Big Pistons Forever wrote:I generally find if you want to influence people insulting them is not very likely to convince them of anything than other than a strong desire to tune you out.
I'm not concerned about influencing too many people, least of all, anonymous folks on the internet, but I did not intend to insult anyone.
Big Pistons Forever wrote:As I have said in other posts "one size fits all " pronouncement usually don't provide much insight. So saying that every landing in every kind of aircraft under every condition has to be done with full flaps, or you are doing it "wrong" is for me, an unconvincing argument
I certainly never said that every landing in every aircraft under every condition MUST be, or even SHOULD be done full flap or that doing otherwise is wrong. (In fact, I can think of a fairly common operational situation in a certain aircraft type in which I usually land with take off flap.) I was just pointing out that, in my experience as it relates to the topic of gusting crosswinds, it CAN be done without compromising safety or the controllability of the types of aircraft with which I am familiar, and therefore I think it would be ignorant to suggest that doing so is improper technique.
I think you and I are actually trying to make the same point here. I am bothered by the all too common pronouncements like proper crosswind technique is to use reduced flaps and if it's gusting, come in extra fast. It's not necessarily the espoused technique that bothers me as much as the fact that usually when I hear it, it is being put forth as some sort of incontrovertible truth and I just so happen to be a non-believer in this particular dogma. Personally, I think it's little more than a false sense of security, but if a person needs some extra warm and fuzzies on approach, that's really none of my concern.
Big Pistons Forever wrote:My personal experience is use of flaps should be decided by conscious choice and for light aircraft is heavily influenced by the type of flap and the experience level of the pilot. So for instance I make every landing in my Grumman AA1B with full flaps because the small simple non slotted flaps don't have a big impact on the landing. However if I am flying a Cessna C 172 with 40 degree flaps I tend to use a reduced flap setting in crosswinds.
The reason for this is that the flaps are very powerful and that to get a proper tail low landing the airspeed at touchdown must be around 50 knots. Less flaps allows the same landing attitude with a high speed which gives more aileron effectiveness, more rudder effectiveness due to reduce rudder blanking and less severe crosswind effects. I could land with full flaps but why would I want to do that when my personal experience is that reduced flap equals better landings.
For less experienced pilots my personal experience over 29 + years of instructing was that students did better with reduced flaps when conducting cross wind landings in Cessna trainers.
See, you are making my point for me. You evidently have significant experience and know what you are talking about. You can use that experience in conjunction with your knowledge to develop an appropriate, sound, defensible technique that works for you. You are not just ignorantly regurgitating something that someone ignorantly regurgitated at you once.