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Hello,

Has anyone practiced forward slips on final with their Icon? My last pusher behaved VERY differently depending on whether my doors were on or off. Would love to hear about your experiences.

Thanks.

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Our home airport has a single 2,000 ft runway enclosed by tall trees with noise abatement procedures abutting the preferred active, so quite often I find myself executing a fairly aggressive forward slip on final in our ICON A5 to lose altitude after clearing the trees.

I find the A5 remarkably stable and very responsive in a forward slip, both with windows in and windows out. With windows out, you'll obviously get a significant amount of airflow through the cockpit, so do be mindful if traveling with a passenger.

As far as performance goes, I feel I can just about double my rate of descent with power out and no flaps. I typically apply full left or right rudder, depending on the prevailing wind direction, with just enough opposite stick to stay aligned with the runway. As with most small aircraft, a fair amount of forward stick pressure is also required to prevent the nose from rising due to the increased drag.

Just stay on the white line, return smoothly to coordinated flight after exiting the slip, and you can't go wrong. (:

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Thanks for the great detail! Look forward to practicing it.

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I do forward slips quite a bit. However keep in mind SL-081221-A Mitigation of air contamination in engine lubrication system.

Icon released this Service Letter after my engine failure (27.2 hrs on engine), although contrary to the note in the SL believe they didn't purge the oil system properly at installation and the failure was not related to side slips. I asked Rotax about this at SunNFun and the reps there had not heard about this issue from inflight maneuvers, only during installation.

- Do not perform uncoordinated flight maneuvers in which the bank angle is greater than or equal to 40 degrees, or maneuvers which can result in zero G or negative G loading on the aircraft. Examples include:

a. Heavy side slips with more than 40 degrees of bank angle.

b. Uncoordinated turns with more than 40 degrees angle of bank.
c. Accelerated nose down or “zero G” maneuvers.

- Coordinated turns with Bank angles of 40 degrees or more are acceptable.
- Side slips with less than 40 degrees of bank are acceptable.

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Absolutely! Slipping in the A5 is very effective. I once had a student turn final a little too early for RWY 18 at Peter O. Knight. It was going to be a go-around anyway, so I took the aircraft and slipped hard. I thought we were way too high to reach the runway, but we easily made it. I highly recommend practicing it. Just remember to not drop your nose too much in the slip. You'll pick up so much airspeed that you'll negate any value of the increased descent rate. TN isn't too far away. If you want to practice some slipping, I could probably make it up there.

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Thanks Jason! I will try some next week during my training flights at Peter O. Knight.

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Lots of forward slips but not to a runway. Foward slips AND s-turns, but just to water landings in the mountains. Great guidance in the earlier responses including the bank angle guidance. I've done with and without the windows and yep, LOTS of airflow and noise which you should definitely warn any passenger about. As for flight characteristics, there are some noticeable changes with windows out. More drag, but not a huge difference.

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Thanks Steve for the great feedback.

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And how about "hockey stops" after a water landing? Basically a slip once on the water. One of the water runways is kinda short at my water airport (TS70) - requiring an s-turn to final to avoid houses, a slip to get-er on the water quickly and a hockey stop to keep one of the neighbors at the south end from thinking I'm getting too close to shore.

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Supposedly the founder had developed a scary maneuver by purposely dipping the wing tip. I would not try it personally.

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And how about "hockey stops" after a water landing? Basically a slip once on the water. One of the water runways is kinda short at my water airport (TS70) - requiring an s-turn to final to avoid houses, a slip to get-er on the water quickly and a hockey stop to keep one of the neighbors at the south end from thinking I'm getting too close to shore.

I can't wait to see ya do this!

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And how about "hockey stops" after a water landing? Basically a slip once on the water. One of the water runways is kinda short at my water airport (TS70) - requiring an s-turn to final to avoid houses, a slip to get-er on the water quickly and a hockey stop to keep one of the neighbors at the south end from thinking I'm getting too close to shore.

I practice the hockey stop. It's not extreme enough to dip a wing. Just feed in full fudder and stick in the same direction. I don't do it until I've lost most of my speed. If I had my own A5, I'd practice it at increasing speeds to find an upper limit of my comfort level, but would not risk stressing the hull or seawings.

I used it once to avoid a stand up paddle boarder who appeared out of nowhere. I don't know who was more scared...them or me.

1600-ish feet shouldn't need anything extreme for landing as long as you have a little headwind. Plan your approach carefully, use full flaps, be on line yellow AOA, hit you desired landing spot, and work toward being able to pull idle before touchdown. That distance should be no problem.

Take an IAFI to practice if it helps you work your way into it.