On Jan 17, 2:22 pm, "Robert M. Gary" wrote:


The point of an approach is to land.

Using that logic aerobatic pilots should not wear chutes since the
point is not to jump out of the plane.

Landing fast just because you might have to go missed is stacking the
deck -- in a bad way.

The intent of an approach is landing -- whatever provides the most
consistent, reliable, safe, controllable airspeed for landing is the
target airspeed -- not some arbitrary missed approach speed.

But I don't see the benefit unless you are flying something that does
not fly very stable at approach speed wo flaps (737 perhaps)

The benefit of approach flaps is reducing energy prior to contact with
the ground. Given a 20% increase in landing distance for every 10%
increase in airspeed (if I recall correctly), the slower I go, the
less floating over and subsequent rolling on the ground I do. That's a
good thing.

Once the runway is in sight everything is simplier. That is when the
student breathes his relief and lands. I've never noticed that part ot
be challenging to students, they're happy they found the runway and
ready to land. Its much easier to move flaps at this point than to try
to retract them while going missed at 200 feet in the soup.

So breaking out at minimums and introducing a significant pitch change
is simpler than...?

Keep in mind -- I never said Full flaps on approach -- only approach
flaps. In most airplanes that's 10 degrees. Full power at the MAP and
the airplane climbs. You climbing? Good -- flaps up. Still climbing?
Good -- gear up.

What could be simpler?

In my very humble opinion -- too much IFR training focuses on repeat
approaches then miss

I understand this helps compress training time, but I appreciated my
instructor's insistence on landing nearly every time. That's the point
of the approach. It doesn't take repeated missed approaches to learn
what to do when you go missed. But it takes some practice and power/
attitude/configuration experience to re-learn how to land.

Dan