Full flap takeoffs: why not?

[justplanecrazy]

The sad thing is if you look back, what you quoted is exactly what I've been saying since the top of page 2. I guess until you say that Cessna confirmed this 5 seconds ago on the phone, no-one will sit down and consider it a possibility. Not everything written on paper is a hard and fast rule, common sense will allow you to fly safer than simply memorizing numbers without thinking. There are situations where you don't have time to consult a book and have to use common sense to figure out what is the safest way to get out of the situation. Not thinking about why things are written and simply memorizing makes a pretty ignorant and dangerous pilot.

You're right, there's no doubt that many pilots don't understand a simple concept of short field take offs and the POH. It's yet another testament of the poor quality of pilots being turned out of todays flight schools. I'm surprised how many people don't even know the basics still after building enough time to step into a King Air. Its the blind leading the blind and maybe we're at a point now where we're so unskilled that we actually deserve the $7.50/hr.

[goldeneagle]

Anyway last month at Sim the PF accidentally tried a V1 cut without reading the checklist and subsequently attempted a single engine climb out, with a negative auto feather, and the flaps still at full. Guess what? After a GPWS warning or two, we crashed and died.

Guess it never crossed the co-jo's mind to actually step up to the plate, and do something to prevent the crash?

[co-joe]

Things happen pretty fast in the sim. Especially when your doing "batting practice". When I was the PF I treated every single takeoff like the real thing and followed every single checklist, but when I was the PNF, the PF decided checklists were not for sims, and were only for the real thing.

He brought up the powers without asking for the before takeoffs, so I prompted him and asked if he wanted to do them. "NO WE'RE GOING" was his response. I chuckled to myself and let him. Since my PNF duties required me to set max power, monitor engine instruments, call out V speeds, and the engine failure came at V1+1 so there wasn't much time.

We made lots of mistakes in the sim. That's what sims are for. And that's why they are the best place to train, so you can make mistakes, learn from them and on the next "at bat" correct them.

Taking off with full flap was a mistake. That's obvious to me. So was not using the fucking checklist, that won't happen again.

Now with this 20 flap thing. You guy are getting a little carried away here. "well what about 21% flap" or "well what about 22% flap"? Holy shit! Is it really that difficult to just follow procedures? Are you people that perfect that you can just make up your own wherever and whenever they suit you?

I'm not a bush pilot, but I have considerable experience "up north", and I never needed to use more that book numbers to get airborne. So what the @#$! are you people doing wrong? Are you over loading? Are you out of C of G? I mean those are just guidlines right? A/C manufacturers just make those to cover their asses so why follow any publisghed numbers? Let's just pick and choose what limitations we want to follow today.

And best of all let's insult anybody who advocates following the rules. They're obviously from the puppy mills of flight training and they can't think on their own.

[Cat Driver]

" That's funny. You say the hardest thing is learning when to say no, then in your own words tell us that you will do whatever it takes to get airborne!

My I never be one of your passengers or students .. I see now why TC put you out of business. WOW! "

Co-Joe the above comments by you demonstrates the futility of trying to discuss a subject such as flying airplanes with an anonymous person on an internet forum.

But I have decided to at least clarify one issue here, and then make some comments based on having been in aviation over five decades without ever having been violated for infractions of the rules nor ever having had to fill out an accident report.

First and most important my issues with TC had zero to do with flying or my qualifications to teach or do any other type of flying, my issues were strictly with several TC people in top management who were in the end found found guilty of acting unlawfully trying to protect a couple of their inspectors who were abusing the power of their office.

It is very unlikely you will be one of my students because I only teach professionals.

Having read all of your posts I will grant that you may have a PPC on a King Air.

However being in possesion of a Canadian PPC only means that you passed a ritual that showed on a given day you were able to demonstrate that you could perform at the level of a marginally skilled robot, it does not mean that you are a skilled pilot who understands the subject of how airplanes fly or how to fly them to their most efficient level.

Reading your posts are proof positive you do not understand even the most basic concepts of flying and I suspect your performance in an airplane would confirm that.

By the way Co-Pilot you would be wise to remain anonymous.

[justplanecrazy]

Taking off with full flap was a mistake. That's obvious to me. So was not using the fucking checklist, that won't happen again.

Now with this 20 flap thing. You guy are getting a little carried away here. "well what about 21% flap" or "well what about 22% flap"? Holy shit! Is it really that difficult to just follow procedures? Are you people that perfect that you can just make up your own wherever and whenever they suit you?

