flaps

On Jul 10, 9:37 am, Tina wrote:
It also seems you planned a nighttime arrivial with a known burned out
landing light.

Tina,
My understanding is that landing night is not a requirement for non
commerical flight

==============
Sec. 91.205 & 91.507
Powered civil aircraft with standard category U.S. airworthiness
certificates: Instrument and equipment requirements.
.............................
(4) If the aircraft is operated for hire, one electric landing light.
==============
During my training, my instructor had me landed with and without
landing light at night. I actually found it was easier to land
without landing light.

Little mistakes have a way of compounding themselves. You may want to
sit in a quiet place and think about your go - no go criteria for a
while. The two best outcomes of all of this is you made a safe trip,
and you have an opportunigy to make future trips safer.

Although I generally agree with your statement. I find your
comments to be somewhat condescending. I do not know Kobra
personally but I have read quite a few of his postings. He is an
experienced pilot who is always willing to share his experience be it
good or bad for all of us, pilots, to learn. I don't think that he
needs to be told 'to sit in a quiet place and think....' !


Hai Longworth

I agree, it is not, so long as it is not a 'for hire' flight.

Never the less, one might want to review the decision to make a flight
with an airplane that has to be landed in an unfamiliar confirguration
at night without a landing light.

I'm speaking as a non pilot here, so my concerns might be unfounded.

Tina,
My understanding is that landing night is not a requirement for non
commerical flight

==============

"Longworth" wrote in message
ups.com...
On Jul 10, 9:37 am, Tina wrote:
It also seems you planned a nighttime arrivial with a known burned out
landing light.

Tina,
My understanding is that landing night is not a requirement for non
commerical flight

==============
Sec. 91.205 & 91.507
Powered civil aircraft with standard category U.S. airworthiness
certificates: Instrument and equipment requirements.
............................
(4) If the aircraft is operated for hire, one electric landing light.
==============
During my training, my instructor had me landed with and without
landing light at night. I actually found it was easier to land
without landing light.

Little mistakes have a way of compounding themselves. You may want to
sit in a quiet place and think about your go - no go criteria for a
while. The two best outcomes of all of this is you made a safe trip,
and you have an opportunigy to make future trips safer.

Although I generally agree with your statement. I find your
comments to be somewhat condescending. I do not know Kobra
personally but I have read quite a few of his postings. He is an
experienced pilot who is always willing to share his experience be it
good or bad for all of us, pilots, to learn. I don't think that he
needs to be told 'to sit in a quiet place and think....' !


Hai Longworth


I agree with Tina, at least about re-thinking the sequence of risky
decisions that were made. The landing light was only one of those decisions.
The failure to notice trim adjustments not being required while extending
flaps, the failure to push the go-up lever and reconsider the approach, etc
are all risky decisions. Tina was pointing out that this flight was a series
of those events. It is ironic that the AOPAs Flight Safety Foundation
program this year is focused on breaking the chain of events (bad decisions)
that lead up to accidents. Kobra was skilled enough to force the final
result, but he kept throwing away his safety options along the way. Things
could have turned out much differently, and then we'd all be berating the
press for its one-sided coverage of another mishap; but that's another
thread...

Most likely your instructor had you land without the landing light as a
non-standard event that would be possible if the light burnt out while in
flight. I seriously doubt that an instructor would encourage any student or
pilot for that matter to intentionally depart for a flight after dark
knowing the landing light was inop.

I'm also willing to bet that most instructors teach students how to
go-around in the event the landing doesn't look or feel right, which Kobra
noted was the case here.

Nothing about this chain of events should be construed to be normal
practice. Tina is correct that we can all learn from this example of how
events get strung together and can lead up to a very risky situation.

--
Jim Carter
Rogers, Arkansas

Roger,

I subcribed to NASA Callback and had filed a NASA report once
(eventhough everything I did in that flight was legal). I think the
very fact that a pilot filed a report or posted their experience
indicates that he/she had reflected on the event, learned a lesson
from it and wanted to share the experience with others to learn. I
don't think that any pilot could honesty say that he/she had never
made a bad decision or an error.

