Touch & Gos - do you visually confirm flaps up?

Its like an automatic motion embedded in my brain even if its a full stop taxi to the ramp.
Airplane lands, directional control maintained, airplane slowed, flaps go up. If I'm doing a touch and go I do a quick left and right glance to confirm they are moving up in the right direction.
Everybody's got their own technique and that's fine, but you might want to consider that many people consider touching the flap lever while rolling, to be very risky. It's when we start touching controls automatically without thinking, that planes wind up sitting on their belly on the runway.
 
it allows more repetitions. If counting landings is the goal, I'll give you that. Whether or not that represents quicker learning is debatable. I've never met a strident proponent of T&G's who has ever actually tried to teach without them. Meantime the students of CFI's who avoid them, seem to progress just fine.

This is about flaps during T&Gs, not T&Gs themselves.
 
This is about flaps during T&Gs, not T&Gs themselves.
Right. As far as I can tell, the thread is about reconfiguring the airplane while moving at high speed in close proximity to obstacles, and the associated debate about whether or not one should check to verify that the airplane is configured correctly for flight during this process, or just take it on faith that everything will work out ok.
 
Everybody's got their own technique and that's fine, but you might want to consider that many people consider touching the flap lever while rolling, to be very risky. It's when we start touching controls automatically without thinking, that planes wind up sitting on their belly on the runway.

If one confuses a Johnson Bar flap lever on the floor for a gear switch on the panel, they probably shouldn't be anywhere near a plane. If I ever belly up my Comanche because I retracted the gear instead of flaps, just put two in the back of my head because my mental faculties have probably left me, and I will mistake a turd in the toilet for a slice of apple pie on the counter.
 
Right. As far as I can tell, the thread is about reconfiguring the airplane while moving at high speed in close proximity to obstacles, and the associated debate about whether or not one should check to verify that the airplane is configured correctly for flight during this process, or just take it on faith that everything will work out ok.

'Highspeed' being slower than stall speed in landing config and 'close proximity to obstacles' being on the runway....

Have you looked into grinding axes for a living?
 
Everybody's got their own technique and that's fine, but you might want to consider that many people consider touching the flap lever while rolling, to be very risky. It's when we start touching controls automatically without thinking, that planes wind up sitting on their belly on the runway.

I do not touch anything before I make sure I have positive directional control of the aircraft and on center line. If I do not, I stop the airplane and turn off the first runway exit.
 
Right. As far as I can tell, the thread is about reconfiguring the airplane while moving at high speed in close proximity to obstacles, and the associated debate about whether or not one should check to verify that the airplane is configured correctly for flight during this process, or just take it on faith that everything will work out ok.

I throw my hands up and let "Jesus take the wheel" :yesnod:
 
I throw my hands up and let "Jesus take the wheel" :yesnod:

Lol. Me too, but I do it at the ramp before flight. Despite being offered each and every flight he has yet to take me up on it and instead I have to rely on myself.
 
I teach students to "glance" at them as they're retracting. After awhile they get used to the electric motor sound but still take a glance. Cessnas have different type retraction handles on older models while the newer ones have the detents for every 10 degree flaps. The old ones can get you into trouble if you're not careful. Had a student once who jointly owned an older C172 and the two of them went flying. The student was used to the flap handle on a C152 we were using for instruction where moving it all the way up fully retracted the flaps. He did the same thing on the C172 which had a more spring loaded flap handle and thought the flaps would fully retract when actually you had to hold the handle up to fully retract the flaps. They actually barely moved, they went off the left side of the runway and flipped over, totaling their plane. Needless to say they both could have used some instruction in that plane as they had just bought it.
 
This thread is making me love my manual flaps more and more.

They're so simple a caveman can do it.
 
This thread is making me love my manual flaps more and more.

They're so simple a caveman can do it.


I had Johnson bar flaps do something squirrelly to me once. The handle slipped out of my hand. Hah.

I was raising them, so they just trailed at about half flap after wobbling back and forth slightly.

Grabbed the handle again and shoved it to the up lock and chastised myself for not hanging on tight enough. No harm no foul. :)
 
This thread is making me love my manual flaps more and more.

They're so simple a caveman can do it.

I fly a C-172C model some of the time and I'm with you: I love Johnson Bar flaps!

John
 
I've always thought that intentional T&G's were a foolish and unnecessary risk. A friend of mine didn't agree, until he died when he got split flaps on his comanche. Maybe he agrees now, then again maybe not, he was pretty stubborn. But being a coward, if i was going to do such a thing I'd sure as heck take a glance to make sure both flaps were moving.

