Slow the 9A to 75 or less and it'll fly sideways. YMMV.

Click to expand...

But on a low wing, the result is benign.

Full Flap Slips

The only time I've ever been frightened in my RV6 was rolling out on final approach with full flaps and a 15mph crosswind perpendicular to the runway. I had the airplane cross-controlled to hold the centerline for landing when I realized I was sinking through some pretty heavy wind shear and started to add some power --- wham! I was nose down in a full stall about 100 feet off of the ground. Muscle memory kicked in as I went to full throttle. I remember consciously keeping the stick forward while the airplane recovered about 10 feet from the surface. The only damage done was to my underwear.....

I've done many uneventful crosswind landings before with full flaps, and many since then. However, I always give pause to using full flaps when it is very turbulent on landing -- I never want to see the ground fill my windshield like that ever again.