I spoke to a glider tug pilot at LJPZ a few years ago who was convinced that in a DR.400, flap + slip = death
Can’t imagine why. The most dangerous thing when I tried was the instructor.
In my 182 I did a full-blown stall in a slip and held it for a while (though not with flaps iirc). It was a complete non-event. Lots of buffetting, altitude loss obviously. As soona sthe controls were neutralised it flew normally.
greg_mp wrote:
Airliners cannot really do that, the rudder is much too powerfull compared to ailerons – if we speak of the B737, and I am not sure the A320 ELACs would let you do this.
The Gimli glider (a Boeing 767) was side slipped….
Airborne_Again wrote:
The Gimli glider (a Boeing 767) was side slipped….
Thanks for the reference, I just read the story – very interesting.
Once we have our PPL we are free to choose our preferred methods of losing altitude or crosswind landings unless you are flying someone else’s plane on someone else’s insurance.
Here, I believe we are talking about school/aeroclub planes and aéroclub instructors. As such there tends to be some regularisation across the board.
Most on here might agree that its good to know how to use cross control techniques for cross wind landings or to lose altitude. Yet cross control means unco-ordinated flight.
Unco-ordinated flight means you are either slipping or sliding.
Would it be normal in driving schools to teach students to do a hand brake turn before they have mastered the 3 point turn? And outside of perhaps Scandanavia would a driving school take its early lesson students to a skid pan to teach them how master skids and slides before they can safely steer down a street or round a roundabout. Some might argue that they should.
And once you have experience of braking on a slippery road what happens when you rent a car with ABS.
I don’t know all the ins and outs of why instructors in France have turned away from side slipping to lose altitude. I do know that the FFA and DSAC put up a good case both technically and experience wise. I do know that this case was put towards clubs and instructors.
I would criticise vehemently any instructor or club president who sought to yell at a student or even confront them publicly for doing something that they disagree with. If an instructor or club President needs to make a point, the student or indeed pilot should be spoken to in private and if necessary the reasons behind the methods of teaching and/or club policy should be explained.
That way if the student or pilot does not like or agree with what they hear they have the option to make alternative arrangements.
That is a great writeup, John. Accurate IME (Europe) too, over my 20+ years. I would have only made a few small comments which are peripheral to the topic.
A particularly striking one, which I’ve heard from so many French pilots, is that private ownership over there runs almost isolated from the aeroclub activity, with almost no mixing between the two. It is not dissimilar to the UK actually – because “experienced private pilots” are discouraged from hanging around schools because they might make the instructors look like fools – but in France’s more traditional training culture, with autocratic “presidents” this will be even more so.
I wonder how the club traffic navigates over this landscape without GPS
and presumably because a) there is an FI in the RHS b) the flights are local and c) with no FI you pull out the GPS 
Can’t you see the motorway at the top? :D
I wonder how the club traffic navigates over this landscape without GPS
Exactly. Gers isn’t as flat as this, but it’s exactly as indistinguishable. Nav log, watch, looking out the window (which helps very little). You know where you’re supposed to be at 12h42, you look down and see a village, and say, “Yes! St Tartempion les Trois Vaches”, Except it isn’t it’s St Machin les Deux Moutons, because the wind blew you off course and you didn’t realise. And things go downhill from there. Add to that, you’re looking for point XJ, defined as the intersection of the chemin vicinal V325 and an underground pipeline. And also you have restricted airspace in every which direction, which you have to avoid.
Navigation by “ma bitte et mon crayon” probably worked great in the 1930s, but it is completely barmy today.
As for ownership… what you say was as true in the US. I kept in touch with the club where I learned, and later got to know another club because their workshop looked after my plane. But as an owner you have no reason to get involved with clubs unless you also rent from them for some reason.
Owners get involved with the clubs if they want to. We even have a couple of Brit owner members who turn up every now and again.
Its up to the individual and most owners just join the club as associate members and at a nominal fee just to enjoy the conviviality, to get the key to the clubhouse and take advantage of the cheaper than the cheap drinks for non members.
I passed my PPL or TT as.is was called back then, over 30 years ago and have been flying in France since. Back then there was no GPS but there were more NDBs and VORs. Most nav was done with map and watch and using ADF or VOR for cross reference. Once you learnt how to do it, it wasn’t a problem and still isn’t. A guy I fly regularly with still navigates mostly by map and watch. He as a GPS with b+w screen and still the original database because he only uses it for cross reference from time to time. He enjoys calculating winds in his head and pointing out the names of various villages and Chateau.
I know personally nearly all club presidents in my area, some 15 to 20 of them. Not one of them is as Peter or his French sources describe.
All are very enjoyable company. I also know many club presidents in other parts of France and again none of them are as Peter describes.
So despite the fact that I use SDVFR or Skydemon I don’t consider my friends who stick to maps and watch, barmy.
The reason I use EFBs is that my housekeeping with maps and pencils is not as good as it should be these days after flying IFR for so long.
johnh wrote:
Navigation by “ma bitte et mon crayon” probably worked great in the 1930s, but it is completely barmy today.
That’s “a la bite et au couteau” – at the condition you get a knife :P.
But as an owner you have no reason to get involved with clubs unless you also rent from them for some reason.
Indeed, and the avoidance of the politics that comes with distributing too few planes over a population of pilots is a very good thing. The only flying related club in which I’m a member serves only to organize and publicize the various parties across our airport, it has nothing to do with the members planes or flying activity 