I'm not a bush pilot, but I have considerable experience "up north", and I never needed to use more that book numbers to get airborne. So what the @#$! are you people doing wrong? Are you over loading? Are you out of C of G? I mean those are just guidlines right? A/C manufacturers just make those to cover their asses so why follow any publisghed numbers? Let's just pick and choose what limitations we want to follow today.

And best of all let's insult anybody who advocates following the rules. They're obviously from the puppy mills of flight training and they can't think on their own.

Co-joe if you read the fu*$ing post you'd realise that Cessna themselves are telling you that the performance section is not a rule, nor does changing it void your insurance, nor is it a limitation. F$#k you make my head hurt. Pull out a POH before you say another word and you'll see a big old section called limitations. The numbers found in that section and only that section are the limit of the aircraft. As Cessna said themselves, individual aircraft will have different performance numbers and the numbers in a POH are based on a fleet of aircraft.

Co-joe, try getting more than 5 hours on floats or do some real bush flying and you'll understand why its important to know how to get maximum performance out of your aircraft. Until that time how about reading what is written and actually learning something. Listen to someone who flys a water bomber or a Cat and realise that maybe just maybe these individuals know more than you do.

You're worried about us telling students to do something that's not spelled out in a POH, telling us that we're exceeding the design limitations of an aircraft. Then after 3 pages of us making it painfully obvious that you know absolutely nothing about the design limits of an aircraft, you turn around and tell us that it doesn't make a difference if you use 10 or 20. You obviously have no idea what you're talking about and until you do we'd all appreciate it if you kept your comments to yourself.

I pray that you may always be a co-pilot so that at least one person in the cockpit knows what they're doing.

[Cat Driver]

Groupboard. I see we have another anonymous poster here cherry picking to prove a point that is not being discussed.

So once again with regard to flying a Cessna 172/180/185/206 on floats they all break water quicker with the application of 20 degrees of flap.

The use of flap to shorten the water run with Cessnas has been recognized as a means to cut down on the time on the water at full power ever since bush pilots flew these machines, my comments on using 20 degrees of flap in this thread was based on float flying.

Flap settings are at the discression of the pilot. Flap settings are not limiting, they are performance issues.

I have no idea what I said to you in the past but you obviously are another ignorant ill informed poster because you not only seem to be ignorant of flying but you sure as hell don't know sweet fu.k all about my dealings with TC.

So shut the fuc. up and quit making stupid comments.

TC did not shut me down for anything pertaining to flying...teaching flying or anything else concerned with flying.

How in fu.k could TC shut down something that did not exist? Are you so fu.kin stupid you can't read or think....I WAS NOT INSTRUCTING NOR FLYING IN CANADA WHEN I HAD MY PROBLEM WITH TC.

My problem with TC had nothing to do with my flying or any other issue surounding flying.


And once again how fu.king stupid can you be to wish TC is reading this thread, what exactly are they going to do?

Jeses I get tired of arguing with people who haven't a clue, but I can see why you guys work for peanuts hell I'm suprised you are even paid period if in fact you do fly commercially.

Cat

[Cat Driver]

Double post

[gr8gazu]

Double post

Should have left it in Cat. It was worthy of repeat!

We have to keep in mind that some just don't want to learn from others experience. They need to do it on their own! Either way, we need them around if for nothing else but keeping the statistics up!

[co-joe]

Groupboard. I see we have another anonymous poster here cherry picking to prove a point that is not being discussed.

So once again with regard to flying a Cessna 172/180/185/206 on floats they all break water quicker with the application of 20 degrees of flap.

The use of flap to shorten the water run with Cessnas has been recognized as a means to cut down on the time on the water at full power ever since bush pilots flew these machines, my comments on using 20 degrees of flap in this thread was based on float flying.

...

Cat

Yeah okay Cat. We get you.

Folks if you fly floats and you want to use whatever flap setting your boss, or the owner of the aircraft you fly says to use, then bob's you'r uncle. Have at er. Really Cat. I could care less. I'm not ever going to fly with you so I don't care.


Now back to the original post before the hijack.

Q: Why can't you take off with FULL FLAP?

A: Because;

a) the additional lift created by full flap selection is far overcome by the additional induced drag once out of ground effect.

b) Additional drag decreases climb performance, and decreases your chance of a successful return to the water or earth in the even of an engine failre at the critical moment.

c) If the flap moter takes that moment to pack it in, (and why not? most shitty things happen at the worst possible time) you're stuck with an aircraft that probably won't climb out of ground effect. Oh Shit! Eh?

You float guys do whatever you want. Cat you have survived this long, you must be doing a thing or two right. But the fact is the lessons you posess are far better taught to advanced pontoon students later on in their training, not here for anyone to pick up and kill themselves with.