Kobra was surprised that he did not notice that the flaps were
inoperative. He called his mechanic. He pondered about the
situation. He advised others to go practice no-flap landings. He
certainly DID think enough about the incidence to post it here. He
might have even thought about it while sitting in a quiet corner ;-)

Everytime that I read a post about some bad events from a fellow
pilot, I always cringe in seeing reprimanding or scolding remarks from
the Monday morning quarrterback or armchair pilots. It's a good thing
the Callback site does not have a readers' feedback option!

I have flown for less than 7 years and have just a bit shy of
700hrs. I have learned a lot about flying, about safety, about my own
capability and limitation skillwise and judgementwise from other
pilots, from posts such as this one by Kobra. I am a very safety
minded flyer. I do my best not to fly when being stressed, tired. I
am very lucky to have a constant copilot to share the workload. I
fully sympathize with the single pilot especially single pilot
IFR. Flying can be very demanding. I can see myself making the
same errors as confessed by other pilots under similar circumstances.
I am grateful to learn from their mistakes. I do not want to see
people gets discouraged or afraid of posting their flying experience
for fear of criticism or condemnation.

Hai Longworth

On Jul 10, 6:51 am, Roy Smith wrote:


Then you should have gone around. Plan every approach to be a go-around,
and only make the decision to land when you get to the threshold and
everything is good.

Exactly. Most landing accidents happen when things aren't
coming together properly and the pilot insists on landing anyway. If
this runway had been icy he'd likely have written the airplane off.

Piper and Cessna took interesting divergent paths when they designed their
airplanes. Piper decided they were going to use electric trim and manual
flaps. Cessna decided on electric flaps and manual trim. In both cases,
each manufacturer added one totally unnecessary electric system and thus
saddled their owners with forever pouring money into fixing them. Maybe
the high-wing design made it difficult to engineer a manual flap control
linkage?

Cessna originally built their singles with manual flaps.
The 172 didn't get electric flaps until around 1967. The 180/185 never
had them. Those airplanes could be landed really short, because the
pilot could approach at minimum airspeed and dump the flaps instantly
on touchdown and get lots of weight on the mains for braking. Electric
flaps are too slow to retract.

In any case, if it's not the breaker, if could be the actuator
switch, the motor, one of the micro-switches that limit movement, or any of
the wiring in between. Just bring it to your mechanic with your checkbook
and let him put another kid through college :-)

If It's what I think and the airplane has the preselector-type
flap control, one of the microswitches on the lever follower is dead
or disconnected. They do that.

Dan

On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:06:54 -0700, Dan_Thomas_nospam wrote:

Exactly. Most landing accidents happen when things aren't
coming together properly and the pilot insists on landing anyway. If this
runway had been icy he'd likely have written the airplane off.

I landed last week at CQX, a runway that (I've learned {8^) has a hump in
the middle. As I was coming down, I suddenly realized that I'd far less
runway than I thought I should have had. I probably could have put it
down in the remaining distance, but around I went.

As soon as I started climbing, the rest of the runway - hiding behind the
hump - came into view. I did feel a little silly, but I also welcomed the
practice.

- Andrew

"Roy Smith" wrote in message
...
"Kobra" wrote:

snip

From a strictly legal point of view, if you knew the flaps were broken,
the
plane was not airworthy.

Cite?

Al G

On Jul 10, 10:00 am, "Al G" wrote:
"Roy Smith" wrote in message

...

"Kobra" wrote:

snip



From a strictly legal point of view, if you knew the flaps were broken,
the
plane was not airworthy.

Cite?

Al G
For Americans:

Sec. 91.7

Civil aircraft airworthiness.

