flaps again

"Michael Ash" wrote

I recall an unfortunate incident in which a poorly-placed water bag had
somewhat reduced my right aileron authority, and I thought I could get
it
out of the way in the middle of the takeoff. The aircraft quickly
disabused me of this notion, and I recovered without breaking anything,
but it made for an embarrassing show. (Why is it that you can be
absolutely certain that someone is watching when you screw it up, and
absolutely certain that nobody was around to see it when you make a
greaser landing?

I'm not up on glider operations, so maybe you can clue me in.

What is a water bag? Ballasting? Why would it have been laid on the
ailerons? How or why could it be forgotten? How big is it?

Thanks for taking the time to fill in a "motor head!" g
--
Jim in NC

Morgans wrote:
"Michael Ash" wrote

I recall an unfortunate incident in which a poorly-placed water bag had
somewhat reduced my right aileron authority, and I thought I could get
it
out of the way in the middle of the takeoff. The aircraft quickly
disabused me of this notion, and I recovered without breaking anything,
but it made for an embarrassing show. (Why is it that you can be
absolutely certain that someone is watching when you screw it up, and
absolutely certain that nobody was around to see it when you make a
greaser landing?

I'm not up on glider operations, so maybe you can clue me in.

What is a water bag? Ballasting? Why would it have been laid on the
ailerons? How or why could it be forgotten? How big is it?

Thanks for taking the time to fill in a "motor head!" g

Inside the cabin between his leg and the stick?

What is a water bag? Ballasting? Why would it have been laid on the
ailerons? How or why could it be forgotten? How big is it?

Thanks for taking the time to fill in a "motor head!" g

Inside the cabin between his leg and the stick?

Ahh, for some reason, I didn't think of that, if that was the problem!
--
Jim in NC

In rec.aviation.student Jim Stewart wrote:
Morgans wrote:
"Michael Ash" wrote

I recall an unfortunate incident in which a poorly-placed water bag had
somewhat reduced my right aileron authority, and I thought I could get
it
out of the way in the middle of the takeoff. The aircraft quickly
disabused me of this notion, and I recovered without breaking anything,
but it made for an embarrassing show. (Why is it that you can be
absolutely certain that someone is watching when you screw it up, and
absolutely certain that nobody was around to see it when you make a
greaser landing?

I'm not up on glider operations, so maybe you can clue me in.

What is a water bag? Ballasting? Why would it have been laid on the
ailerons? How or why could it be forgotten? How big is it?

Thanks for taking the time to fill in a "motor head!" g

Inside the cabin between his leg and the stick?

Sorry for being unclear. You're very close, it was actually between my leg
and the outer wall of the cabin.

The precise geometry of the situation actually helped cause my error. I
was flying a 1-26, an older, American-built metal glider with something of
an un-ergonomic cockpit. I'm a pretty big guy and I'm really crammed in
the my legs nearly brush the instrument panel and my head is just an
inch or so from the canopy. Most importantly for this particular scenario,
my knees are right at stick-top height, and the full range of the stick is
large enough to bump my knees.

What happened was that over the course of my previous flying, I got used
to hitting my knees during the control check. Then on the day in question,
I bumped my right knee much sooner than I should have, but didn't notice
the difference. I had gotten into the bad habit of interpreting "knee hit"
as "full range of motion". Of course I noticed during the takeoff roll
when I was having trouble holding the left wing up, but I should have
either aborted the takeoff or lived with the problem until I could get to
a reasonable altitude.

I'm not sure what the lesson is in this one. Obviously dealing properly
with distractions is a big one: don't let a small problem divert your
attention and cause a big problem. I'm not sure how to prevent the error
which led to the original problem, though. Obviously I'll never make that
*particular* error again, but how can you help ensure that you don't start
using the wrong signal as confirmation of a checklist item, besides just
trying to pay more attention?

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

On Jan 3, 2:34 pm, Michael Ash wrote:
In rec.aviation.student Jim Stewart wrote:



Morgans wrote:
"Michael Ash" wrote

I recall an unfortunate incident in which a poorly-placed water bag had
somewhat reduced my right aileron authority, and I thought I could get
it
out of the way in the middle of the takeoff. The aircraft quickly
disabused me of this notion, and I recovered without breaking anything,
but it made for an embarrassing show. (Why is it that you can be
absolutely certain that someone is watching when you screw it up, and
absolutely certain that nobody was around to see it when you make a
greaser landing?

I'm not up on glider operations, so maybe you can clue me in.

