How to fly the maneuver

A forward slip is a cross-controlled descent used to lose altitude without gaining airspeed. You bank the airplane into one wing and apply opposite rudder to keep the ground track straight — the resulting unbalanced flight produces high drag, so the airplane descends faster than it would in a coordinated descent at the same airspeed. The maneuver is most commonly used to recover from a high-on-final condition without needing flaps or a longer pattern.

Forward slip vs. side-slip — they're different uses of the same technique. A side-slip (the wing-low crosswind landing in B) holds the airplane parallel to the runway centerline with crossed controls against the wind. A forward slip uses crossed controls to lose altitude on final, with the ground track held by the rudder offset. Both use the same crossed-controls input pattern; the purposes are different.

Setup

1. Identify the high-on-final condition. You're above the desired path with the runway in sight.
2. Confirm you have airspeed margin for the slip — V_REF or slightly above, but not so fast that the slip is fighting excess energy.
3. Confirm the POH allows slips with flaps extended at your current flap setting. Some POHs prohibit or limit flap-extended slips because of stabilizer airflow effects; check before committing.

Establish the slip

1. Bank the airplane toward whichever wing puts the nose pointed in a useful direction. For a forward slip on final, pick a wing — many pilots bank into the wind if there's a crosswind component, which converts naturally into the wing-low crosswind landing (B). Without crosswind, bank either way works.
2. Apply opposite rudder to keep the ground track along the centerline. The nose will swing off to the side opposite the bank.
3. Maintain pitch attitude with the elevator. The pitch shouldn't change just because the bank and rudder did.

In the established slip:

• The airplane is banked (e.g., 15–25° left wing low).
• The nose is offset to the right of the centerline (because right rudder is held).
• The ground track is straight down the centerline.
• The ball is way outside the bank (slip).
• Airspeed is unreliable in the slip — the pitot tube is no longer pointed into the relative wind. Use pitch attitude as the primary reference; if the airplane feels slow, recover.

Hold the slip

1. Adjust bank angle to control descent rate. Steeper bank → more drag → faster descent. Shallower bank → less drag → slower descent.
2. Maintain ground track along centerline with rudder.
3. Pitch holds the descent path angle in the long sense.
4. Continue until you've descended to the desired path.

Recover

1. Release the rudder first, then roll out of the bank — in that order. The rudder is the cross-control input; releasing it first lets the airplane re-coordinate naturally.
2. Re-establish the normal final approach picture: wings level, nose centered, ball centered.
3. Re-verify airspeed (now reliable again).
4. Continue the approach normally — or if still high, slip again.

Recovery should be complete by 300–500 ft AGL at the latest — never slip into the round-out.

Common pitfall: slipping into the round-out. A pilot who slips deep into the approach and tries to round out while still cross-controlled risks an asymmetric stall or hard touchdown. Recover the slip while you still have altitude to re-stabilize the normal approach picture. If you're still high at 500 ft, go around (H) rather than salvage with a deep slip.