I flew safety for a friend in his Bonanza A36 w/ IO-550 yesterday. He
hand flew a perfect ILS, but it was with full flap and gears down at
around 22 in power. In my E35 Bonanza with E225 engine and low flap
and gear speeds, I almost always fly ILS with flap up, gears down at
around 17 in power. We both fly ILS at around 105 to 115 knots.

During lunch, we discussed the pros and cons of full flap ILS. My
friend's arguments were that with full flap, when breaking out at
minimum for landing, all you have to do is to pull back on the power
and land ("get dirty early"). And with higher power setting, less
stress is on the engine when going full power for miss and quicker
power application (especially when one gets into turbo, turboprop or
jet).

My argument against full flap ILS is that that less initial climb
performance would be available during miss approach. I feel the time
required to retract full flap to approach flap then to no flap would
significantly reduce your climb gradient. Going full power with full
flap requires a large change in pitch, but climb rate is not better at
full flap because the added drag. In addition, between landing after
breaking out at minimum and executing a miss approach, I prefer less
workload during the miss.

What are your opinions?