Flaps on take-off and landing

Mxsmanic wrote:
Ron Natalie writes:


Depends on the aircraft. Some planes they are purely mechanical from
the flap handle in the cockpit.


I'm surprised that a small handle in the cockpit would provide enough
leverage to lower flaps.

Who said the handle is small? Some of these "handles" are 2 - 3 feet long.

Margy
Isn't there are a lot of aerodynamic
pressure to overcome against them (at least if they are lowered in
flight)?

Margy Natalie writes:

Who said the handle is small? Some of these "handles" are 2 - 3 feet long.

Where are they in the cockpit? I haven't seen many small cockpits; is
there a picture on the Net of one that has this kind of lever? It
sounds like it would be awkward to use in flight.

I go by what I've seen in the handful of pictures of cockpits that
I've encountered. Most of these are of jet aircraft, and the flap
lever is longer than most but hardly long enough to provide much
leverage.

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Mxsmanic wrote in
:

Margy Natalie writes:

Who said the handle is small? Some of these "handles" are 2 - 3 feet
long.

Where are they in the cockpit? I haven't seen many small cockpits; is
there a picture on the Net of one that has this kind of lever? It
sounds like it would be awkward to use in flight.

I go by what I've seen in the handful of pictures of cockpits that
I've encountered. Most of these are of jet aircraft, and the flap
lever is longer than most but hardly long enough to provide much
leverage.


In the StingSport LSA it's right where you would expect to find your
Toyota parking brake handle... in fact, it looks suspiciously like a
Toyota parking brake handle... grin

--
-- ET :-)

"A common mistake people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools."---- Douglas Adams

Mxsmanic wrote:
Margy Natalie writes:

Who said the handle is small? Some of these "handles" are 2 - 3 feet long.

Where are they in the cockpit? I haven't seen many small cockpits; is
there a picture on the Net of one that has this kind of lever? It
sounds like it would be awkward to use in flight.

I go by what I've seen in the handful of pictures of cockpits that
I've encountered. Most of these are of jet aircraft, and the flap
lever is longer than most but hardly long enough to provide much
leverage.


The lever arm for the flap handle in our RV-6 is something like two feet
long. It works just like a parking brake, though the forces are higher
(20lb maybe, up to 30+ when going to full).

As for the other control surfaces--the stick is directly connected (via
pushrods) to the ailerons and elevator. Even in flight, it takes a
maximum of one finger and your thumb to move the control surface and
make the airplane respond. It's not twitchy--the controls are just
light and easy to manipulate.

In pretty much every jet aircraft I can think of, the flap handle just
manipulates some sort of rotary sensor or microswitch that tells the
flaps where to go.