"Robert Ehrlich" wrote in message
...
Eric Greenwell wrote:

JJ Sinclair wrote:

OK, It's winter time and I'm bored, so let me throw my 2 cents in
here. The
only flight I ever had in a ship with flaps only was in a PIK-20B. It
was a
test flight after a broken fuselage. Things went well until it got
time to
land. I rolled in 45 degrees of flaps and everything looked just about
right.
Came over the fence at 50 knots and waited for her to settle down. I
waited and
waited and waited. By now I had floated down most of the 4000 foot
runway and
I'm still floating about 1 foot off the ground. What do I do? Musn't
dump the
flaps or she will drop like a stone, right? Finally got the wheel on
the ground
and jumped on the brake.
That night I read the flight manual and it said to slowely crank off
the flaps
in this situation. I think the flaps only ships are OK, but require a
different
set of skills that must be mastered. Probably not for the low time
pilot or
those who don't read the flight manual before flight. My real problem
was being
about 5 knots too fast. Proper speed control is critical.

So I'm told. Our club had a member from Long Island, where the club
there had a 1-35. He said they got rid of it after a while because they
got tired of pulling it out of the weeds at the end. Without a landing
flap equipped two seater, they weren't able to train their low time
pilots well enough to land it properly. I think there would be a lot
more acceptance of HP style flaps if we had two seaters to train in.


Flaps only ships are very rare in France and kowledge about their handling
is probably even more rare. I wonder how one can handle in such a ship
what
is described in our flight Bible, the "blue book" (Manuel du pilote Vol a
Voile,
i.e. glider pilot's manual) as the 3 most common mistakes when landing:
1) flare to high; 2) flare with excessive back stick action; 3) bounce.
In this 3 cases the glider comes a few feet above the ground at a speed
just marginally above stall speed and quickly decaying due to the drag of
open airbrakes. The immediate action to avoid that the glider falls on
the ground like a stone in the following seconds is to retract the
air-brakes,
so that the drag stops killing your speed and you regain some lift, then
try to land better ahead. But what can you do with no air-brakes?

The landing is executed in a way as not to use full 90 degree flap in the
final stages of the final. Rather manage the final approach in a way that
allows the use of less flap. You will have some flap action in reserve to
arrest any excessive sink, similar to using only partial spoiler.

In Fact, when looking at my flying style with the flap only glider,
I use the flap, like you would use the spoiler. I constantly make use of
them
during the pattern to place my self at any point I would like to be.
When making misjudgements it is no different to correct them, as with
spoilered gliders.

It is best for a newcomer to place the glider relative high on final
crank in full flaps and aim for the beginning of the run way.
That way you will have enough speed for corrections if you make a
misjudgement and if you are on glide path you burn of all the energy very
quickly. It really does not matter if you use and extra 200 feet.
In the end it the touch down speed that counts.

As for out landings into small fields with high obstacle, it requires
different approaches and only practice at your home field will make you
proficient.

Udo