FSX Tutorial: Slow Flight

Here we look at slow flight in the Cessna 172 and find out why it's important to be able to control the plane at this speed as we begin to prepare for stalls!
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Copyright © 2014 - Doofer911 - All Rights Reserved.
DISCLAIMER: While this video is intended for educational purposes, I must stress that I am not a professional pilot or instructor and I am not certified in any way with regards to Aviation or Education. Every subject I talk about is based on my personal study and understanding. Therefore the information I give may be incorrect or inaccurate and should NOT be used as a reference for real world flying.

[@ralph12397]

You Sir are a "JEWELL". I say this for your educational timing for us flight simmers who desire to become better. Your tutorials seem to be timed just right for my informational intake. Others on the web seem out to impress with how fast they can perform different tasks. What a refreshing aspect you've brought to the flight sim community. Thanks a "truck load".

[@Doofer911]

+ralph12397 Hey Ralph, thanks for the comment! I'm glad my videos come across that way, that was the intention, to make the videos accessible for not only complete beginners, but people who had a little bit of experience who maybe wanted to learn a bit more in depth stuff which is the position I was in.

[@thebrownpilot6969]

Just wanted to say that 60 to 65 knots is a better speed to do slow flight at. And after every adjustment in flaps, you should be trimming instead of doing it all at the end, because in a real plane, if you did that, you would have some sore arms because the control surfaces require a good amount of strength to hold at a certain place, so trimming would ease those pressures in between the flap deployments.

[@steveramos1452]

I am a student pilot. Slow flight was a hard one for me. You broke it down better than most on the internet. Thank you!

[@Doofer911]

I'm really glad my video could help, I wish you all the best for your flight study!

[@adven3814]

Very informative video, thank you!

[@dianaparra3736]

Today I learned Slow flight ✈️ this perfect video will help me practice. Thank you very much:)

[@Alcopop100]

I hope that you get this comment as I know that you were starting a new job. I hope that it went well and all is still good with you. As I said I watched most of your tutorials and was beginning to get the hang of it. then real life got in the way and Elite Dangerous. having started to practice again the best way to start is with your tutorials again, well this one has made me realise why I was going all over the place while trying to land. I was going too slowly

[@shareef9996]

awesome video! Best video I saw so far on slow flight. Thank you!

[@Doofer911]

Glad you liked the video :)

[@Dkentflyer]

I never realised what the P factor meant. This video really helped. Thank you :)

[@neisharoni]

This helped out so much.

[@capt.chickenpilot]

I am a student pilot and it really helps a lot, thank you for your video.

[@Doofer911]

Glad I could help :)

[@yamahonkawazuki]

did a hamemrhead stall with my f104 thud used the method you described to escape from that. the russians in their airshows make it look SO easy lol. course theyre very highly trained.

[@Yasin-yy1yi]

very nice video..Thanks man :))

[@krishcan4727]

excellent. i haven't seen any video explaining this simple and easy .

[@Doofer911]

I'm glad you liked it, thanks for watching :)

[@krishcan4727]

Doofer911 do you have one for range and endurance as well?

[@Doofer911]

I'm afraid not

[@esthersunday5705]

I refer 1700 attitudes than 1500. 60kt and 65 is good for slow flight airspeed

[@kohmy2036]

Tried this on X-Plane 10 mobile but I stalled instead

[@yamahonkawazuki]

got a question my friend, how did you come up with your username? as ive said before i do enjoy your work with this. keep it up. many people learning this program for the first time, and others like myself coming back to it, wanting to brush up on their skills which can be as rusty as a neglected toolbox.

[@Doofer911]

"Doofer" is just a silly word which in English, is used to describe an item you can't remember the name of. And "911" is a homage to the emergency services in many countries. One of my favourite films when I was younger was SWAT with Colin Farrel and Samual Jackson so that also influenced the "911"... and it's "Nine One One", not "Nine Eleven".

[@yamahonkawazuki]

@@Doofer911 coolness thank you for the information

[@a9f9a2a2ni]

Good

[@dolphinszz2291]

Oh also, sorry for spamming your KZbin notifications with mostly questions, but I just have so many questions to ask lol.

[@mrthomaslaux1]

Isnt pitching up like that bad for the engine and fuel economy for a longer time? Can u do this in AP? Full capacity?+

[@Doofer911]

Yes however it's important to learn slow flight so you can see the signs and understand what the plane is doing when its flying slow. If you slow down futher, you stall. So it's good to recognise when the plane is getting into slow flight so you can return it to normal flight safely and prevent a stall.

[@yamahonkawazuki]

i heard you say to use right rudder? is this due to the engine torque pulling it to the left? and youre counteracting this?

[@Doofer911]

Yeah there's several things which cause a plane to pull to the left but the primary way to combat that is to apply right rudder.

[@mrthomaslaux1]

Whats the most fuel economical airspeed and altitude for c172?

[@Doofer911]

I don't know but a quick search online should turn up an answer

[@alderusdmc]

Would slow flight work any differently in, say, the Learjet?

[@Doofer911]

I wouldn't think so, same principles apply, just at different speeds.

[@michaelfarrell4824]

Is P-factor only an issue in prop aircraft then or can turbines cause the same issue?

[@Doofer911]

Just an issue in a prop aircraft, usually a single engine prop. The term P-Factor is actually short for "Propeller Factor" so definitely not something experienced with turbine engines.