Used to to T&Gs with simper aircraft. And yeah, I loved the Johnson bar flaps in my Cherokee. I like the Johnson bar gear in my Mooney better. I won't be doing any T&Gs in that. A bit too much to do in a bit too little time.
 
I fly a C-172C model some of the time and I'm with you: I love Johnson Bar flaps!

John


If I had a magic wand I would probably wish for electric trim and a 0-550 mill but that's all.

You do a lot of trimming on mine so electric would have been nice but I'm not complaining.
 
That being said, I've spent a lot of time in Lincoln NE waiting for maintenance and had the chance to watch the military doing touch and goes in their 747s. I would have loved to have been able to see the choreography going on in those cockpits.
Here's a little peek at what a touch-and-go looks like in a large, multi-engine turbine airplane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F62fjmLGH8A

Here's the general flow of how it goes...

Once the Pilot Flying touches down and lowers the nose to the runway, he/she bumps all four throttles up about an inch or two to keep them from decaying into ground idle.

The Pilot Monitoring will then reset the flaps to 20* from the landing setting of 40* or 50* (sometimes 30*, if we're practicing a partial-flap landing). At the same time, the PM will run the trim for a few seconds in the nose-down direction. The PM will also check to make sure none of the engines decelerated into ground idle, and if they are all above ground idle, they will tell the PF to push them up. The PF will push the power up to no more than the max T&G N1 setting that was calculated before the approach. We typically use 75% N1 as a ballpark figure. At approach reference speed, the PM will tell the PF to "Rotate" and it's a normal takeoff from there.

Our abort decision is typically once we push the power up to the T&G setting, we commit ourselves to the takeoff.

We don't have asymmetric flap protection in the KC-135, except for us eyeballing the gauge.

Another side note, since large airplanes typically have more than one set of flaps (inboard and outboard) what everyone here calls "split flaps," would be considered "asymmetric flaps" in larger airplanes, meaning the flaps on one wing are different than the other, causing a rolling motion. What we call split flaps is where one set of flaps are different than the other set of flaps on the wing.

Inboard flaps (left and right wing) at 20* and outboard flaps (left and right wing) at 40*. No rolling tendency, since the flaps are still symmetric, just not at the right setting.
 
There might be a few accidents caused by flaps but the most common accident in small planes is running off the runway. Im not looking at my flaps, Im going to look down the runway, compensate for the wind and stay in the middle.
 
Here's a little peek at what a touch-and-go looks like in a large, multi-engine turbine airplane.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F62fjmLGH8A

Here's the general flow of how it goes...

Once the Pilot Flying touches down and lowers the nose to the runway, he/she bumps all four throttles up about an inch or two to keep them from decaying into ground idle.

The Pilot Monitoring will then reset the flaps to 20* from the landing setting of 40* or 50* (sometimes 30*, if we're practicing a partial-flap landing). At the same time, the PM will run the trim for a few seconds in the nose-down direction. The PM will also check to make sure none of the engines decelerated into ground idle, and if they are all above ground idle, they will tell the PF to push them up. The PF will push the power up to no more than the max T&G N1 setting that was calculated before the approach. We typically use 75% N1 as a ballpark figure. At approach reference speed, the PM will tell the PF to "Rotate" and it's a normal takeoff from there.

Our abort decision is typically once we push the power up to the T&G setting, we commit ourselves to the takeoff.

We don't have asymmetric flap protection in the KC-135, except for us eyeballing the gauge.

Another side note, since large airplanes typically have more than one set of flaps (inboard and outboard) what everyone here calls "split flaps," would be considered "asymmetric flaps" in larger airplanes, meaning the flaps on one wing are different than the other, causing a rolling motion. What we call split flaps is where one set of flaps are different than the other set of flaps on the wing.

Inboard flaps (left and right wing) at 20* and outboard flaps (left and right wing) at 40*. No rolling tendency, since the flaps are still symmetric, just not at the right setting.
That's pretty much the drill we used in the 3-hole Falcons I flew for 12 years only we didn't have to worry about the engine N1 decay - spool up is pretty much instantaneous and we did have flap asymmetry protection. All that being said, there were really no Pros on the Touch and Go Pro/Con list and there seldom is when it comes to large and/or complex aircraft. How much money did that guy in the Bonanza video save making a T&G?
 
