On Jan 2, 11:51 am, 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.

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.

Cheers