IMHO, (that's in my humble opinion)

Blue skies, safe flights, and beers when it's all over.

CJ

[Cat Driver]

" Cat you have survived this long, you must be doing a thing or two right. "

Now thats simply profound.

[justplanecrazy]

And yet another moron rookie pilot steps up to the plate to tell a brilliant, very talented and experienced pilot how to really fly a plane. Thanks for the thoughts groupboard. I especially like how you took a comment from a completely different thread relating to aircraft limits and tied it into Cat being an idiot that contradicts himself. Have you ever thought of becoming a political journalist or shooting yourself in your left temple????

Co-joe, thanks for sumarizing how to fly. IMHO if you teach a student nothing but the book you teach him nothing but some numbers and you do not teach them how to fly. You brought up a good point about the BE20 POH not having a gear down stall recovery in another thread. If it was one of Cat's students, he'd take a look at it and say simply well first you have to break the stall, then you want to change from landing to short field take-off config. There's no need to have it in the POH, it is simply common sense. It's not very hard to teach common sense to the average human. Unfortunately this thread demonstrated that the average human here on AvCanada, is a little behind the public average. You know you've mastered your machine when you develop skills to be able to fly safer in all conditions. Skills that aren't spelled out in a POH, skills that can be handed down from people with a million hours, on a 100 different birds, in all conditions with no blemishes on their licence after 50 years of flying. So if someone like this speaks, open your ears and listen, sure question but don't be a complete moron and tell him that he doesn't know what he's talking about. Question it so that you might understand more clearly what he is saying and why. I think the last 50 years demonstrates that he knows what he's talking about. Teaching common sense and 20 degrees of flaps will not kill anyone, not even a brand new student, give it a rest. There are some things that students shouldn't be taught in their first 10 hours, such as a wake turbulence waiver, but taking off with 20 degrees of flaps is no more difficult than 0.

[groupboard]

And yet another moron rookie pilot steps up to the plate to tell a brilliant, very talented and experienced pilot how to really fly a plane.

Rookie? I don't think so. I probably have some fewer years flying experience than Cat, but anyone reading this would think he was the rookie pilot. How he has managed to stay alive all these years I don't know.

[mellow_pilot]

http://www.google.ca/search?q=.+ell ... S:official

I'm looking, I'm looking.... 4 pages of results and I can't find what you're banging on about. Why not post it so we can all see? Could it be that the site doesn't actually support your claims? Why didn't you just post the relevant information?

I'm not calling you a liar, but if I'm going to tell people to google something, like it's so obvious and there for anyone to read, I'm gonna make sure it's there.

[mellow_pilot]

Ok, I thought I'd do the old benefit of the doubt thing. I looked up this underground.tc.ca, and seems it's gone underground. I can't get on to it, browser says it's not there.

What gives?

[Cat Driver]

Deleted

[Rowdy]

Having done most of my float flying in a C180 (much along the lines of a 172 right?) and a bit IN a 172.. I can attest to the fact that a PROPERLY loaded 180 at gross with a proper c of g and ideal conditions will not come off the water with 10 Flap! I've been there and tried that for arguments sake. With a mild load the machine will come off but it sure takes a LOT of room and during that time you're beating up the floats/attachments and prop/engine at the high power settings used for takeoff.

As someone stated before 20 flap for takeoff is NOT illegal, the manufacturer admits it's not a limitation, it will not cause your insurance to become invalid and I doubt a TC inspector is going to shit a brick if they see you doing this (I bet they probably can't even tell how much flap you're using if they were to watch) It's not even a design limit. However.. I would not recomend climbing with 20 flap, once you've broken water and have attained the desired climb speed (we usually climb with a bit more speed for safetys sake) flaps would be retracted.. sometimes to 10 degrees.. sometimes all the way (depending on the situation)

Cat, you're 100% on the ball with this one and I thought Goldeneagles posts were fantastic. Truly well written and with a great knowledge base.

It all boils down to being safe, efficient and effective. PDM at it's best. Using 20 flap in a cessna is MORE EFFICIENT and much safer in my humble opinion. I mean.. why beat the airplane up? However this is not true for all aircraft.

As for the initial question.. I'm sure for the most part that full flap takeoffs in MOST aircraft are probably not the brightest idea.. there are however always exceptions. Dehavilland products seem to come to mind.. Anyone care to share insights with someone who has very little experience in them?

Co-joe.. why the attacks? You lost a lot of my respect very quickly.. the forum is here to discuss these issues not to sling mud at each other or brag about the craft you're flying. I was actually kinda shocked at a few of your comments.

