Slow flight tips? - Failed Checkride

[Animosity2k]

Had my checkride on Sunday and failed the flying portion. Made a silly mistake and plotted my XC to close to the border of the neighboring Delta airspace and busted it. Chose to continue on to some of the maneuvers. Passed the turns around a point, and steep turns. Failed slow flight so we never even pushed forward to stalls. He had me use 30* flaps and maintain 45kts. I was so used to doing slow flight w/ 30* flaps at 50kt that I kept my attention between my speed and scanning the outside airspace and kept turning to the left and heavily busting my 020* heading. Any tips for slow flight in a CTLSi? Power settings? Thanks in advance!

[MEH]

Bummer.

My advice. Keep your head out the window. 

Set up the slow flight with 30* flaps and check your airspeed occasionally.  Keep the nose at the same pitch up attitude with respect to the horizon.  Keep the nose pointed to a spot way out there--on the horizon.  You will perceive when the nose turns from the appointed heading by a less than 5 degree precision. Watching the heading on the electronics is so much more inaccurate. When the AOA sounds, dip the nose a bit to make it stop.  The new standards allow for the occasional sounding of the AOA. You just have to do something about it, ie. dip the nose a bit.

Remember. In all this slow stuff, say to yourself "When a wing drops, lift it up with opposite rudder, not aileron." and you will be fine. These birds mush and are very docile at the stall.

[Tom Baker]

Eyes outside the airplane. Watch the pitch attitude. Control your speed by adjusting the distance between the base of the windshield and the horizon, folowed by quick glances at the airspeed to determine needed adjustments. 45 knots is 5 knots above power off stall speed. That is a pretty generous margin. Slow flight should be at the point where any increase of pitch,  increase in bank angle, or reduction of power will cause a stall.

[coppercity]

45KIAS is a good airspeed for slow flight at 30 flaps in the CTLS, we generally see around 3800-4000rpm during slow flight (we are doing this at 7500-8000msl as we are in the higher desert southwest). As everyone has mentioned above, keep your scan going and if you can find a reference out on the horizon to point at near your heading it will prove helpful.  With the CT control inputs, less is more so keep your inputs smooth, small and precise. 

Keep in mind the ACS changed slow flight being MCA(Minimum controllable airspeed) as Tom states above to slow flight being -0/+10 above stall warning or stall indication.  

• Establish and maintain an airspeed at which any further increase in angle of attack, increase in load factor, or reduction in power, would result in a stall warning (e.g., airplane buffet, stall horn, etc.)PA.VII.A.S4
• Accomplish coordinated straight-and-level flight, turns, climbs, and descents with the airplane configured as specified by the evaluator without a stall warning (e.g., airplane buffet, stall horn, etc.)PA.VII.A.S5
• Maintain the specified altitude, ±100 feet; specified heading, ±10°; airspeed, +10/-0 knots; and specified angle of bank, ±10°.

 

[Tom Baker]

Eric already mentioned power, but I would expect it to take just a little more power than you were using for 50kts. 

[FlyingMonkey]

Slow flight is tricky.  You have to keep an eye outside to hold pitch and heading, but you also have to watch airspeed closely.  I find myself glancing out, glancing in, glancing out, glancing in... You also may need to dance a bit on the rudder to keep everything stable, and any power changes needed will likely require a lot of throttle movement to increase speed and very little to decrease speed, because the airplane is in such a high drag configuration at high AoA.

Don't get too discouraged, and keep working at it!

[Tom Baker]

1 hour ago, FlyingMonkey said:

Slow flight is tricky.  You have to keep an eye outside to hold pitch and heading, but you also have to watch airspeed closely.  I find myself glancing out, glancing in, glancing out, glancing in... You also may need to dance a bit on the rudder to keep everything stable, and any power changes needed will likely require a lot of throttle movement to increase speed and very little to decrease speed, because the airplane is in such a high drag configuration at high AoA.

Don't get too discouraged, and keep working at it!

Power adjustments are to maintain altitude. Pitch not power changes speed. If you are fast increase your pitch to slow down, and you may also need to increase power slightly to maintain altitude. If your new AoA causes you to climb, then reduce power. Try 50 RPM first and check the results then adjust from there. If you are descending increase power by 200 RPM and check results. The thing to do is find your magic power setting for the speed beforehand, and make adjustments from there.

[FlyingMonkey]

2 hours ago, Tom Baker said:

Power adjustments are to maintain altitude. Pitch not power changes speed. If you are fast increase your pitch to slow down, and you may also need to increase power slightly to maintain altitude. If your new AoA causes you to climb, then reduce power. Try 50 RPM first and check the results then adjust from there. If you are descending increase power by 200 RPM and check results. The thing to do is find your magic power setting for the speed beforehand, and make adjustments from there.

This is true, but if you increase pitch to maintain altitude without adding throttle, your speed will decrease.  All of the control inputs are coupled to each other in slow flight, which is what makes it a challenge.

[Tom Baker]

2 minutes ago, FlyingMonkey said:

This is true, but if you increase pitch to maintain altitude without adding throttle, your speed will decrease.  All of the control inputs are coupled to each other in slow flight, which is what makes it a challenge.

If you increase pitch to maintain altitude while adding throttle your speed is still going to decrease. That is because your speed is directly connected to the pitch or AoA. Yes all of the controls correlate with each other, but if you don't know what controls what you will have issues.

[Animosity2k]

I plan to practice this for a while and find that "sweet spot RPM" for 45kt before rescheduling checkride!

[AGLyme]

I am still fairly new to the CTLS... so I am not providing inputs advice, rather, I can only "relate".   When I climb to 3,500' + over a rural area and practice slow flight, slow turns and stalls, I am amazed by the "slowness" I can achieve (45 knots and below)... the stalls are benign with no wing drop.  Then, I get into the pattern and I am a coward.  I am still coming over the fence too fast by 5 knots and it shows on my long landings.  

I am at the stage where I am trying to close the gap between what the plane can actually do (slow flight) and my fear of stalling in the pattern.  It is my current project... goal: to come over the fence at 56 knots w/15 degrees of flaps and fly onto the runway instead of my typical 60-65 knots, flair, hold off, hold off some more... and stall landing... 

When I get this down, I will start working short field and then ultimately grass.  Can't wait to land on grass.