flaps

I agree, it is not, so long as it is not a 'for hire' flight.

Never the less, one might want to review the decision to make a flight
with an airplane that has to be landed in an unfamiliar confirguration
at night without a landing light.

I'm speaking as a non pilot here, so my concerns might be unfounded.

Tina,
My understanding is that landing night is not a requirement for non
commerical flight

==============

I fly my own plane the same way that I flew rental planes. Every
so often, Rick and I would try to do some basic maneuvers such as slow
flight, steep turns, stalls, soft and short field landings. We have
the tires and brakes replaced about every 250 or so hours. I have no
ideas how much money we would have saved if we had 'babied' our plane.
IMHO, being proficient at short field landings may save my skin
someday and no amount of money is worth my life.

Oh, we practice all the other stuff -- but short-short-short field
landings are NOT one of them. Botching a power-off, let's-plant-it-on-
the-numbers landing is just too potentially expensive, since Atlas'
nose will slam down like Thor's hammer if you let him get too slow.

Which isn't to say we shy away from short fields. We routinely fly
into 2200 foot grass strips, so we're fairly proficient at it.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

wrote in message
oups.com...
On Jul 10, 10:00 am, "Al G" wrote:
"Roy Smith" wrote in message

...

"Kobra" wrote:

snip



From a strictly legal point of view, if you knew the flaps were broken,
the
plane was not airworthy.

Cite?

Al G
For Americans:

Sec. 91.7

Civil aircraft airworthiness.

(a) No person may operate a civil aircraft unless it is in an
airworthy condition.
(b) The pilot in command of a civil aircraft is responsible for
determining whether that aircraft is in condition for safe flight. The
pilot in command shall discontinue the flight when unairworthy
mechanical, electrical, or structural conditions occur.

For Canadians:
snip...

See, both systems leave it up to the pilot to determine
airworthiness. But the Inspector's opinion may differ considerably
from the pilot's, and legal trouble may arise. I know of plenty of
pilots who would fly an airplane that I wouldn't, mostly because I'm
older, have been doing this for enough years, and have had a couple of
engine failures and some systems failures. A flap system failure, for
instance, might leave you with retracted flaps; you take off, get to
the destination, forget that the flaps don't work or decide to see if
they're now working, and find that they extend. Good. Now the approach
gets botched up or someone taxis out in front of you and so you go
around, finding now that the flaps won't retract and you can't climb.
Now what? Was aviation saftey affected? The accident will prove it.
These electric flaps can do this; they've done it to our 172s. When
they give the first hint of trouble the airplane is grounded.

Dan



Ok, IMHO, inoperative flaps on a C-172 do not in any way render said
aircraft un-airworthy.
This airplane can be operated safely without flaps. I may limit myself to
runways longer than 800', but un-airworthy? They are not recommended for
takeoff, optional for landing, and not used enroute. Now if it were a
Lear...

Al G CFIAMI 2069297

"kontiki" wrote in message ...
Get a real A&P to check out the flap situation. If its
not the breaker it could be the flap motor (one of the
reasons I do like manual flaps).

As far as why you didn't notice that your flaps were
not working... well... that is disturbing. I notice
*every* little sound, motion, vibration or whatever in
my airplane.

I hardly ever land with full flaps unless its a short
field.

Why are you beating up the plane?

I was taught and used to teach that any landing without full flaps was an 'emergency' landing. The airplane has a
landing configuration and the performance in the book is based on that configuration...

It is good to practice emergency landings every so often.

Ok, IMHO, inoperative flaps on a C-172 do not in any way render said
aircraft un-airworthy.
This airplane can be operated safely without flaps. I may limit myself to
runways longer than 800', but un-airworthy? They are not recommended for

Al,
I agree that inoperative flaps do not render certain aircraft
unairworthy. During my primary training, one day the C150 flaps
stopped to operate due to a weak battery. The chief instructor who
was also an AP and DE told me that I should go out and practice
landings without flaps. I had great fun that day practicing slipping
to see how short that I could land without 40 degrees flaps.

Hai Longworth

Al G wrote:
Ok, IMHO, inoperative flaps on a C-172 do not in any way render said
aircraft un-airworthy.
This airplane can be operated safely without flaps. I may limit myself to
runways longer than 800', but un-airworthy? They are not recommended for
takeoff, optional for landing, and not used enroute. Now if it were a
Lear...

Define "airworthy"; hint it does not mean "flyable". Ask Roy Smith about an
'energetic' FAA inspector.

