Flap retraction on landing

FastEddieB said:
91.205, required equipment for IFR includes...

(8) Gyroscopic pitch and bank indicator (artificial horizon).


I do not know when that was instituted.
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Huh, ok. 38 of my 40 hrs of IR training were needle ball and airspeed w/altimeter, VSI, and a single KX-170B so I recognized it as IFR right away.:D:lol:;) The vacuum system on that 172 was atrocious and broke after take off on almost every flight.:mad2::rofl:

The change in rule doesn't really affect me though, I won't likely fly IFR without SVT glass again, and I most certainly wouldn't take off into IMC without an Attitude Indicator.

BTW, what did CFIs do to 'fail instruments' before Post It notes.:dunno:
 
Back to the original question, I normally retract the flaps as soon as I'm planted on the runway in my Arrow or in a 172. In an older Bo or a Debonair, I don't touch anything until I'm off the runway and stopped. The flap lever is too close to and looks too much like the gear lever.
 
DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING UNTIL SLOWED to taxi speed or clear of runway.

Airlines don't let there pilots do anything that isn't essential to landing until taxi speed or clear of runway.

In a retract plane the chance of lifting the gear up instead of the flaps is very real and yes there are a lot of pilots with more skill and total time than you who have done it even in planes where the switches are separated by a significant difference.

Anyone that does "cockpit gymnastics" upon landing needs to watch a pro crew in front seat of a airliner. Smooth and small movements.

Hit your speeds right and don't come in faster than book speed and the plane will do what you want it to do.
 
Aaronk25 said:
DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING UNTIL SLOWED to taxi speed or clear of runway.
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Anyone that does "cockpit gymnastics" upon landing needs to watch a pro crew in front seat of a airliner. Smooth and small movements.
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It's a mistake to assume that what might be right in a heavy transport airliner would necessarily carry over to proper procedure in a light plane.
Dumping flaps on rollout in something like a Skywagon has the advantage of allowing more effective braking and less susceptibility to wind gusts with virtually no disadvantages. That I suspect is why when Cessna made the PR move to electric flaps on their light singles they retained the manual "Johnson bar" in the Skywagon. Professional bush pilots and Ranchers/Farmers alike prefer it so they can deploy/retract flaps in known increments by feel alone and without having to wait for that dumb little electric motor. They (we) treat the flaps as just another flight control.
 
Aaronk25 said:
DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING UNTIL SLOWED to taxi speed or clear of runway.

Airlines don't let there pilots do anything that isn't essential to landing until taxi speed or clear of runway.
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I have been on more than one airliner that performed cleanup while still on the runway. And have also witnessed it happen right after or during the time the thrust reversers were still active. So, that's Bologna.

Fearless Tower said:
Exactly. They are unfortunately waaaay too common in pre-85 Beech airplanes.
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So if it was common on ONE type and a certain vintage, why is it now standard practice across the fleet of many brands, etc? That's how OWTs start.
 
We debated this for sometime over on Mooneyspace then a 747 captain weighed in and explained they don't retract flaps until after clear of runway.

A mooney is a plane where any excess speed will cause significant floating, even in a mooney if numbers are crossed at correct speed it won't float.

I'd much prefer to "drag it in on" the prop and do a carrier landing than be flipping switches during a critical phase of flight, if that type of short field performance is needed.
 
Jaybird180 said:
I have been on more than one airliner that performed cleanup while still on the runway. And have also witnessed it happen right after or during the time the thrust reversers were still active. So, that's Bologna.



So if it was common on ONE type and a certain vintage, why is it now standard practice across the fleet of many brands, etc? That's how OWTs start.
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It was probably a younger flight crew and they also probably started every radio call with "xyz with you at....."
 
Aaronk25 said:
It was probably a younger flight crew and they also probably started every radio call with "xyz with you at....."
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The point is that it happens and it defeats your argument that 'they don't do it'. I've witnessed this on more than one occasion.
 
Lord forgive me, but I've also been known to turn off carb heat immediately after landing. Paired actions:

"Push" (carb heat)
"Flip up" (flap switch)

My pseudo-religious incantation on landing - either immediately or as I'm turning off the runway. Rare for me to do one without the other.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Lord forgive me, but I've also been known to turn off carb heat immediately after landing. Paired actions:

"Push" (carb heat)
"Flip up" (flap switch)

My pseudo-religious incantation on landing - either immediately or as I'm turning off the runway. Rare for me to do one without the other.
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This action helps preserve the engine as carb-heat also bypasses filtration.
 
