Variations in soft field landings

"Maxwell" wrote in
m:

I was taught to lift the flaps immediately upon touch down on soft field
landings. My instructors stated getting more weight on the brakes as
soon as possible, would facilitate a quicker stop than leaving the flaps
down for drag, and loosing some braking power to the extra lift.

However, during my last BFR, the instructor corrected me very sharply.
He insisted you get more drag from the flaps by leaving them down until
you slowed to taxi speed, than the benefit of more weight on the brakes.

What is the general consensus of the group? Flaps up or down, after
touchdown on a soft field landing?

I think it depends more on how fast you land...

If you land right at stall speed, retracting the flaps might help you break.
If you are faster, retracting the flaps will probably extend your rollout.

There are also a lot of people who say you shouldn't be under there during
that part of the landing phase in case some day you are flying a retract and
grab the wrong lever. Of course then those people go on to do go arounds and
touch and goes and do it anyway.

Orval Fairbairn wrote in
news
On a "soft field landing," it is presumed that you have lots of runway,
but it is soft (muddy). Leave the flaps down, stick full back, so you
slow down more rapidly and settle at a lower airspeed. You can leave
some power in, with the stick full aft, to taxi to an intended turnoff.

I don't think that presumption is accurate.

I wonder how many turf runways are not also 2000'?

And I wonder how many 2000' are not also turf...

Morgans wrote:
Ooops. You mean directly proportional to the height above the ground.

No no, inverse. At zero height costs approach infinity, and at infinite
height, costs approach zero. G

Of course, Gnu's Law is only defined on [0, oo], I'm not sure what costs
do at negative heights. Perhaps a flight to Death Valley is warranted!

TheSmokingGnu