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I'm off to Fast Eddie land


Ed Cesnalis

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Dick, I have a similar number of landings in my CTsw (I started flying in 2008).  In a way I have some difficulty describing, I find landing with 30 degrees to be more comfortable than landing with 40 degrees.  As I mentioned above, I use 30 degrees unless conditions are unfavorable.  

 

I find the airplane to be a bit more unpredictable with 40 degrees of flaps (either dropping a wing or sinking faster than I want). I also find this to be true at altitude when practicing slow flight and stalls with power off.  

 

Do you find that 40 degrees is similar to 30 degrees in terms of aircraft handling and stability?

 

Fred

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Hi Fred.  Your assessment of the affects to stability and handling with the use of 30 and 40 flaps is what I recall experiencing when first working with the higher flaps settings.  It was some time ago and I do not recall how large of an affect this had.  At the time, I was learning the basics of flying (which I am still doing) and recall thinking any differences were attributable to my technique. Another factor which resulted in my use of full flaps was my mentor and CFI has both feet firmly planted in the "full flaps" camp and he taught me to use 40 flaps but didn't feel that it was necessary to use the 30 setting. Many times I am not happy with my landings and your observation makes me think I should revisit using the 30 flaps and see if this provides improvement.  In regards to stall practice, I have used mainly 40 flaps when practicing stall recovery and cannot compare the two settings.  

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Dick, I have a similar number of landings in my CTsw (I started flying in 2008).  In a way I have some difficulty describing, I find landing with 30 degrees to be more comfortable than landing with 40 degrees.  As I mentioned above, I use 30 degrees unless conditions are unfavorable.  

 

I find the airplane to be a bit more unpredictable with 40 degrees of flaps (either dropping a wing or sinking faster than I want). I also find this to be true at altitude when practicing slow flight and stalls with power off.  

 

Do you find that 40 degrees is similar to 30 degrees in terms of aircraft handling and stability?

 

Fred

 

That is exactly my experience as well.

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Andy, regarding the elimination of 40 degree flap setting on the CTls, I have wondered the same thing.  Certainly, for me, what you suggested seems to be true.

 

Next time I fly, I will practice power-off slow flight with 40 degrees of flaps and try to better describe the experience.

 

Fred

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Yes, they went to 30. They also reduced to 30 on the later 172's.

 

Part of that change was due to the issue with the 172s not wanting to come out of a slip at 40 flaps because of the tail getting blanked out by the flaps.  I don't think the 150/152 had that problem, though I could be wrong.

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