Jaybird180 said:
The point is that it happens and it defeats your argument that 'they don't do it'. I've witnessed this on more than one occasion.
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Do you actually fly airplanes or just troll around looking for arguments?

If a commercial captain did that in the simulator .....it would be the end of the ride.
 
Silvaire said:
In the first Bonanza every switch looked identical, even the ashtray looked the same as the switches.
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Sweet! That is likely what mine looked like. But I no longer have the AM radio or the antenna in the tail.

By the way - there is a video somewhere of a light 2 seat aircraft that is parked in a high wind. Eventually it lifts off, rolls over and crashes - no movement other than vertical. (Sorry - can't find the video right now.
 

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Aaronk25 said:
Do you actually fly airplanes or just troll around looking for arguments?

If a commercial captain did that in the simulator .....it would be the end of the ride.
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Seriously....Didn't you just get here?
Look- It happens. Get over yourself.
 
Jaybird180 said:
So if it was common on ONE type and a certain vintage, why is it now standard practice across the fleet of many brands, etc? That's how OWTs start.
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It is not one type. It was a whole manufacturer. For several decades Beech put the flap and gear switches on opposite sides of the engine controls as most other manufacturers. Consequently, Beech airplanes of those years suffer a higher inadvertent gear retraction rate. That is not an OWT. The NTSB even did an entire study of the problem prompting Beech to change the design in the mid-80s.
 
jsstevens said:
I thought needle was compass?

John
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No, the needle is the gyroscopic instrument, you need one, a Turn Indicator is sufficient and it backs up with a swinging compass for turn. You have altimeter and airspeed to use for pitch, and the ball for yaw. The VSI is gravy.
 
I only know personally of three gear up. One was a beech bonanza which the owner used as a shuttle to national airport. (22000 hours including corsair pilot time) In a hurry, late to meet a flight he simply gear upped it . Known so well and liked, it was jacked up , put in a hangar, new prop flown over from eastern shore, bolted on, flown home. Two. Was an MU2 , bright red which landed 22 at easton maryland while I held in my Stearman. He made a real smooth gear up landing with lots of sparks! It was jacked up, gear extended, flown back to Massachusetts that way. Amazing to me as I sat there! Third, friend and son both rated high time pilots son landed dads lance air not long ago, conversing, gear upped it at martin state. Insurance paid him.
 
Fearless Tower said:
It is not one type. It was a whole manufacturer. For several decades Beech put the flap and gear switches on opposite sides of the engine controls as most other manufacturers. Consequently, Beech airplanes of those years suffer a higher inadvertent gear retraction rate. That is not an OWT. The NTSB even did an entire study of the problem prompting Beech to change the design in the mid-80s.
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Not to mention non-standard arrangement of throttles, mixture and prop levers on the Beech twins. That was even more confusing, IMO.
 
Pilawt said:
Not to mention non-standard arrangement of throttles, mixture and prop levers on the Beech twins. That was even more confusing, IMO.
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Not really, the layout of p-T-m is the one you will see in most all the recip multis prior. They just maintained the standard when others used the later developed lay out. Get in a DC-3 from a BE-95(-55) and the handles are in the correct place, same for BE-18.
 
Went out today, Cessna 172 w/30 degree flap max. My normal procedure is retract flaps after clearing runway. I tried it out retracting after touchdown and directional control. Airplane slowed down much faster after flaps retracted. Just an observation, I love these kind of threads.
 
Fearless Tower said:
It is not one type. It was a whole manufacturer. For several decades Beech put the flap and gear switches on opposite sides of the engine controls as most other manufacturers. Consequently, Beech airplanes of those years suffer a higher inadvertent gear retraction rate. That is not an OWT. The NTSB even did an entire study of the problem prompting Beech to change the design in the mid-80s.
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What I'm saying is that the problem was a poor Beechcraft design that favored aesthetics (if you want to call it that) and sacrificed ergonomic function. The industry responded by telling pilots not to touch anything until clear of the runway, regardless of manufacturer or type. It's similar to "the prohibition" of slipping with flaps. That's OWT status.
 
Jaybird180 said:
What I'm saying is that the problem was a poor Beechcraft design that favored aesthetics (if you want to call it that) and sacrificed ergonomic function. The industry responded by telling pilots not to touch anything until clear of the runway, regardless of manufacturer or type. It's similar to "the prohibition" of slipping with flaps. That's OWT status.
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Keep in mind, back then, no one thought about 'ergonomics'.

I do agree that it is silly to apply the Beech lesson to something like a Piper with Johnson bar flaps.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Keep in mind, back then, no one thought about 'ergonomics'.

