Kobra wrote:
Flyers,

First, as a reminder, some may recall that I had unwittingly landed one day
in Williamsburg, VA without the flaps. I didn't notice they had not
deployed until my next pre-flight when I found them INOP. They I remembered
out fast I came over the fence and controlling the airspeed was more
difficult then ever before. I took a lot of heat from other pilots that
basicly said, "How in the world could any pilot worth a darn EVER not
realize that their flaps didn't come out! THAT would NEVER happen to ME!!"

I thought I would relate a story that happened to my plane partner and I the
other day. My partner hadn't flown in a while and we went out to do some
maneuvers and some landings to get him current and proficient again.
Everything went fine until our last landing.

Throughout this last pattern I noticed that we were always fast on every
leg. I admonished him to slow down and get down. He was some what
distracted by a helicopter hovering just off the ground and off to the left
side of the final approach course. I notice that he had 30 degrees of flaps
in and he started to drift the IAS out of the white arc. I again sounded
off that his AS was way off and to fix it.

Then it hit me...how in the world could he have flaps 30 with 16 or 17
inches of MP at our decent rate and be out of the white arc. That is not
possible. I looked over my right shoulder and saw the reason...the flaps
were fully retracted.

He did not notice and was attempting to fix the problem by pulling the power
and trimming the nose up. (unwittingly setting himself up for a no flap
landing as I did in VA). We were on short final and I hesitated to say
anything as not to distract him at this critical time, but reflexively my
mouth just blurted out, "Dude...I have some really bad news for
you...you've got no flaps at all!" At first he wanted to go around, but the
AS wasn't too bad and I said, "No...just keep this attitude and come in
flat." That is what he did and we had no problems.

I kind-of feel vindicated that another pilot had the same mild distractions
in the pattern, was setting his flaps as always and never noticed at each of
three changes that no flaps what-so-ever were being provided. He would have
landed fast and long, braked hard and wondered why he had so much difficulty
slowing down. He would not have realized what happened until and unless he
did the next pre-flight and set the flaps to full for inspection.

This was a new motor bought from Cessna. Turns out that one of the brushes
was hanging up in it's housing and not making contact with the commutator.
He widened the housing and that was the end of that problem.

Kobra
C177RG

PS: and now Multi-engine, Multi-engine instrument, Multi-engine commercial
rated!! whoa whooh!! Regionals...here I come.



As my good ole' buddy Chris Patterakis (ex-Thunderbird lead and general
good guy) used to say, "We don't fly in a one cue world".
This simple statement should be a large sign stapled on the door of
every pilot's bedroom so they read it every day until it became a living
part of their flying mindset.
I honestly can't conceive of a situation in a light GA aircraft where a
pilot could attempt lowering the flaps and not know immediately if they
were in the equation. The cues available are just too many to ignore.
You have the obvious visual check, and if that isn't available, the
changes and/or lack of same in the aircraft's performance should become
immediately apparent to a "tuned in" pilot.

On the other hand, a flaps up landing should be part and parcel of every
pilot's training curriculum and should be a non event should the need
arise to make one.

The bottom line on this is that there should have been instant
recognition of the situation using any and all available cues and the
situation assessed and acted on by a deliberate action either to land
the airplane flaps up with all the expected behavior associated with
that decision, or, if not enough time to set up or enough romm to do
that, a go around should have been initiated and the problem
investigated out of the pattern.
Either way, this situation should have been handled in such a way that
at no time during the approach was the airplane flying the pilot and not
the other way around :-)


--
Dudley Henriques