I received a slight tongue lashing today for reaching for full flaps on approach today in gusty conditions (12 gusting 20) good amount of crosswind
He explained that full flaps during strong and gusting winds are a safety hazard and I would surely fail a check ride if I did that.
I was able to find some information in the Airplane Flying Handbook about not deploying full flaps in turbulent and gusty crosswinds but it doesn't sound like it's a...NO, NEVER, EVER situation.
Erm, no, it's not a "never" situation. You won't fail a checkride for it either. Unless your examiner is a royal, um, can I say that word here?
Considering the difference in stall speeds of most light airplanes flaps up vs. flaps down, the difference is usually not all that spectacular. We're talking a handful of knots on the high end of the scale. For
most landings in
most GA single operations the landing flap setting is largely irrelevant from a runway required standpoint. Now, if you want to put your 182 into a short place, that's another story, but
most GA pilots also aren't doing that. That said, I still use full flaps in our Twin Bonanza, and used them basically every time in the 206 and 172/182 when I flew those. Because, well, "that's how I did it."
It's a largely irrelevant argument, except on the Internettes. As far as "handling" goes, I don't think there was that much of a difference in the GA singles I flew either. I'd rather hang the drag out there.
Good practice? Always should be done with reduced flaps? PIC decision?
Yup. Do whatever you need to do in order to extract the performance you want out of the airplane. If that means no flaps, and that's an approved landing flap setting for your airplane, that means no flaps. If it means full flaps, then use full flaps.
Short of a limitation about what flap setting to use in the approved AFM, or if you are
operating a jet, you can use whatever flap setting you deem appropriate, all the time, every time.
Hell, I think I only once landed the Saab full flaps. Now in the Hawker and 601, it's full flaps no matter what.
Flaps 25 was "standard" on the Brasilia. Flaps 45 was "pretty darn cool" slash "how slow can we fly this thing?" A lot of (upgrades from the jet) captains only did 45 when they absolutely had to, performance-wise; I was a little more liberal in the use of full landing flaps when it was either operationally expedient (terminal is at the near end is a good enough reason) or when the runway was short(er) as an excuse to practice for when I absolutely had to (Carlsbad, Crescent City and the like). Some old-time captains did Flaps 45 all the time, SOP be damned: Embraer put them on there to be used. The decision to make 25 standard was to save fuel and flap actuator wear. (The 145 was roughly the same way with 22/45.)
Ditto on the -170/-190 with 5 and FULL. FULL is 'mostly' used for situations that are maximum performance, and 5 is used for everything else, including category II.