What is a water bag? Ballasting? Why would it have been laid on the
ailerons? How or why could it be forgotten? How big is it?

Thanks for taking the time to fill in a "motor head!" g

Inside the cabin between his leg and the stick?

Sorry for being unclear. You're very close, it was actually between my leg
and the outer wall of the cabin.

The precise geometry of the situation actually helped cause my error. I
was flying a 1-26, an older, American-built metal glider with something of
an un-ergonomic cockpit. I'm a pretty big guy and I'm really crammed in
the my legs nearly brush the instrument panel and my head is just an
inch or so from the canopy. Most importantly for this particular scenario,
my knees are right at stick-top height, and the full range of the stick is
large enough to bump my knees.

What happened was that over the course of my previous flying, I got used
to hitting my knees during the control check. Then on the day in question,
I bumped my right knee much sooner than I should have, but didn't notice
the difference. I had gotten into the bad habit of interpreting "knee hit"
as "full range of motion". Of course I noticed during the takeoff roll
when I was having trouble holding the left wing up, but I should have
either aborted the takeoff or lived with the problem until I could get to
a reasonable altitude.

I'm not sure what the lesson is in this one. Obviously dealing properly
with distractions is a big one: don't let a small problem divert your
attention and cause a big problem. I'm not sure how to prevent the error
which led to the original problem, though. Obviously I'll never make that
*particular* error again, but how can you help ensure that you don't start
using the wrong signal as confirmation of a checklist item, besides just
trying to pay more attention?

--
Michael Ash
Rogue Amoeba Software

One of my favorite stupid things I did was rotate for
take-off and scared a gazillion birds out of the trees.
This runway had a groove cut into the trees, to get
out of.
Well, I'm looking at the *pretty* birds and instructor
suggests, "maybe we should fly underneath the
flock", before I thought of that.
But yeah, I shifted pitch down and went under the
flucking flock. Dang birds and spinning props is
an unhealthly combo for both parties.
Ken

On 2008-01-03 09:13:40 -0800, Dudley Henriques said:

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2008-01-01 15:04:33 -0800, Dudley Henriques said:

B A R R Y wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:08:09 -0500, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Then every landing made in a Piper Cub, Colt, or a Decathlon is an
emergency? :-))

His exam focus was more about how flaps alter the landing than an
emergency.
The only "flap emergency" I've ever heard of belonged to a Musketeer
Sport who parks behind us. He kicked out the first notch, only to
have the right flap fall completely off. G

Now THAT would be an attention getter for the average Sunday pilot in a
big hurry :-))

One day I went out to preflight a Cessna 172 and the right wing flap
was folded up like a taco. The solo student who had flown the plane
previously claimed that he had not noticed anything wrong, but that he
had heard a "grinding noise," so he did a few more touch and goes and
then quit early. The flap had jumped the tracks and folded up in
flight. It appears that the student made three more landings after the
flap folded up. For the record, he was not my student.

Kind of makes you wonder who's teaching people to fly in such a way
that the end result would be a student who hears something unusual in
his airplane and takes off without knowing or obviously caring what it
is.
Unbelievable!! :-))

Man, you would think he would at least have noticed something different
about the way the airplane flew!

However, if it makes you feel better, I remember his instructor having
a very loooong chat with him. Turned out the flaps had probably jumped
the track when he lowered them at 120 knots.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2008-01-03 09:13:40 -0800, Dudley Henriques said:

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2008-01-01 15:04:33 -0800, Dudley Henriques
said:

B A R R Y wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:08:09 -0500, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Then every landing made in a Piper Cub, Colt, or a Decathlon is an
emergency? :-))

His exam focus was more about how flaps alter the landing than an
emergency.
The only "flap emergency" I've ever heard of belonged to a Musketeer
Sport who parks behind us. He kicked out the first notch, only to
have the right flap fall completely off. G

Now THAT would be an attention getter for the average Sunday pilot
in a big hurry :-))

One day I went out to preflight a Cessna 172 and the right wing flap
was folded up like a taco. The solo student who had flown the plane
previously claimed that he had not noticed anything wrong, but that
he had heard a "grinding noise," so he did a few more touch and goes
and then quit early. The flap had jumped the tracks and folded up in
flight. It appears that the student made three more landings after
the flap folded up. For the record, he was not my student.

Kind of makes you wonder who's teaching people to fly in such a way
that the end result would be a student who hears something unusual in
his airplane and takes off without knowing or obviously caring what it
is.
Unbelievable!! :-))

Man, you would think he would at least have noticed something different
about the way the airplane flew!