I do agree that it is silly to apply the Beech lesson to something like a Piper with Johnson bar flaps.
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What about a when you then get in a Mooney with Johnston Bar gear?
 
Hmm, you slow down faster with flaps retracted? Less low-speed lift with the flaps up = more friction with the ground? Before reading this my assumption was always that they would add drag and slow you down faster.

Seeing as how I'm fixed gear is this a good short field procedure to have in my back pocket?
 
cowman said:
Hmm, you slow down faster with flaps retracted? Less low-speed lift with the flaps up = more friction with the ground? Before reading this my assumption was always that they would add drag and slow you down faster.

Seeing as how I'm fixed gear is this a good short field procedure to have in my back pocket?
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Depends on the plane & the flap configuration, but generally yes.
 
Henning said:
What about a when you then get in a Mooney with Johnston Bar gear?
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What about it? I've flown a super 21 quite a bit. Get it on the ground, dump the flaps, no problem. Same with a 201 with electric. If one is familiar with the airplane it's not a big deal. If one is not familiar, I suppose one could screw up. Personally I've never heard of anyone retracting the gear once on the ground.only failure to put gear down in the first place. I was trained to get rid of the flaps on touchdown. Controll was not a problem for me and I'm not a high time pilot with only 4500 hours total. It's a shame anyone would be "repelled" by the looks of a mooney.i think they are not only great looking but well designed and a real hoot to fly! You've missed a great ride!
 
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cowman said:
Hmm, you slow down faster with flaps retracted? Less low-speed lift with the flaps up = more friction with the ground? Before reading this my assumption was always that they would add drag and slow you down faster.

Seeing as how I'm fixed gear is this a good short field procedure to have in my back pocket?
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If you need to get on the brakes hard right away to save your ass, yes, it is a technique to have in your pocket. The factor you need to weigh is the cost and consequence of distraction. 99.7% of the time it won't really matter either way which choice you make, but in those 0.3% of times, you want to be making the correct choice. If there is plenty of runway and control is the issue, the distraction of immediately reconfiguring the flaps immediately on touch down, and that means as, or just before the first wheel hits, the flaps are coming up; not once with all wheels down and stable, may not be the most beneficial choice you make if it leads to an excursion from the runway you can't recover from regardless traction.

Now if you're sticking it into a football field, hell yes, I would be picking up the flaps in my flare to counter the ground effect and let it drop the last meter and fall in then stand on the brakes. Hopefully I will collapse the gear and let that dissipate as much of my kinetic energy as possible without exceeding hopefully an 18g vertical component of impact. The more energy I can dissipate early, the less energy I will carry into a terminal end like a concrete retaining wall. The only chance I have to trade sacrificial airframe structure like landing gear for energy reduction is in the landing impact. This is why one needs to be well versed in operating at the bottom of the speed envelope, you have one chance to get it stopped or at least survivably slowed down in time. To do this you need to be able to hit a point reliably at minimum speed. In a GA plane I would look to hit in at a 20° angle or less, nose high, with a 700-900fpm rate of sink.That should crush but not overwhelmingly obliterate the gear, keeps that vector of deceleration below 25g.

People always say it's tougher to stay safe in a twin due to proficiency issues, but that's not really accurate. The single engine pilot needs to spend just as much time practicing to maintain proficiency to a 'safe' level, it's just that the SE driver has different drills and different risks to prepare for. "Pick a spot and land ahead" is a concept that belies the complexity of its execution. You need to be well versed in bottom of the envelope energy management.
 
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Jimmy cooper said:
What about it? I've flown a super 21 quite a bit. Get it on the ground, dump the flaps, no problem. Same with a 201 with electric. If one is familiar with the airplane it's not a big deal. If one is not familiar, I suppose one could screw up. Personally I've never heard of anyone retracting the gear once on the ground.only failure to put gear down in the first place. I was trained to get rid of the flaps on touchdown. Controll was not a problem for me and I'm not a high time pilot with only 4500 hours total. It's a shame anyone would be "repelled" by the looks of a mooney.i think they are not only great looking but well designed and a real hoot to fly! You've missed a great ride!
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I offered the advise of not retracting the flaps on roll out because a couple mooney pilots and I also did it.

For the squat switch to work, the plane has to be slowed way down to transfer a significant portion of weight to the mains.