(a) No person may operate a civil aircraft unless it is in an
airworthy condition.
(b) The pilot in command of a civil aircraft is responsible for
determining whether that aircraft is in condition for safe flight. The
pilot in command shall discontinue the flight when unairworthy
mechanical, electrical, or structural conditions occur.

For Canadians:

Unserviceable and Removed Equipment - General

605.08 (1) Notwithstanding subsection (2) and Sections 605.09 and
605.10, no person shall conduct a take-off in an aircraft that has
equipment that is not serviceable or from which equipment has been
removed if, in the opinion of the pilot-in-command, aviation safety is
affected.

(2) Notwithstanding Sections 605.09 and 605.10, a person may conduct a
take-off in an aircraft that has equipment that is not serviceable or
from which equipment has been removed where the aircraft is operated
in accordance with the conditions of a flight permit that has been
issued specifically for that purpose.

See, both systems leave it up to the pilot to determine
airworthiness. But the Inspector's opinion may differ considerably
from the pilot's, and legal trouble may arise. I know of plenty of
pilots who would fly an airplane that I wouldn't, mostly because I'm
older, have been doing this for enough years, and have had a couple of
engine failures and some systems failures. A flap system failure, for
instance, might leave you with retracted flaps; you take off, get to
the destination, forget that the flaps don't work or decide to see if
they're now working, and find that they extend. Good. Now the approach
gets botched up or someone taxis out in front of you and so you go
around, finding now that the flaps won't retract and you can't climb.
Now what? Was aviation saftey affected? The accident will prove it.
These electric flaps can do this; they've done it to our 172s. When
they give the first hint of trouble the airplane is grounded.

Dan

airworthy condition.
(b) The pilot in command of a civil aircraft is responsible for
determining whether that aircraft is in condition for safe flight.

Exercising my PIC privilege, I guess I determined that the aircraft was
airworthy.

Roy Smith wrote:
10 kts too fast over the threshold is pretty significant. I don't fly the
177RG, but I found a checklist on the net that lists normal landing speeds
at 60-70 kts and Vfe (top of the white arc, which is what you said you
were
doing on final) as 95. That's 25-35 kts too fast to land. I'm amazed you
managed to get it stopped in 3000 feet. In fact, I can't believe you were
really going that fast over the threshold, it's just not possible.

I probably wasn't going that fast (95 KIAS). By the time I reached the
threshold I was trimming the nose up and had the power at idle. I was
probably at 90 MPH or 77 KIAS at that point. Normally I cross the fence at
70 MPH or 61 KIAS.

Roy Smith wrote:
Then you should have gone around. Plan every approach to be a go-around,
and only make the decision to land when you get to the threshold and
everything is good

I was very ready to go-around, but the plane touched down well and I knew
from the remaining distance that heavy braking would stop the plane in time.
I landed on 31 and exited off on the second to last exit. It appears from
the diagram that I had over a 1000 feet remaining. The runway is actually
3204 feet, so it wasn't as short as I first described.
http://204.108.4.16/d-tpp/0707/06425VGB.PDF

Roy Smith wrote:
The pondering should have happened before you took off.


Roy, what you said is very true! I am embarrassed about two things. One
that I didn't notice the flaps didn't come down at JGG. If I ever read
someone else's account of this and they said they didn't know the flaps
stayed up I would have thought they were brain dead and should never be
behind a yoke again. But let me tell you...it can happen. If you're busy
talking to traffic, looking for traffic, watching the two planes ready to
take the runway, configuring the airplane for landing, doing your before
landing checklist, flying the plane, etc. It can happen. Especially after
750 hours and setting the flaps in increments about 1200 times with never so
much as a hiccup, one can become easily complacent. So, please no 'holier
than thou' comments, such as Kontiki posted.
kontiki wrote:
As far as why you didn't notice that your flaps were
not working... well... that is disturbing. I notice
*every* little sound, motion, vibration or whatever in
my airplane.
You better knock wood. You speak boldly my friend, and if I might add, a
little cocky. Cocky is disturbing and kills more pilots, I'm sure, than not
noticing flap deployment. If *I* can teach *you* anything, it's that you
CAN miss a little sound, motion, vibration or whatever in your airplane.