However, if it makes you feel better, I remember his instructor having a
very loooong chat with him. Turned out the flaps had probably jumped the
track when he lowered them at 120 knots.

Sounds like a lesson was in there somewhere for somebody.

Depending on the exact circumstances, I think I might have wanted a few
words with the instructor as well. This kind of judgment found post
incident in a student is cause for at least some concern in that direction.


--
Dudley Henriques

On 2008-01-03 17:46:37 -0800, Dudley Henriques said:

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2008-01-03 09:13:40 -0800, Dudley Henriques said:

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2008-01-01 15:04:33 -0800, Dudley Henriques said:

B A R R Y wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:08:09 -0500, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Then every landing made in a Piper Cub, Colt, or a Decathlon is an
emergency? :-))

His exam focus was more about how flaps alter the landing than an
emergency.
The only "flap emergency" I've ever heard of belonged to a Musketeer
Sport who parks behind us. He kicked out the first notch, only to
have the right flap fall completely off. G

Now THAT would be an attention getter for the average Sunday pilot in a
big hurry :-))

One day I went out to preflight a Cessna 172 and the right wing flap
was folded up like a taco. The solo student who had flown the plane
previously claimed that he had not noticed anything wrong, but that he
had heard a "grinding noise," so he did a few more touch and goes and
then quit early. The flap had jumped the tracks and folded up in
flight. It appears that the student made three more landings after the
flap folded up. For the record, he was not my student.

Kind of makes you wonder who's teaching people to fly in such a way
that the end result would be a student who hears something unusual in
his airplane and takes off without knowing or obviously caring what it
is.
Unbelievable!! :-))

Man, you would think he would at least have noticed something different
about the way the airplane flew!

However, if it makes you feel better, I remember his instructor having
a very loooong chat with him. Turned out the flaps had probably jumped
the track when he lowered them at 120 knots.

Sounds like a lesson was in there somewhere for somebody.

Depending on the exact circumstances, I think I might have wanted a few
words with the instructor as well. This kind of judgment found post
incident in a student is cause for at least some concern in that
direction.

I have to agree. Unfortunately, I was a student myself at the time
(different instructor). Now those instructors are flying for the
airlines somewhere... Well, perhaps they have gained more wisdom with
maturity. Probably the kid who busted the flaps is flying for the
airlines somewhere.

Well, I don't want to get into criticizing other flight instructors. I
do that too often as it is, and it is healthy neither for me nor for
the profession.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor

C J Campbell wrote:


Well, I don't want to get into criticizing other flight instructors. I
do that too often as it is, and it is healthy neither for me nor for the
profession.

We'll have to get together some time and hash this one over a bit :-))

--
Dudley Henriques

The Cessna A185F POH has this in the LIMITATIONS section:

FLAP LIMITATIONS

Approved Takeoff Range: 0 deg to 20 deg.
Approved Landing Range: 0 deg to 40 deg

So at least in a Cessna 185, a zero flap landing is never an emergency. In
fact, it is SOP for some conditions.

CJ, I'm not disagreeing with anything you posted. Just posting this for
general information. The Cessna 185 has the exact same wing as a 182. In
fact, my wings have attach brackets for a flap motor, although the 185 has
manual flaps.

Karl
"Curator" N185KG

"C J Campbell" wrote in message
news:200801030718278930-christophercampbell@hotmailcom...
On 2008-01-01 18:26:04 -0800, "Mortimer Schnerd, RN"
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com said:

Barry wrote:
My examiner called the no flap landing an emergency procedure.

From the Pilot/Controller Glossary:

EMERGENCY- A distress or an urgency condition.

DISTRESS- A condition of being threatened by serious and/or imminent
danger
and of requiring immediate assistance.

URGENCY- A condition of being concerned about safety and of requiring
timely
but not immediate assistance; a potential distress condition.

So I would say that the inability to extend flaps would be considered an
emergency only if it puts you in serious or imminent danger, or causes
you to
be concerned about safety.


I would call it no more than an annoyance unless I have to stuff the
airplane
into a really short strip. Emergency? That examiner has to be kidding.

He calls it an emergency because that is where a flap failure is in the
PTS. It is in the "Emergency Procedures" section. I doubt very much that
the examiner thinks it is really an emergency.

OTOH, people do manage to turn non-emergencies into emergencies. Every now
and then you hear of someone who smashes up a perfectly flyable airplane
simply because they managed to spear a June bug with the pitot tube, or a
door popped open in flight, or something minor like that.
--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor