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#41
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flaps
It is hard to miss Cessna flaps either. I have to admit to wondering where Kobra mind was during that landing. Full flaps in any Cessna I've flown is simply hard to ignore, but I haven't flown a 177. Matt, Yes, you are correct, when the flaps DO deploy it is noticeable. The flaps on the 177 are large and effective. It's when they DON'T deploy that it can get past you unnoticed in a busy cockpit. How many times have you flow a Cessna that the flaps failed to set? Probably never. So most of the readers here have no idea how they would or wouldn't notice the failure. If I was a CFI I think I might occasionally pull the flap breaker and see how many students catch the situation and at what point. AAMOF I will throw that out there to the CFI's...let's do an experiment. Pull the breaker when the student isn't looking and have them fly the pattern for a landing. Post the results on how many did and didn't understand the problem. If they catch it, at what point did they realize that no flaps were out? I'd be interested in the results. Post the results here under this post "flaps". Kobra |
#42
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flaps
Peter Clark wrote:
The intent of the limitation - flaps have to be working - is obvious. They don't say you have to actually use them, but they do have to be in working order. There is some logic in this. All the Cessna AFMs I've seen (i.e. for various flavors of their piston singles) have nice detailed performance charts showing how much runway you need to land with various combinations of weight, temperature, elevation, wind, and phase of moon, but the numbers always are for full flaps. There is NO data on how much runway you need without flaps, therefor there is no way you can comply with 91.103 which requires that you familiarize yourself with the takeoff and landing distances. Now, you know, and I know, and every body hanging out in the airport coffee shop knows that you can land a 172 with no flaps on a 2000 foot paved runway without any problems (assuming you know what you're doing). But, that doesn't count when it comes to determining if the airplane is airworthy. Remember, airworthy is a state of paperwork, nothing more, nothing less. |
#43
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flaps
Kobra wrote:
It is hard to miss Cessna flaps either. I have to admit to wondering where Kobra mind was during that landing. Full flaps in any Cessna I've flown is simply hard to ignore, but I haven't flown a 177. Matt, Yes, you are correct, when the flaps DO deploy it is noticeable. The flaps on the 177 are large and effective. It's when they DON'T deploy that it can get past you unnoticed in a busy cockpit. How many times have you flow a Cessna that the flaps failed to set? Probably never. So most of the readers here have no idea how they would or wouldn't notice the failure. Just once, but I noticed it instantly, and I was already pretty busy flying an instrument approach into OSH of all places after having lost my alternator. When I noticed the alternator light come on about 20 miles out, I turned off everything but one navcomm and the transponder. However, once on short final, the old habit kicked in and I put the flaps down even though I was on battery power alone at that point. The flaps made it about 5 degrees before the battery gave up the ghost completely. I said "crap" and then proceeded to land the airplane. No big deal and it was instantly obvious that the flaps hadn't deployed even with my mind a little preoccupied. Matt |
#44
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flaps
Matt Whiting wrote:
Just once, but I noticed it instantly, and I was already pretty busy flying an instrument approach into OSH of all places after having lost my alternator. When I noticed the alternator light come on about 20 miles out, I turned off everything but one navcomm and the transponder. However, once on short final, the old habit kicked in and I put the flaps down even though I was on battery power alone at that point. It's amazing how that works, isn't it? Years ago, when I was working on my instrument rating, my instructor and I had just taken off on a night IFR flight and were having trouble checking in with NY Departure. The radio's were scratchy and they weren't getting our xponder, when we noticed the panel lights dim. We told NY we were returning home. On the short flight there, we discussed the idea that we might have enough battery to get the flaps down and not enough to get them back up if we needed to go around. We decided to do a no-flap landing. Exactly the same thing happened that you described -- habit kicked in and without even realizing what I was doing, I reached out and put the first 10 degrees of flaps in on downwind. It's just hard to break the habit. |
#45
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flaps
"Andrew Gideon" wrote in message
news On Tue, 10 Jul 2007 10:43:10 +0000, kontiki wrote: I hardly ever land with full flaps unless its a short field. Why? Unless I've some reason to do otherwise, I'll make every landing as slow and short (and precisely where I want to touch down) as possible. It's all good practice, and the slow part is being gentle on the airplane. I'll often only drop the full flaps on very short final, as I dislike dragging it in. But they're all the way down when I'm landing. Of course, now that I think on it, I've only 30 degrees of flaps. - Andrew What I don't understand is how the original poster didn't notice there was no pitch change or re-trim required following application of the missing flaps. It is almost 2nd nature to reach for the trim wheel right after selecting flaps in a Cessna so why didn't the poster notice that he didn't need to retrim? -- Jim Carter Rogers, Arkansas |
#46
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flaps
"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 |
#47
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flaps
Roy Smith wrote in
: Peter Clark wrote: The intent of the limitation - flaps have to be working - is obvious. They don't say you have to actually use them, but they do have to be in working order. There is some logic in this. All the Cessna AFMs I've seen (i.e. for various flavors of their piston singles) have nice detailed performance charts showing how much runway you need to land with various combinations of weight, temperature, elevation, wind, and phase of moon, but the numbers always are for full flaps. There is NO data on how much runway you need without flaps, therefor there is no way you can comply with 91.103 which requires that you familiarize yourself with the takeoff and landing distances. Now, you know, and I know, and every body hanging out in the airport coffee shop knows that you can land a 172 with no flaps on a 2000 foot paved runway without any problems (assuming you know what you're doing). But, that doesn't count when it comes to determining if the airplane is airworthy. Remember, airworthy is a state of paperwork, nothing more, nothing less. The POH for the 1977 C172N Skyhawk (D1082-13-RPC-1000-9/89) has exactly one landing table, on page 5-21, marked "Short Field". This table ONLY shows landing distance based on max weight of 2300 lbs. In Section 4 "Normal Procedures" on page 4-19, under "Normal Landing", the POH states "Normal landing approaches can be made with power-on or power-off with any flap setting desired." An interpretation of 91.103 requiring that you know how much runway you need to land or your not airworthy combined with the information provided in this POH implies that you can never legally land a 1977 C172N uless you are at max weight, doing a short field landing, full flaps, and have the capability of inflight refueling (or some other means of ensuring fuel burn doesn't reduce your weight below max) during the landing! I guess no one has ever landed an airworthy 1977 C172N! -- Marty Shapiro Silicon Rallye Inc. (remove SPAMNOT to email me) |
#48
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flaps
"Roy Smith" wrote in message
... Peter Clark wrote: The intent of the limitation - flaps have to be working - is obvious. They don't say you have to actually use them, but they do have to be in working order. There is some logic in this. All the Cessna AFMs I've seen (i.e. for various flavors of their piston singles) have nice detailed performance charts showing how much runway you need to land with various combinations of weight, temperature, elevation, wind, and phase of moon, but the numbers always are for full flaps. There is NO data on how much runway you need without flaps, therefor there is no way you can comply with 91.103 which requires that you familiarize yourself with the takeoff and landing distances. Now, you know, and I know, and every body hanging out in the airport coffee shop knows that you can land a 172 with no flaps on a 2000 foot paved runway without any problems (assuming you know what you're doing). But, that doesn't count when it comes to determining if the airplane is airworthy. Remember, airworthy is a state of paperwork, nothing more, nothing less. Since the '60s, '70s, and '80s models showed no flap landing data, and flaps were considered optional this question really boils down to what the POH says for the particular aircraft being flown. Students learning at busy commercial airports almost never used flaps as a normal procedure. Of course we taught recovery from fully developed spins to instructors back then also. Isn't it interesting that some modern aircraft could be considered out-of-service for inop flaps, but only a few years ago they were very optional. I imagine that today a DER or FSDO inspector would have a stroke if we used all 60 degrees we had on the old O-1s or rolled on a wheel landing with them at zero. -- Jim Carter Rogers, Arkansas |
#49
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flaps
"Bob Gardner" wrote in message
... IMHO, full flaps are called for on a normal landing...it is only when gusts or crosswinds raise their ugly heads that lesse deflections should be used. The goal is minimum speed at touchdown, and you are depriving yourself of a huge energy sink. Spend an hour or two landing on the numbers with the stall horn squalling. Bob Gardner ....but not in front of American, or Delta, or any of the others that need 100+ knots across the fence. There are way too many folks taking an absolute position on this topic. Flaps or no flaps depends on a whole lot of variables with wind being only one of them. Kobra however was intending on making a partial flap landing that was going in the ditch, but he didn't catch the clues until later. That's the point we should take away from this story. -- Jim Carter Rogers, Arkansas |
#50
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flaps
Now I had to get home. I called my mechanic and he said it could be many
things (it wasn't the breaker). He also said I was a complete wimp (he used a different word that began with a p) if I couldn't land that plane without the flaps on our 3,500 feet of runway. I took off and started to ponder the situation: I would fire that mechanic and never take my aircraft back to him. He talked you into flying an aircraft with a known problem that was un resolved. You had no idea why the flaps did not work, the "breaker was not popped" so you had no idea if the problem was electrical and if it could impact the rest of the aircrafts electrical system. You knowingly had problems in the traffic pattern and landing because you did not know the flaps were not working, and yet you took off on a night cross country in marginal weather to a relatively short runway based on your mechanic calling you a "wimp". A Cessna 310 just crashed into a house in Florida with an on board fire caused by an unknown ignition source.. was it electrical? Who knows, they may find out or they may not. Yes the aircraft can be flown safely without the use of flaps. Flaps were disabled, are they required? The aircraft was certified with flaps. I had a situation where the flaps failed in the extended position after landing. We , read mechanic and I, determined it was the flap switch. With the aid of a trusted mechanic, friend and FAA DAR and with the approval of the home flight school where I rented the aircraft. we were able to bypass the switch, and electrically charge the flap motor to raise the flaps. He promptly issued a ferry permit to allow me to fly back to home station for repairs to the flap switch with the flap motor circuit breaker pulled, limited to day VMC, luckily I was alone on the trip as ferry permits normally are single pilot no pax operations. JMHO BT |
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