Talking with a CFI about a 40deg 182 and he says that 40deg position is employed on short final or short field. Is the elevator still effective or will you stall it? I haven't flown it yet.
There's a lot of OWT out there about "blanking out" the Cessna tail in the older Cessnas with 40 degrees of flap, and probably a few circumstances where you could actually do it. Since it would create a nose-DOWN pitching moment if the elevator stalled, it'd get your attention right away.
From my experience, I've never seen that. The elevator itself loses a lot of effectiveness at the speeds you can land (slow) at with the 40 flap aircraft, and I think that's the "blanking" folks think they're seeing when they talk about it.
It just takes more movement of the elevator at low speeds, just like it takes more movement of the ailerons and the rudder too. On my 182, the elevator is well-known for feeling "heavy" at all speeds, and especially so at slow speeds. You work it with trim, and often... all of the up-trim you have is rolled in and you still need to give a good tug to flare... but that's only if you're SLOW and on-speed. If you come in 5-10 knots fast, the elevator is plenty effective and you'll porpoise and/or flare and hold off... and off... and off... with a big float.
The real-world difference between Flaps 30 and Flaps 40 is just that the aircraft will bleed off speed faster than Flaps 30 when the power's off. Thus, approach angle to get a stabilized speed on final is higher. The sight picture will look "funny" coming down faster to someone used to flying something without the giant boards out there slowing you down. It'll also take a handful of power if you're coming up short. You'll push some in, and grab a quick glance at the airspeed as you shove forward on the now-more-responsive elevator and see you're still slowing, then shove some more power in, and now you're pushing pretty hard forward with the yoke.
These are all completely normal and easy to talk about as aerodynamics exercises in text, but the easiest way to "see" it, is to go do some power-off descents with full-flaps in the practice area, trim for approach speed, and then attempt to level off at an altitude... you'll see how much power it needs to stay at that airspeed, and you'll get to see how the additional airflow over the elevator with the application of power will try to pitch the nose up drastically and you'll be pushing.
And remember, no one will MAKE you use Flaps 40 to land... you can always select 30, or 20... or 10... or none.
