Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigtime
I am very certain that Capt. Bob Pearson had performed forward slips before. They are actually a very common maneuver for glider pilots to lose altitude quickly (it is also taught to private pilot students).
He had most certainly never forward slipped an airliner before.
Forward slips are pretty cool, you are in essence cross controlling between the ailerons and rudder to force a side of the aircraft into the direction of flight, making the plane itself act like a big speed brake. You then lower the nose to maintain airspeed and watch the plane start descending very quickly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forward_slip#Forward-slip |
I was going off what I remembered from the Mayday episode, so I could be wrong. But doing such a manoeuvre in so big a plane was unheard of at that time. I do believe the Mayday episode mentions that he never had tried one, even in a glider.