flaps again

In the 172 POH it says that minimum flap setting should be used
(consistemt with runway length) in strong crosswinds. I think control
surface authority is what is being sought here.

In a crosswind, the wind vector is larger at lower aircraft
speeds, so a higher landing speed reduces the relative wind angle and
makes the initial touchdown more controllable. The thing to remember
is that the flight isn't over until the airplane is tied down, so be
wide awake in the rollout and use all the controls to manage the
airplane. Like LOTS of aileron into the crosswind.

Other advantages of using partial flaps in a strong crosswind:

- Higher pitch attitude on approach, so flare is easier - not as much pitch
change required

- Plane is already configured for a go around if needed. Related to this -
less drag means faster response to throttle if needed in the flare to counter
a gust.

On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:02:47 -0400, Dave
wrote:

OK, so I am missing something..

In large , more complex aircraft, I can see the difficulty landing
without flaps.

But in a 172 or a Warrior?

.....with sufficient runway, and in strong winds, I sometimes prefer
no flaps.

My Warrior POH indicates flaps are to be used as needed, no flap
landings are not indicated as requiring an emergency procedure...

In training aircraft?

Dave


I was thinking the same thing, in a PA28-140 anyway,was like a 50-50
with me




Daveb

I've often met pilots who use no flaps on landing in very gusty
conditions or stiff crosswinds. I've tried this and don't really see
the benifits. Like a lot of things it's probably mostly in the head. I
think the higher touchdown speeds invovlved and the resultant float
only prolong the agony.

Do large jets ever land without flaps for any reason? I have never
seen big jets landing without flaps.. so I have often wondered if it
is something not recommended.

"Matt Whiting" wrote

That is amazing. The only emergency associated with flaps is asymmetric
deployment! :-)

So perhaps that is what he was shooting for. An asymmetrical deployment,
followed by a no flap landing.

Well, maybe? g
--
Jim in NC

Rich Ahrens wrote in
et:

Hilton wrote:
Dudley wrote:
No flap landings should be handled by instructors as simply another
procedure to be learned. There's nothing earth shattering about a no
flap landing, BUT and this is a BIG BUT HERE......there are aspects
of a no flap landing that are very different from a landing using
"flaps as required", so all CFI's should demonstrate no flap
landings and go over the aspects of no flap landings with every
student. I don't treat this situation as an emergency; simply
something the student must be completely familiar with before solo.

I was in the pattern at night with a student in a C172 at RHV and we
had a total electrical failure. No lights, no flaps, ... I had him
hold a flashlight at the ASI and call out airspeeds, I then did a
glassy water landing - worked perfectly!

I had a complete electrical failure in a C177RG at night on the way
from Duluth to Minneapolis back in 2003. Not wanting to fly into
either the Class B or the Mode C veil without radio contact, I elected
to put down at an uncontrolled field north of the Cities. A buddy was
flying a 182 on the same trip a mile or so ahead of me, so I got him
on my handheld and told him the plan. He went in ahead of me, assuring
the pilot-controlled runway lights got turned on and handling any
radio comms that might be needed if any other traffic showed up, while
I circled to make sure I got the gear down. Took a bit of pumping to
get it locked - it was reassuring that the tiny amount of remaining
power was enough to get a green light when it locked. So then it was
just a matter of landing NORDO, no lights, no flaps, in the dark. What
fun! I was sure glad I had practiced all of those, albeit not all at
once.

My buddy was waiting on the ramp and said the only thing he saw as I
came in was the runway edge lights blinking out as I rolled past them.


Mm, that's a good adventure. I don't remember readig about it before 1

Bertie

snip
* *It is amazing how attitudes change over time and how certain flying
procedures become part of our culture.

* *If I recall correctly, it was some time back in the 70's when some FAA
bureaucrat made a PTS change decreeing that a normal landing was to be with full
flaps. *Before that, flap use was taught as something that was much more at the
pilot's option. *The change caused quite a furor at the time. *Some instructors
thought that full flap landings were much too advanced for mere student pilots!

Vaughn


My observation on this is that there are instructors that learned to
fly at large flight schools catering to teaching airline pilots. The
thing to remember is that these flight training schools are not
teaching these pilots to fly
single pilot single engine airplanes. Instead they use a Cessna 172 as
a 737 simulator and teach their students to fly a C-172 like it was a
737. The result is that these pilots do learn to make full flap
landings every time and no flap landings are an emergercy procedure as
they would be in a Boeing 737. This is an excellent and efficient
method to train airline pilots. (As a side thought I wonder if this
may have been some of the motivation behind Cessna removing the 40
degree flap setting, Since about the time they did that some of thier
biggest customers were these flight schools)