So take care and keep that shiney side up

cheers!

[groupboard]

http://www.google.ca/search?q=.+ell ... S:official

I'm looking, I'm looking.... 4 pages of results and I can't find what you're banging on about. Why not post it so we can all see? Could it be that the site doesn't actually support your claims? Why didn't you just post the relevant information?

I'm not calling you a liar, but if I'm going to tell people to google something, like it's so obvious and there for anyone to read, I'm gonna make sure it's there.

Sorry - try searching for ". ." (in quote) and "operating certificate" and 152. Then click on the cached link, as the site itself is down. Here is the link:

http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:AGY ... =clnk&cd=1

PS to Cat: I haven't tried to hide my identity - I'm sure you could figure it out if you spent 5 minutes. And I haven't posted on here as anyone else. Ask the moderators to search for posts from my ip address and they will confirm it.

[Cat Driver]

Deleted

[Cat Driver]

Deleted

[groupboard]

Was it you who highlited " Operating Certificate" and " Cessna 152" in the link to TC Underground in my post dated May 23/ 2003 at 7:06 PM?

I didn't know what you meant for a while...

Don't worry - it is only highlighting those phrases because I searched for them. If you look at the link I posted, you'll see the phrases there. You can probably change the link so that it only displays the cached article without highlighting the search phrases.

[Cat Driver]

deleted

[groupboard]

groupboard, it was your comments regarding the propellor incident that leads me to believe you are deliberately trying to harm me personally by posting something not only false but totally out of context to what transpired between me and TC.

Cat,

I'm not out to harm anyone, and if I haven't got the full gist of what happened, it is only because of the confusing way you have posted about it.

Just one point: if everything has been sorted out and the inspector who harrassed you has been fired, how come you still post so many rants about TC all the time? And I'm pretty sure you recently posted saying that TC had illegally banned you from ever doing flight training in Canada (although I can't find those posts now). Or has that been sorted out?

[sky's the limit]

Well if I can't get airborne in a 172 on floats...with all of my 5 hours on floats, I'd say I'd taxi back to the dock, try not to nut myself on the "jesus wire" on the way to tying up your underpowered or overloaded wheel plane on floats, and:

a) take less cargo, or less fuel.
b) wait for cooler temperatures, or more ideal conditions.
or
c) sell the customer the 185 as this is obviously not a trip for a 172.

If you hand me a pink slip...oh well, I'm dry, and not dead, and well I have fresh PPC's on 2 king airs so what am I doing trying to fly floats for a living anyway?

CL guy, with respect:

just because the Duck needs full flap to get out of the water in the summer fully loaded doesn't make it a good idea for a 45 hour CPL student to try it in a buck seventy two (IMHO).

If one of your radials packs it in you can dump your load and instantly be thousands of pounds lighter, they can't.

As a side note, there was a guy at CYBW who used to tell me that taking off with 20 flap in the 172 worked great!

He's dead now.

Not from taking off with too much flap mind you, but rather from using piss poor PDM and taking off to do a mountain check on a day soo windy that nobody else left the ground at the whole of CYBW.

I came to this thread a little bit late, so forgive me....


Co-joe, I'm lost for words... and that's fairly impressive for me. You so obviously have no idea about anything beyond pavement to pavement flying, and even there, I think if you were my f/o in said King Air, I'd ask you to step outside at FL250. It's the generation of pilots with your attitde that make me long for the days where A/C are fully automated...

Wow.

STL

[Cat Driver]

Deleted

[groupboard]

O.K. groupboard, you are obviously lacking in reading and comprehension skills, or mentally defficient.

But that does not give you the license to post damaging insinuations about me and my career on an internet site.

I have already offered you the option of finding out what transpired between me and TC.

As I said, I was merely summarising what you posted yourself. If I can't figure out what your problem is with TC, it's because you have never posted a summary of it yourself. You have only posted various rants, and the general impression given from your rants is that TC is in the right and you are just a paranoid, arrogant bully. Certainly many of your posts here are arrogant and bullying, and whenever you disagree with any low-time pilots you and your buddies here rip them apart. And you have a lot of nerve calling me mentally deficient after posting once saying that you should always follow the POH recommendations with regard to takeoff flap, and another post a few weeks later saying that you can ignore the performance section if you want because it won't void your insurance and isn't a design limitation. You still haven't replied to that.

Here is a suggestion: why not post a summary of exactly what happened between you and TC? It's not up to me or anyone else here to investigate it. We are just going on the few bits of the story that you have posted over the years. Why not tell us once and for all exactly what happened? Maybe TC can reply with their side of the story.