On 2008-01-03 17:46:37 -0800, Dudley Henriques said:

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2008-01-03 09:13:40 -0800, Dudley Henriques said:

C J Campbell wrote:
On 2008-01-01 15:04:33 -0800, Dudley Henriques said:

B A R R Y wrote:
On Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:08:09 -0500, Dudley Henriques
wrote:

Then every landing made in a Piper Cub, Colt, or a Decathlon is an
emergency? :-))

His exam focus was more about how flaps alter the landing than an
emergency.
The only "flap emergency" I've ever heard of belonged to a Musketeer
Sport who parks behind us. He kicked out the first notch, only to
have the right flap fall completely off. G

Now THAT would be an attention getter for the average Sunday pilot in a
big hurry :-))

One day I went out to preflight a Cessna 172 and the right wing flap
was folded up like a taco. The solo student who had flown the plane
previously claimed that he had not noticed anything wrong, but that he
had heard a "grinding noise," so he did a few more touch and goes and
then quit early. The flap had jumped the tracks and folded up in
flight. It appears that the student made three more landings after the
flap folded up. For the record, he was not my student.

Kind of makes you wonder who's teaching people to fly in such a way
that the end result would be a student who hears something unusual in
his airplane and takes off without knowing or obviously caring what it
is.
Unbelievable!! :-))

Man, you would think he would at least have noticed something different
about the way the airplane flew!

However, if it makes you feel better, I remember his instructor having
a very loooong chat with him. Turned out the flaps had probably jumped
the track when he lowered them at 120 knots.

Sounds like a lesson was in there somewhere for somebody.

Depending on the exact circumstances, I think I might have wanted a few
words with the instructor as well. This kind of judgment found post
incident in a student is cause for at least some concern in that
direction.

I have to agree. Unfortunately, I was a student myself at the time
(different instructor). Now those instructors are flying for the
airlines somewhere... Well, perhaps they have gained more wisdom with
maturity. Probably the kid who busted the flaps is flying for the
airlines somewhere.

Well, I don't want to get into criticizing other flight instructors. I
do that too often as it is, and it is healthy neither for me nor for
the profession.

--
Waddling Eagle
World Famous Flight Instructor