"This little thing doesn't have any power to spare"
And it can hover??? That's really a sign of at least some spare power.
Perception of what is happening - - -
From in the airplane relative to movement over the ground was addressed earlier in the thread.
From the ground, perception is a bit different, and the general idea is to increase power/airspeed when things look like they may be getting iffy, due to wind or other conditions. Upwind or downwind makes no difference to the plane, since it is flying relative to the wind, not the ground. Landing downwind can be a problem, because it increases ground speed and so forth.
"The model looked like it was flying too fast, so I slowed it down, and it stalled". This is the result of a false understanding/perception of what is going on. Back in the days before full size A/C had instruments, and a pilot did not have a good "seat of the pants" approach to flying, real trouble could result.
This is still worry-some, since may airline pilots are trained and used to flying "by the numbers" (Instruments) and ignore other indications as to what is going on. In light "complex" single engine planes, actual IFR flight into and out of terminal areas, holding patterns, etc. can really task a single pilot.
Many years ago, (70's) an international flight with a Piper Arrow in actual IFR and light icing conditions (not anticipated), followed by a request to "expedite" a full IFR/instrument landing at the destination or go into a holding pattern after I had turned final, slowed down, had the gear down, etc. made me decide to "expedite", since I had no desire to try to go around and enter a holding pattern, just to make the approach, and so forth all over again.
Anyway, I did a fast "cleanup", added quite a bit to the normal approach speeds, and got a message from the controller - - - "I don't want to know what you are doing, but keep it up, land a bit long, and take any of the high speed turn outs that you can safely use". There is a (Boeing something or other) scheduled jet airliner behind you that has a landing speed that is more than twice yours.
Last edited by chuckk2; 01-21-2014 at 07:57 AM.