Hilton

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 15:15:16 -0700, Longworth
wrote:

Ok, IMHO, inoperative flaps on a C-172 do not in any way render said
aircraft un-airworthy.
This airplane can be operated safely without flaps. I may limit myself to
runways longer than 800', but un-airworthy? They are not recommended for

Al,
I agree that inoperative flaps do not render certain aircraft
unairworthy. During my primary training, one day the C150 flaps
stopped to operate due to a weak battery. The chief instructor who
was also an AP and DE told me that I should go out and practice
landings without flaps. I had great fun that day practicing slipping
to see how short that I could land without 40 degrees flaps.

FWIW, the latest Cessna 182T POH shows the flap motor and indicating
system as required in the KOEL for day/night/ifr/vfr. If I read that
correctly, technically departing with the flaps known inop in one
without a special airworthiness certificate would be a violation....

Kobra wrote:

Now I had to get home. I called my mechanic and he said it could be many
things (it wasn't the breaker). He also said I was a complete wimp (he used
a different word that began with a p) if I couldn't land that plane without
the flaps on our 3,500 feet of runway.

He called you a pimp? :-) :-)


Anyway...how many different things can cause this? Where should I start
looking?

A failed switch. A burned out flap motor. Etc.


I also recommend that everyone do some no flap landings each year.

No flap landings are really non-events. You got way too worked up over
it. I'm also surprised that you kept ignoring all of the signs that the
flaps were inop. This is a good lesson though and one that didn't cause
you any harm and one that you will long remember. Whenever things feel
different, find out why ... don't just keep plodding along.

Matt

Jay Honeck wrote:
Spend an hour or two landing on the numbers with the stall horn squalling.

It's funny how much easier this was to do when I was renting
airplanes. Heck, I'd routinely drag it in at minimum forward air
speed and plunk it on the numbers, just to see how short I could land.

When you own an aircraft -- especially one with a big, heavy 6-
cylinder engine that is slightly nose-heavy -- you think twice before
"practicing" such things. Tires, struts, brakes, firewalls, props,
and engines all become HUGE impediments to "practicing" landings with
the stall horn squalling, since you're paying for them all.

I believe my 182 had a similarly sized engine to your Piper and I always
landed as close to full-stall as I could get. If you do it all the
time, then you get to where it works pretty much all the time. And
landing this way SAVES on tires and brakes and, done properly, has no
affect on struts, firewalls, prop or engine.


This post, IMHO, above all else, is a real tribute to the utility of
manual, Johnson-bar flap actuators. Hard to miss when THOSE don't
work.

It is hard to miss Cessna flaps either. I have to admit to wondering
where Kobra mind was during that landing. Full flaps in any Cessna I've
flown is simply hard to ignore, but I haven't flown a 177.

Matt

"Peter Clark" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 15:15:16 -0700, Longworth
wrote:

Ok, IMHO, inoperative flaps on a C-172 do not in any way render said
aircraft un-airworthy.
This airplane can be operated safely without flaps. I may limit myself
to
runways longer than 800', but un-airworthy? They are not recommended for

Al,
I agree that inoperative flaps do not render certain aircraft
unairworthy. During my primary training, one day the C150 flaps
stopped to operate due to a weak battery. The chief instructor who
was also an AP and DE told me that I should go out and practice
landings without flaps. I had great fun that day practicing slipping
to see how short that I could land without 40 degrees flaps.

FWIW, the latest Cessna 182T POH shows the flap motor and indicating
system as required in the KOEL for day/night/ifr/vfr. If I read that
correctly, technically departing with the flaps known inop in one
without a special airworthiness certificate would be a violation....

I would go along with that, depending on the operation. It may be that a
steep instrument approach is easier with flaps, and then I would insist they
work. The 182 is also a bit heavier
than the 172 and the flaps help slow the touchdown. Never the less, it is
left to me to decide,
and for a 172 I stand by my statement, even to a FSDO. Maybe I'm just not as
intimidated by them as I used to be. I have flown the '66 172 I rent without
flaps, and would do it again.

KOEL=??

As a 135 pilot I had a MEL(Minimum Equipt List) for each multi-engine
aircraft I flew. I don't believe there is such a thing for a part 91 single
engine pilot. In most cases, if something were inoperative, that imposed
limits on your flight, but did not cancel the flight. I would not consider
the failure of a light bulb to be an airworthiness item, unless night flight
was planned.
What if your comm radio was inoperative? Non-airworthy? Many aircraft
have no radio, just like many aircraft have no flaps.

Al G