Thread: Flaps - 15 vs 30 deg for routine ops?

When I transitioned to the CT, I was taught to normally only do 15 deg flap landings. When I had about 20 hours in the plane, I got some instruction in 30 deg landings and have been doing both 15 and 30 deg landings since.

My thoughts:

* On approach with Flaps 30, it looks like you're playing lawn dart, headed right for the ground. It's a little unnerving for pax unless they're prepared. It also requires a lot of trim to keep the speed up.

* Flaring with 30 feels much better in terms of energy - the airplane settles quicker and doesn't float near as much if you have any extra speed.

* Flaring with 15 feels better in terms of sight picture and attitude. Going from the nose down attitude of a 30 deg approach to the flare takes some getting used to.

* Not surprisingly, the airplane likes 15 better in gusty winds. I haven't tried a 30 landing in real windy or gusty conditions yet - I'm just shy of 90 hours now and have tried them at 12 kt or less with a max 6 kt crosswind.

* If I am high on an approach and need to get down, I'll go to 30. That helps get down without slipping. I tend to approach ADS runway 33 a bit high due to all the buildings just south of the airport. I did 3 landings with 30 today from a higher than normal base leg, and this worked out.

What's everyone else finding?

Hi Doug,

Lately I have been using zero flaps. Lands flatter and smoother, less correction at the bottom, no worries about any crosswinds. I land slightly faster, but so what, speed is relative. I touch down at 55-60 with zero flaps.
Just a different way.
I don't think I use any specific landing configuration all the time. I seem to stick with either zero or 15. I seem to touch down about 5 knts faster than most. I gives me firmer rudder and aileron control and a smoother touchdown and it never drops out from under you when your off your game just a little.
You should stay away from 30 and even 15 in gusty and/or strong winds. You may get picked back up into the air and at stall, especially if you have the stick pulled all the way back in a full stall landing instead of having it pushed forward to help kill some of the lift. If it is windy or gusty I don't use any flaps. This procedure of no flaps is in books and is a suggested method in some of FD's literature.

Doug,

I think your observations are correct. Take your comments a step farther and you might notice that the 30 (and 40) degree landings achieve stall in a pretty flat pitch attitude and the 15 (and zero or neg) degree landings stall in a more normal climb attitude. This is good to have in mind when trying to remain in a good energy state.

15 and 30 are my favorite landing settings with 30 being my normal.

Hi guys,

My landings are now almost always done at 30. To date (20 hours and 50 landings in my CTSW 2006) I haven't done much strong crosswind work where I would need to select a lower setting. And as of yet, I still have not done any flapless landings although I am going to see an instructor to be coached in this later this month.

I was 'transitioned' by an instructor who made me do 40 degree flap landings from the very start and so that setting no longer holds any mystery to me!! I now only use 40 when getting into my friends small 250 metre long strip although I could happily use 30 as I have usually stopped by the halfway point; it's just a psychological confidence thing!!!

I soon found out when flying on my own that with 30, you do not have to be so precise in both timing and altitude on when to apply back-stick to round-out and flare. There is a little more room for error!

As I have mostly flown things with steep glide angles (paragliders = 9:1, weight-shift microlights = 5:1, Thruster 3-axis microlight = dropping housebrick angle!!), approaching the runway with it filling the screen is quite normal for me but I would appreciate that it may look distinctly uncomfortable to people coming from Cessnas and PA28s, etc!

Paul
G-RILA

Hi All,

This is in reference the small square black button next to the flap selector.

Roger Lee:

The little black rectangle should have been placarded by the factory (and it will) but it is a double circuit breaker for the flaps, not a reset button. It has a 1 AMP breaker for the flap board and a 10 AMP breaker for the motor all in one unit. The way to reset the flaps is to pull the left main breaker and reset it. Also read up on the manual override option on the flap switch in the AOI.

Please advise the forum. TP
Thomas A. Peghiny

Thanks Tom for your continued support.

I started doing 15 and 30 degrees with the instructor, and did a few -6 emergency landings. Lately I've tried 0 and I like it a lot for long runways. Much easier to control yaw and you can recover from a balloon or two. I like the way 30 bleeds off energy. 15 degrees seems to deliver a lot of lift but not a lot of drag.

Originally Posted by opticsguy

I started doing 15 and 30 degrees with the instructor, and did a few -6 emergency landings. Lately I've tried 0 and I like it a lot for long runways. Much easier to control yaw and you can recover from a balloon or two. I like the way 30 bleeds off energy. 15 degrees seems to deliver a lot of lift but not a lot of drag.

You may be on to something - I don't think that the airframe bleeds off energy well at all with 15. If it's gusty and you're above 60 kt, you're at some risk for getting nailed by a gust. This happened to me once at OUN with winds 10G17, 40 deg crosswind - I got hit by a gust in the flare, bounced and went around. These winds aren't that unusual for the North TX / OK area, so this was a learning experience

Hardly used degree...BS in Aerospace from Michigan, 1983. Ended up designing rocket engines.

Originally Posted by opticsguy

Hardly used degree...BS in Aerospace from Michigan, 1983. Ended up designing rocket engines.

Hey! Does that mean we have our own rocket scientist on CTFlyer?

Ex rocket scientist. It was fun while it lasted, but after Discovery blew up in 86 many satellite projects went into hibernation and I moved into optics.