PSA No-flaps landing
- Thread starter 1B9Pilot
- Start date
RRPower
Well-Known Member
Yeah...they teach us to set the nose down as easy as the stress of planting it on could collapse the nose gear. Don't know if that is just RJ specific. On a side note, no flap landings for RJ guys is a non-event since we have so many. A few years ago I think they told us in recurrent that we had an average of two flap failures a week on 70 planes. I bet Delta doesn't see two flap failures a year on all their planes put together. The -200 is so worthless...
Screaming_Emu
Joe Conventional
I heard a recording from liveatc.net where Air Whiskey had two in a row going into Quebec City. Even the controller wasn't surprised.
So far I've been lucky enough to avoid the zero lap landings.
GypsyPilot
Mohawk Town
Interesting video. The flaps are definitely a sore spot on the -200. At my airline I'm currently transitioning from another type to the CRJ, and we've discussed the flap system quite a bit (and in fact just finished some no flap landings in the sim a few days ago). With the critical wing the 200 has, along with the lack of slats, the ref speeds are VERY high for a no flap landing. Depending on the landing weight, ref can be as high as 172 kts (and even higher if one were to return above max landing weight). This has the effect of essentially doubling your required landing distance (70% increase to be exact). I have no idea what PSA's policy is either, but we are trained to plant it on as well, and to get the nose down fairly quickly so that we can utilize the TRs fairly quickly to help with deceleration from the high speeds seen from a no flap landing. However, we are also cautioned (and the QRH emphasizes this) to "gently" lower the nose to prevent structural damage.
I'm far from a technical expert on the CRJ 200, but from what I understand it essentially carried over the flex shaft design from the earlier challenger series. The problem of course is that the challenger was designed for a relatively low utilization in the corp/charter world, compared to the MUCH higher amount of cycles seeing in a regional airline environment. Landing gear issues are no stranger to this type either. I'm hoping I will be able to mostly bid for the 700...
I'm far from a technical expert on the CRJ 200, but from what I understand it essentially carried over the flex shaft design from the earlier challenger series. The problem of course is that the challenger was designed for a relatively low utilization in the corp/charter world, compared to the MUCH higher amount of cycles seeing in a regional airline environment. Landing gear issues are no stranger to this type either. I'm hoping I will be able to mostly bid for the 700...
Screaming_Emu
Joe Conventional
Interesting video. The flaps are definitely a sore spot on the -200. At my airline I'm currently transitioning from another type to the CRJ, and we've discussed the flap system quite a bit (and in fact just finished some no flap landings in the sim a few days ago). With the critical wing the 200 has, along with the lack of slats, the ref speeds are VERY high for a no flap landing. Depending on the landing weight, ref can be as high as 172 kts (and even higher if one were to return above max landing weight). This has the effect of essentially doubling your required landing distance (70% increase to be exact). I have no idea what PSA's policy is either, but we are trained to plant it on as well, and to get the nose down fairly quickly so that we can utilize the TRs fairly quickly to help with deceleration from the high speeds seen from a no flap landing. However, we are also cautioned (and the QRH emphasizes this) to "gently" lower the nose to prevent structural damage.
I'm far from a technical expert on the CRJ 200, but from what I understand it essentially carried over the flex shaft design from the earlier challenger series. The problem of course is that the challenger was designed for a relatively low utilization in the corp/charter world, compared to the MUCH higher amount of cycles seeing in a regional airline environment. Landing gear issues are no stranger to this type either. I'm hoping I will be able to mostly bid for the 700...
Yup. the official slogan for the CRJ-200 should be "Better engineering through procedure!"
I think part of the problem with the flap has to do with moisture getting inside the actuators and freezing below certain temperatures. I know my airline had installed flap actuator heaters to one of our planes as a trial. Don't think anything ever came of it.
GypsyPilot
Mohawk Town
I've heard the same, and in fact our deice procedures were changed as well (delaying flaps until after deicing) to prevent moisture from getting inside the actuators.
Screaming_Emu
Joe Conventional
Ours changes every year. One year flaps are down for deice, then they're not, then back down, then not.
DL31082
Well-Known Member
My Dad was actually on board this flight. If I remember right it was RIC-CLT. They told the passengers fairly early in the flight that they ha a flap problem. They got the passengers prepared and had them in the brace position for landing. Overall great job and thanks!!!!!!
RRPower
Well-Known Member
Yeah, we are the only operator that doesn't set flaps until we are about 2 in line for T/O. They say that it is all about the FOD from the taxi getting in there.
BobDDuck
Island Bus Driver
Looks like a pretty normal flaps zero landing for the 200. He land a bit long, but carrying all that extra speed and trying to minimize the descent rate at touchdown will tend to do that. Also keeping the nose up like that is pretty common. You have a lot of extra speed and it can take some downward force on the yoke to lower the nose sometimes, even once the ground lift dumping system activates.
