Light Aviation Mag - Side Slipping

[Ian Melville]

I do admit to being a very low hour pilot, but I thought I understood side slipping, even if a bit carp at applying it
Is the 'Ground Track' label correct in Fig 2? Should it be 'Heading'. Ground track should be in the direction of the black arrow, along the axis of the runway?

Where does forward slipping fit into all this? I was previously under the impression that the 'wing down' method was forward slipping?

Confussed of Oxfordshire

[Nigel Ramsay]

Ian, your post caused me to read the article! Ground Track is indeed the ACTUAL direction of the aircraft, i.e. the true course the a/c is making as opposed to it's heading (according to it's compass). You are right - I think!

[Chris B]

With the wing down approach in a crosswind, the desired track is also the heading (in this case, left wing down into wind and held on track with right rudder).

So perhaps the runway should be shown oriented the same as the aircraft (N-S) for the arrows to make sense?

Confused of Surrey.

[Cookie]

Chaps. I'm on holiday at the moment, so haven't yet seen the article in print.

Edited to add that I have just seen the online version. The runway should have been orientated UP the page [i.e. parallel with the sides of the page].

The summation of the vectors of direction through the air + crosswind will result in track. My original diagram had the blue arrow from the point of the black arrow, making it more obvious, and did not display a runway.

So, the vectors are correct, but the diagram has been drawn by the artist with the runway in the wrong direction.

See http://joncooke.net for a correct diagram.

Cookie

[Ian Melville]

Thanks Jon, that makes more sense now.

Where does forward slipping fit in?

Not quite so confussed of Oxfordshire

[rans6andrew]

is there a "rule of thumb" for the correction to indicated airspeed during side slipping? I understand the reason for the errors in the ASI reading due to the pitot and static tubes not pointing in the direction of the the aircraft movement, being off axis in both lateral and vertical axis' What reading should one be looking for to ensure that the airspeed has not fallen below the stall speed when the slip is terminated. I am thinking about slipping to reduce height without a gain in airspeed rather than slipping to correct for a crosswind during landing.

Rans6.....

[Nigel Ramsay]

Not really, each a/c has it's own error depending upon positioning of the pitot, pitot static etc.