How much money did that guy in the Bonanza video save making a T&G?

The answer to that is largely airport dependent. Some places it doesn't save much time at all. At some busy airports, touch and goes can literally double the number of landings you make in an hour.
 
The answer to that is largely airport dependent. Some places it doesn't save much time at all. At some busy airports, touch and goes can literally double the number of landings you make in an hour.
The airport had nothing to do with it...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA_qHBzH2nw

They will never be able to save enough shooting T&Gs to make up for that Bonanza sliding to a stop.

There's one other thing for you young CFIs who hope to someday make it to the big leagues - any accident that is blamed on you for anything you did or didn't do is a career ender. I had a fellow CFI at a flight school we worked at do pretty much the same thing that was in the above video. That was it for him. It was pretty sad to see someone's hopes and dreams evaporate right in front of you.
 
The airport had nothing to do with it...



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA_qHBzH2nw



They will never be able to save enough shooting T&Gs to make up for that Bonanza sliding to a stop.



There's one other thing for you young CFIs who hope to someday make it to the big leagues - any accident that is blamed on you for anything you did or didn't do is a career ender. I had a fellow CFI at a flight school we worked at do pretty much the same thing that was in the above video. That was it for him. It was pretty sad to see someone's hopes and dreams evaporate right in front of you.

Got it. I thought you were asking about saving time. I missed that you were referring to a specific incident.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I refuse to do touch and goes in a pre-1984 Beech. There is a reason they have the highest rate of inadvertent gear retractions.
 
The KC-135 video was fun. It's cool to watch various heavies doing crash and dash at LNK.

My diesel mechanic has shared his "asymmetric flap" story with me.

C-130. Took an RPG in the Bosnia/Kosovo theatre to the starboard side of the aircraft right at V1.

Starboard inboard flap was stuck. PF put the port side flaps back down as much as he could and they flew a loooong way to a better place to land after making sure they weren't losing fuel or hydraulics.

He said it was not a fun day.

He was a crew chief at the time.

One of the few who applied and was offered a shot at an officer upgrade and into the right seat. He now flies 'em, however that stuff works. From reading folks info here, doesn't sound like that's too easy a path.

He's a teensy bit addicted to Herks. We shipped him a wooden C-130 model for his offered help in finding a suitable injector pump when we broke the Dodge in Nebraska earlier this year.

Not a jerk bone in his body. One of the nicest guys I've ever met. Probably helped with that upgrade.

And it was Greg here who first referred me to him. Couldn't ask for a better diesel pickup truck guy. Well other than he's always picking on me to really get after it to replace the light case Cummins in the truck, upgrade the drivetrain to handle it, and try out one of his triple turbo setups. Heh. $$$$ but goes very fast.
 
There's one other thing for you young CFIs who hope to someday make it to the big leagues - any accident that is blamed on you for anything you did or didn't do is a career ender. I had a fellow CFI at a flight school we worked at do pretty much the same thing that was in the above video. That was it for him. It was pretty sad to see someone's hopes and dreams evaporate right in front of you.

Don't know the specific circumstances of the fellow CFI you refer to, but I question your blanket assertion. I personally know a CFI who had a student pull the gear up on the runway and his career was not adversely affected at all.
 
Don't know the specific circumstances of the fellow CFI you refer to, but I question your blanket assertion. I personally know a CFI who had a student pull the gear up on the runway and his career was not adversely affected at all.


Same here. Didn't slow down his hiring process into the airlines at all.
 
Same here. Didn't slow down his hiring process into the airlines at all.

That just reminded me of another CFI that actually pulled the gear up on my favorite Duchess while the airplane was still in the tie-downs. She should have had her career ended (she still didn't think she had done anything wrong), but nope, she's still instructing....
 
In my buddy's case, he was in the right seat demonstrating the procedure and he pulled the gear out from under the airplane. It was essentially a career-ender for him. When you're looking to hire a pilot and there are dozens, if not hundreds, of resumes from more than qualified applicants on your desk having an accident that can be blamed on you makes it pretty easy for the interviewer to toss yours into the round file. Stuff like that was always the first thing we did to whittle down the pile. Fair or not, that's the way it's done and I feel confident in making a blanket statement. Perhaps that's why she's still instructing?
 
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Probably not. It's all about hiring cycles and need. I knew another CFI who was only an acquaintance who landed her own twin gear up, who's been flying for a major carrier for at least fifteen years now.
 
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