[@lewisiwhere3107]

Does this technique work with the clean configuration?

[@Doofer911]

+Lewis Iwhere Yep it should do but be aware that the stall speed will be higher with a clean confiuration. In the Cessna the Stall speed for a clean config will be the bottom of the green bar. The stall speed with flaps extended will be the bottom of the white bar.

[@aviationkid1286]

Tried it with Maule M7. But couldn't achieve it. Everytime I try I just ended up loosing altitude. Even when I pulled the controllers the flight went down. :(

[@Doofer911]

It's difficult in some aircraft. You might need more throttle to maintain altitude.

[@thebrownpilot6969]

If you pull too back, you're gonna exceed the angle of attack, which ultimately will lead you to stall. Try advancing to full throttle. Then try pulling back slowly to maintain altitude. That should be the solution to you problem. After that, trim to get rid of that aft pressure on the yoke and maintain altitude.

[@lw216316]

Can you explain if your aircraft stalls at 50 and you are cruising at 55 (slow flight) if you have a 10 tail wind then does that make the wind going over your wings to be 45 and would you stall ?

[@Doofer911]

Nope, aircraft will stall at 50. The Airspeed instrument measures the speed at which the air is hitting the plane. If the plane's speed was being measured as it's speed over the ground, then the wind direction and speed comes into effect but the instrument works by measuring the air that's hitting the plane. So say you were flying at 55 knots with a 10 knot tailwind.... the plane will still be flying THROUGH THE AIR at 55 knots. However if you're flying at 55 knots + 10 knots behind you pushing you forward.... the plane will be flying at 65 knots OVER THE GROUND. I hope that makes sense.

[@lw216316]

it does , thank you nice to know a strong tail wind will not cause me to stall.

[@Doofer911]

Fun fact - sometimes planes which are crossing the Atlantic going from North America to Europe will get caught up a Jetstream. Now the plane will be flying at it's normal cruise speed but because the jetstream is pushing them along at an additional 100+ knots sometime, their groundspeed close to the speed of sound sometimes!

[@lw216316]

and there would be no sonic boom even if their ground speed is over the speed of sound but their air speed is below the speed of sound.....??? unusual stuff !

[@szymongorczynski7621]

lw216316 There has been no recorded case of a sub-sonic transatlantic plane ever reaching the speed of sound, but the world record was very close!

[@RailroadGuy49]

No mention of carb heat?

[@Doofer911]

Outside the scope of this video, plus it's a fuel injected engine in this version of a C172.

[@allenwoodsaw]

Will this work for jets?

[@Doofer911]

+Allen Woods Yeah I can't see why it wouldn't work. Jets may need a bit more care because you have many more stages of flaps to consider but the principles should be the same.

[@raymondjackson6069]

Hi, is that a stock plane?

[@Doofer911]

Hi Raymond, yes it is the stock C172.

[@raymondjackson6069]

@@Doofer911Thanks, your lessons and advice are priceless!

[@dukat03]

What he said at 5:53 is allot better way of explaining it

[@dolphinszz2291]

Hey man! There is something I need to tell you that is messed up in my FSX. Every single time I go into FSX, no matter what mode, what plane, what whatever. Whenever I spawn in on the ground, my altimeter says it’s set at 1,000 feet. I did notice a knob right by it, is that how you fix it? Anyways, how do you fix this?

[@Doofer911]

You can press "B" which will automatically set the Altimeter to the correct setting and you can use that small knob to manually change the pressure. Also be mindful that if the airport itself is 1000ft above sea level then the Altimeter will also read 1000ft. I did a video about Barometric pressure which talks a bit about how air pressure affect's the Altimeter reading. Might be worth looking into if you're interested.

[@estiejohnson536]

Why would a pilot use slow flight?

[@Doofer911]

I explained in the video, Slow Flight is generally used when practicing stalls or when you're on approach for landing.

[@estiejohnson536]

Oh yeah never mind

[@yamahonkawazuki]

the 6 dislikes are from those who crashed.

[@kinglimpang8067]

So what's the aim of slow flight? Why do we need to do this and put our lives in danger? Thanks!!

[@Doofer911]

+King Lim Pang It's to understand and become familiar with flying the aircraft at low speed. You will typically experience this when taking off or landing so it's good to practice to avoid stalling the plane (where it literally falls out of the sky!)

[@kinglimpang8067]

+Doofer911 I see. I think pilots will do that intentionally. Sounds very scary if this is the case. Did u do a video on how to recover if we get stall during take off/ landing? ( I haven't watched all of your videos right now. But I'm going to finish them all. Your videos are really simple to be understood and your language is pretty easy, which is good for me as my mother tongue is not Eng!)

[@Doofer911]

+King Lim Pang Yeah I have a video on Stalls and the technique to recover a stall is the same, whether it happens during Take off, Landing or normal flight. Pilots do practice slow flight but they'll never do it intentionally during a flight with passengers. It's just a skill they learn so they understand how the plane behaves at low speed, and they can practice how to get the plane back into normal flight from slow speed.

[@MrJetra]

In fact glider pilots train it as well. And for the reason given by Doofer911. You need to know how the airplane reacts near stall.

[@allenwoodsaw]

Will this work for jets?

[@MrJetra]

Yeah, and you can try it in FSX.