As was stated before, this is regrettably common in the 200. A combination of a crappy system (flex drive shafts), a higher number of cycles per day than planned (how many legs does a Challenger fly a day compared to an RJ?) and a higher than needed Vfe speed leads to a lot of these events. There are anti skew sensors on each flap and if they detect more than 2 or 3 degrees of variation they lock the flaps in the current position. Because of the weak flexshafts, this happens pretty often. If this is the plane I think it is, that was actually the second flap event in two days. They broke heading out to DSM the day before and it was ferried (with them locked at 8 degrees) back to Dayton to get worked on. The mechanics "fixed" it overnight and then the flaps broke again later that day.
The first flaps fail I had was actually on my Fed observation ride during upgrade, going into CHO when they stuck at 21 degrees coming down. It's really a non event, but having to declare an emergency and what not while getting an upgrade linecheck AND having a fed breathing down your neck is pretty fun.
The major considerations during an event like that are the fact that your approach speed is ridiculously high (174 knots I think is the max assuming you aren't making an overweight landing) so you are eating up runway at a good rate and very close to your max tire speed of 182 knots. Also, you have to be very gentle at touchdown as the QRH says not to exceed 300fpm at that point in time as well as when you lower the nose wheel to prevent impact damage.
The flip side of the equation is the flaps getting stuck while retracting during a takeoff or even worse a go around. A Jazz 200 crew had the "perfect storm" of bad luck happen to them a few years ago when they had to go missed due to not seeing the runway and had the flaps stick at 45 degrees. They had plenty of fuel to get to their alternate under normal conditions but with all that extra drag on the wing they ended up landing with about 5 minutes of fuel remaining. Because of that we actually now have a restriction that says we can not move the flaps out of zero during an approach unless we can be "reasonably certain" that we will have the visibility/ceiling to get in.
We've also had other random restrictions put in place. Some have stuck (lowering the extension speeds, although interestingly enough not the operating speeds) from 235 to 200, and some have not (limiting our operational exposure to <-50c to 5 minutes at a time). They are all bandaids for a broken system. The best fix of course would be re engineering the entire flap system to something like the 700 has but of course, nobody wants to sink money into a 50 seat jet. Because that won't happen we are stuck with what we've got and that means lots of flapless approaches both in the sim every 6 months and on the line.
As was stated before, this is regrettably common in the 200. A combination of a crappy system (flex drive shafts), a higher number of cycles per day than planned (how many legs does a Challenger fly a day compared to an RJ?) and a higher than needed Vfe speed leads to a lot of these events. There are anti skew sensors on each flap and if they detect more than 2 or 3 degrees of variation they lock the flaps in the current position. Because of the weak flexshafts, this happens pretty often. If this is the plane I think it is, that was actually the second flap event in two days. They broke heading out to DSM the day before and it was ferried (with them locked at 8 degrees) back to Dayton to get worked on. The mechanics "fixed" it overnight and then the flaps broke again later that day.
The first flaps fail I had was actually on my Fed observation ride during upgrade, going into CHO when they stuck at 21 degrees coming down. It's really a non event, but having to declare an emergency and what not while getting an upgrade linecheck AND having a fed breathing down your neck is pretty fun.
The major considerations during an event like that are the fact that your approach speed is ridiculously high (174 knots I think is the max assuming you aren't making an overweight landing) so you are eating up runway at a good rate and very close to your max tire speed of 182 knots. Also, you have to be very gentle at touchdown as the QRH says not to exceed 300fpm at that point in time as well as when you lower the nose wheel to prevent impact damage.
The flip side of the equation is the flaps getting stuck while retracting during a takeoff or even worse a go around. A Jazz 200 crew had the "perfect storm" of bad luck happen to them a few years ago when they had to go missed due to not seeing the runway and had the flaps stick at 45 degrees. They had plenty of fuel to get to their alternate under normal conditions but with all that extra drag on the wing they ended up landing with about 5 minutes of fuel remaining. Because of that we actually now have a restriction that says we can not move the flaps out of zero during an approach unless we can be "reasonably certain" that we will have the visibility/ceiling to get in.
We've also had other random restrictions put in place. Some have stuck (lowering the extension speeds, although interestingly enough not the operating speeds) from 235 to 200, and some have not (limiting our operational exposure to <-50c to 5 minutes at a time). They are all bandaids for a broken system. The best fix of course would be re engineering the entire flap system to something like the 700 has but of course, nobody wants to sink money into a 50 seat jet. Because that won't happen we are stuck with what we've got and that means lots of flapless approaches both in the sim every 6 months and on the line.
wheelsup
Well-Known Member
I've only done one it was the last leg on my OE as an FO. Capt let me fly it until we got about 1/2 way down the runway and then he pushed it over. Makes me feel better guy above floated like crazy as well. In the sim they aren't that bad as we pretty much do them every PC. That being said I almost want to say they have fixed the issue, almost no issues that I have heard about lately.
I only wished the -200 landed like it did with flaps @ 0*, love the nose up pitch of it.
I only wished the -200 landed like it did with flaps @ 0*, love the nose up pitch of it.
Pilotforhire587
Lycra Man
Nicely Done!
