On Tue, 18 Nov 2003 07:47:58 -0800, Eric Greenwell
wrote:

.... text deleted ...

Wayne, what's it like to land an HP in a strong, gusty wind? Do you use
a higher approach speed and only partial flap?
--

Eric, I resisted jumping into this thread, but for what it's worth,
while I no longer fly a PIK, I did own a PIK20B for 18 years and have
something over 2000 hours in this 90deg flap only ship.

Most of the important points on 90deg flaps have already been said.

- they are different, so there is an initial learning curve that is
made more difficult by the lack of 90deg flaped trainers. I often
recommended new PIK pilots to get an hour in a Cessna 150 to get a
feel for high flap deflection behavior.

- once mastered, they can be modulated during any portion of the
pattern with no problem. As has been said before, if you are floating
and can not get the ship down, put on more flap. Once the main wheel
is on the ground, dump the flap (full negative (up)) to plant the ship
on the ground.

- Like any flapped ship, so not get below the flaps up stall speed
during the pattern, until your final flare. This allows you to
modulate the flaps with no concern about pulling out flap and
stalling.

- On the PIK, I recommended new pilots move the PIK flap handle (5
turns total) in full 360deg increments, always stopping at the top of
the circle. This made modulation like normal spoilers, pulling the
handle back from the top position lowered flap, increased drag, just
like pulling back a spoiler handle. And the opposite for pushing
forward from a top position, less drag.

- Relating to your question, the only drawback I found in the 90deg
flaps was landing in very gusty conditions. Here I would limit the
down flap to something like 45deg. Since this only occured with strong
headwind components, I did not need large flap deflections.

- The strong advantage to the 90deg flaps was in short field landing,
where you could point the ship at a spot on the ground and modulate
the flaps to control airspeed. BTW, the only time in all my flying
that I used 90deg flaps was in off-field landings over a tree line,
and for routine practice. Typical landing flap varied between 30deg
and 60deg.

Bob