Kobra

wrote in message
oups.com...
On Jul 10, 10:00 am, "Al G" wrote:
"Roy Smith" wrote in message

...

"Kobra" wrote:

snip



From a strictly legal point of view, if you knew the flaps were broken,
the
plane was not airworthy.

Cite?

Al G
For Americans:

Sec. 91.7

Civil aircraft airworthiness.

(a) No person may operate a civil aircraft unless it is in an
airworthy condition.
(b) The pilot in command of a civil aircraft is responsible for
determining whether that aircraft is in condition for safe flight. The
pilot in command shall discontinue the flight when unairworthy
mechanical, electrical, or structural conditions occur.

For Canadians:

Unserviceable and Removed Equipment - General

605.08 (1) Notwithstanding subsection (2) and Sections 605.09 and
605.10, no person shall conduct a take-off in an aircraft that has
equipment that is not serviceable or from which equipment has been
removed if, in the opinion of the pilot-in-command, aviation safety is
affected.

(2) Notwithstanding Sections 605.09 and 605.10, a person may conduct a
take-off in an aircraft that has equipment that is not serviceable or
from which equipment has been removed where the aircraft is operated
in accordance with the conditions of a flight permit that has been
issued specifically for that purpose.

See, both systems leave it up to the pilot to determine
airworthiness. But the Inspector's opinion may differ considerably
from the pilot's, and legal trouble may arise. I know of plenty of
pilots who would fly an airplane that I wouldn't, mostly because I'm
older, have been doing this for enough years, and have had a couple of
engine failures and some systems failures. A flap system failure, for
instance, might leave you with retracted flaps; you take off, get to
the destination, forget that the flaps don't work or decide to see if
they're now working, and find that they extend. Good. Now the approach
gets botched up or someone taxis out in front of you and so you go
around, finding now that the flaps won't retract and you can't climb.
Now what? Was aviation saftey affected? The accident will prove it.
These electric flaps can do this; they've done it to our 172s. When
they give the first hint of trouble the airplane is grounded.

Dan

wrote in message
oups.com...
On Jul 10, 10:00 am, "Al G" wrote:
"Roy Smith" wrote in message

...

"Kobra" wrote:

snip



From a strictly legal point of view, if you knew the flaps were broken,
the
plane was not airworthy.

Cite?

Al G
For Americans:

Sec. 91.7

Civil aircraft airworthiness.

(a) No person may operate a civil aircraft unless it is in an
airworthy condition.
(b) The pilot in command of a civil aircraft is responsible for
determining whether that aircraft is in condition for safe flight. The
pilot in command shall discontinue the flight when unairworthy
mechanical, electrical, or structural conditions occur.

For Canadians:
snip...

See, both systems leave it up to the pilot to determine
airworthiness. But the Inspector's opinion may differ considerably
from the pilot's, and legal trouble may arise. I know of plenty of
pilots who would fly an airplane that I wouldn't, mostly because I'm
older, have been doing this for enough years, and have had a couple of
engine failures and some systems failures. A flap system failure, for
instance, might leave you with retracted flaps; you take off, get to
the destination, forget that the flaps don't work or decide to see if
they're now working, and find that they extend. Good. Now the approach
gets botched up or someone taxis out in front of you and so you go
around, finding now that the flaps won't retract and you can't climb.
Now what? Was aviation saftey affected? The accident will prove it.
These electric flaps can do this; they've done it to our 172s. When
they give the first hint of trouble the airplane is grounded.

Dan



Ok, IMHO, inoperative flaps on a C-172 do not in any way render said
aircraft un-airworthy.
This airplane can be operated safely without flaps. I may limit myself to
runways longer than 800', but un-airworthy? They are not recommended for
takeoff, optional for landing, and not used enroute. Now if it were a
Lear...

Al G CFIAMI 2069297