Practicing slips in the Rans S12 XL
Contrary to popular lore....The Rans slips very nicely! Some people say that it "shudders" ....well, it doesn't. It acts like a normal airplane. A moderate slip at the typical approach RPM of 3500 comes down at about 1000 FPM. That's about the same as coming in at idle. Slipping at idle, it comes down very, very fast (I'd say 1500 FPM) requiring quite a bit of power to arrest the high descent rate. It also requires quite a lot of down elevator to keep your speed up. It's much more controllable and arguably safer than using full flaps because it doesn't bleed off as much valuable airspeed as flaps. Without pushing the nose waaay over, I only lose 5 mph in a slip where I lose 15 mph with two notches of flaps. Furthermore, you can come in high, slip it down to glide-slope, and let go of the slip when you have the runway. This is very useful at what I call an "unfriendly" airport like Albany Muni that is surrounded by houses, buildings, stray shopping carts, tents, and other things one would not want to hit if the engine blew chunks. Also, quick shout-out to the Youtube channel "Wayne's stuff" for the brief ground school and letting me use his SUPER AWESOME Sim Rig to brush up on landings! If you are into Sim racing, you should check it out... / @waynesstuff6308 .