Don't ask me how I did it but I was flying 300 hours a year and was also wearing my sales manager hat. Well the gear switch is at the top of panel, flaps at the bottom near mixture, but something sparkles was rolling though the grass and I was thinking about a upcoming deal as the wheels touch down and the only thing I can think of is the flap switch and gear both go up....well the complacency trap got me as I intended to lift up the flaps and I flip the gear switch up instead.....

Complacency is a b$tch. One of those deal where I was a 700 hour pilot that new it all and flying so much landings were getting routine. I broke 1/2 of my concentration for a split second.

Anyway, I can bring a mooney to a stop in 900 ft if need be without retracting the flaps and given most of our runways are 3000-10000ft long...so why!?!?

Anyway do what you want but I'd urge all to hit the speed correctly and land.
 
cowman said:
Hmm, you slow down faster with flaps retracted? Less low-speed lift with the flaps up = more friction with the ground? Before reading this my assumption was always that they would add drag and slow you down faster.

Seeing as how I'm fixed gear is this a good short field procedure to have in my back pocket?
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Some technical background from here:

http://adg.stanford.edu/aa241/performance/landing.html
Although flap drag plays a significant role in the air run, the pilot's control of the throttles is: usually more important. If more power is maintained during the air run, the effect is the same as a higher effective L/D ratio. Furthermore, the touchdown speed is important since the wheel brakes are much more effective in retarding the airplane than the air drag during the air run. The sooner the airplane touches down and starts braking, the shorter the total distance will be. Thus,the human factor plays a large role in landing distances. The official landing distance is partly a reflection of how hard the flight test pilot worked to optimize the landing. In practice, this is dependent on how important the landing field length is to the usefulness of the airplane.If the landing distance is much shorter than the take-off distance, a little longer flight test landing may not be detrimental.

Mechanical devices have a large influence on landing distances. Automatic spoilers are operated by the rotation of the wheels at touch-down. The spoilers greatly decrease the lift, dump the weight on the wheels and thereby make the brakes effective. Manual spoilers, operated by the pilot, involve a delay. Even two seconds at speeds of 200 ft/sec. can increase the stopping distance by almost 400 ft. Including the safety factor of 67%, the effect on the field length can be close to 600 ft. With one exception, the curves on the figure are for automatic spoilers. In the 747 example on the chart, manual spoilers are shown to cost 400 ft. in field length. The adjustment of anti-skid braking systems can also affect the average braking coefficient of friction during the deceleration.
​
 
More mooney lore is how hard it is to land them. 900 foot rollout is not a big deal if you are familiar with the airplane. Most come in too hot and the mooney will float on a lot if you don't mange your speed. They even went to spoilers on some models, to combat this supposed problem which wasn't one if you were familiar with the airplane. The raising of the flaps was probably a hold over from gravel runways which could really screw up the underside if you gunned it with the flaps down all the way. It's the way I was checked out so I did it and never had a problem.
 
As jimmy alluded to, the mooney is a plane where if your 3kts fast and pitch up a couple degrees, as if attempting to flare, it will literally go back up several ft, especially in ground effect. If slowed down it lands like the others.

I think many pilots are use to 172s and pipers where they will still balloon but not unless your significantly fast.
 
It appears there are two camps. One believes that retracting the flaps immediately upon landing is the best thing since sliced bread and the other thinks meh...

After nearly 200 posts nobody has changed their mind.
 
Silvaire said:
It appears there are two camps. One believes that retracting the flaps immediately upon landing is the best thing since sliced bread and the other thinks meh...



After nearly 200 posts nobody has changed their mind.
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You missed the camp that says retract right at touchdown isn't usually necessary but neither is it necessary to come to a stop on a taxiway before one's brain can process how to move a handle. :)

(There's a bunch of us just ignoring this thread because it's about the extremes.)
 
Silvaire said:
It appears there are two camps. One believes that retracting the flaps immediately upon landing is the best thing since sliced bread and the other thinks meh...

After nearly 200 posts nobody has changed their mind.
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It's not something that really needs changing of mind on, like I said, 99.7% of the time it will be irrelevant, whichever you are most comfortable with is the one you should use. Just be aware of the properties and products of the other method in those instances when they may serve you better. A good pilot has as as full a tool bag as they can pack, and always uses the best tool for the job in front of them.
 
denverpilot said:
You missed the camp that says retract right at touchdown isn't usually necessary but neither is it necessary to come to a stop on a taxiway before one's brain can process how to move a handle. :)

(There's a bunch of us just ignoring this thread because it's about the extremes.)
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Hey to clarify I'm in the camp of do cockpit chores once the plane is slowed down to taxi speed, not necessarily clear of runway and stopped....
 
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