The problem comes when these pilots decide they want to teach General
Avation pilots to fly single engine airplanes. They will often tend to
teach they way they were taught. These instructors may start teaching
their students to fly 172's like it was a 737 and we see things
transfered from the 737 to the c-172 that really don't apply to the
C-172. For the pilot training to fly small single engine airplanes
they really should learn to use the flap as needed instead as just a
checklist item.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
On 1 Jan, 17:14, Dudley Henriques wrote:
Roy Smith wrote:
In article ,
Dudley Henriques wrote:
No flap landings should be handled by instructors as simply
another procedure to be learned. There's nothing earth shattering
about a no flap landing, BUT and this is a BIG BUT HERE......there
are aspects of a no flap landing that are very different from a
landing using "flaps as required", so all CFI's should demonstrate
no flap landings and go over the aspects of no flap landings with
every student. I don't treat this situation as an emergency;
simply something the student must be completely familiar with
before solo.
The issue with no flaps landings is not that the landing itself is
an emergency, but that the pilot should recognize that the flaps
didn't extend and adjust his plan accordingly. And understand the
performance implications.
Like many CFI's who came up during my period, (old people :-) I much
preferred to teach no flap landings to students as BOTH a possible
emergency AND an option that could be used by a good pilot who for a
viable and safe reason wanted to land long for a far end turnoff on
an exceptionally long runway for example.
Many of the airplanes we flew as trainers had no flaps; i.e. Cubs,
Colts, etc. You learned early on in these airplanes to fly the
approach properly and with no "devices" to help you control the
landing speed. These airplanes are still in use today and in many
cases are priced low enough that many students becoming aircraft
owners for the first time will end up purchasing an aircraft with no
flaps. I personally know two pilots who own a J3 and a Piper Colt;
each have no flaps.

Flaps and their use are VERY aircraft specific. In some airplanes a
POH might define a no flap landing as an emergency. Others simply
alter the approach profile a bit. In the T38 Talon for example, (I
use this as the airplane is extremely high performance and landing
cfg is critical for the Talon) the procedure for a no flap landing
is to add 15kts to the normal landing speed...period! No big deal at
all.

Landing a normal GA airplane with no flaps should not pose a good
pilot any problems at all, and training should reflect this.

The bottom line is that instructors should teach landings in a way
that defines every one of them as a unique experience dealing with a
unique and ever changing dynamic. No two landings that a pilot will
make during an entire career will ever be exactly the same. Each
landing carries its own individual fingerprint.
No flaps can be an emergency landing or it can simply be a pilot's
option. Either way, the pilot should be on top of it and have each
individual landing planned based on current conditions existing for
any given instant in time that pertain to THAT landing.

Hear hear.
I've often met pilots who use no flaps on landing in very gusty
conditions or stiff crosswinds. I've tried this and don't really see
the benifits. Like a lot of things it's probably mostly in the head.
I think the higher touchdown speeds invovlved and the resultant float
only prolong the agony.
Having said that, any pilot should be able to fly his airplane in any
reasonable configuration it might end up in and this should be taught
as a matter of course. I did some instruction in Cherokees(most of my
instruction was in Cubs) and found the flaps were confusing the issue
when the students were learning landings. I opted to do most of them
flapless and this porved quite productive. the problem was, none of
the other instructors were teaching this and it was off the page for
the school, so I kept it to a minimum.
Bertie
I'm short enough that even sitting on a seat chute, in the Mustang, I
lowered 20 degrees of flap on downwind just to see over the damn nose
:-))


Doesn't adjust vertically? I would have assumed it followed just about
every other US military airplane of the period and had a vertically
adjustable seat and horizontal rudder pedals.


Bertie

Bertie

Oh the 51 had adjustments of sorts for both the seat and the pedals. The
seat had two pins you could adjust with a lever on the right side of the
seat in vertical mode only. There were nine holes you could set the seat
for but the damn things always got hung up and were a royal pain in the
butt to deal with.
The pedals could be adjusted back and forwards by hitting a lever on the
inboard side of each pedal and matching the locking pins on each side to
get them together and straight. Mine were in close to me as I needed to
know I had a full throw for rolls as well as on takeoff.
All in all, they weren't enough for my 5'6" frame. The truth is I didn't
use a seat chute. I was always leary of the 28 foot military canopy as a
means of getting me down with a reasonable descent rate if I needed to
use it and besides, I liked the back pack I had better anyway. Always
thought that if I had to get out, the scenario would be a pull from
somewhere on the deck where something went wrong to an altitude where I
could go over the side. If that happened to me, I didn't want a seat
pack getting hung up on the canopy crank on the right side or the
throttle quadrant on the left, so hence the back pack :-)


--
Dudley Henriques

My observation on this is that there are instructors that learned to
fly at large flight schools catering to teaching airline pilots. The
thing to remember is that these flight training schools are not
teaching these pilots to fly single pilot single engine airplanes.

Good point. I once checked out in a Piper Arrow a pilot who had been trained
at a place like that. He extended one notch of flaps before the landing gear,
because that's the way they do it in big airplanes. But it didn't make any
sense in the Arrow, as the max speed for gear extension is 150 mph, but for
flaps is only 125.

On Jan 1, 10:05*pm, wrote:

Do large jets ever land without flaps for any reason? I have never
seen big jets landing without flaps.. so I have often wondered if it
is something not recommended.

Large jets never land without flaps. There are backup systems for the
flaps and LEDs in the event of a failure.
FB

On Jan 1, 10:48*pm, Brian wrote:

My observation on this is that there are instructors that learned to
fly at large flight schools catering to teaching airline pilots. The
thing to remember is that these flight training schools are not
teaching these pilots to fly
single pilot single engine airplanes. Instead they use a Cessna 172 as
a 737 simulator and teach their students to fly a C-172 like it was a
737. The result is that these pilots do learn to make full flap
landings every time and no flap landings are an emergercy procedure as
they would be in a Boeing 737. This is an excellent and efficient
method to train airline pilots. (As a side thought I wonder if this
may have been some of the motivation behind Cessna removing the 40
degree flap setting, Since about the time they did that some of thier
biggest customers were these flight schools)

This procedure would be incorrect. About 99% of landings in a 737 are
done at flaps 30. Full flap is rarely used.