Flapless landing

I find that I can pretty reliably ‘grease’ the landing with 20flaps but have a really hard time doing same with 40. Most of my flying is to long asphalt strips, no short field required (although I know the thing can stop on a dime with 40 flaps! Had to demo that on my latest BFR and it’s really impressive how short the ground roll can be. It’s just not a nice landing!)

Usually approach around 75 – 80kts and then ‘flying the airplane on’ with a flare in the 60 kts region seems to work well. Always keep a tiny bit of power in there, otherwise she drops.

For the initial year or so after I got my PPL, I did most of my flying on a TB9.

For flapless approaches we flew it just a few knots about the stall warner. Indeed the stall warner often chirped during the later stages of approach.

Peter’s description of the nose attitude is very familiar, and something quite alien to those of us used to tricycle aircraft. There was no forward visibility, and peripheral vision was need to keep aligned with the runway at the very late stages of landing.

It certainly was very different to a flapless approach in the Arrow II that I now fly!

I would agree that the 10 flaps only in a strong crosswinds mostly helps reduce the WCA because of the higher speed. If the wind is GUSTY than the other reason (less area for the gusts to attack the aircraft) is valid too.

My experience: The Warrior is a piece of cake, without flaps you can still fly it safely with 60 if you have good speed control. With the Cirrus I have not tried yet (one of the maneuvers I still have to practice) but what I know is that it’s really hard to make it slow … it’s really pretty slippery and you have to reduce power very early, even if you use flaps. It’s on my list …. (but have to find an airport nearby that will not charge me € 23 for each landing)

@ Peter. Just curious. So far, when I revalidated (SEIR), I never had to do more than one (fairly normal) landing, and no other VFR stuff either. The IR revalidating syllabus took care of my VFR rights as well. Is that different because of EASA? Or did you always have to do VFR stuff also, in UK?

@ TB-20. Not many low wing singles have slotted flaps, but the TB-20 has them. Slotted flaps lower the stall speed by a larger percentage than plain flaps. Which means that threshold speed without flaps has to be increased more, and the landing distance penalty increases doubly more. I agree that the TB-20 is more challenging to land flaps up than most.

@ what next. Yes, faster touch-down speed reduces crab angle at a given xwc, but also important in some types, especially in turbulence, is that it improves aileron authority as well.

I agree that the flare should only be slight. Not just because it will keep many aircraft floating forever, but also because in many types – including all TB’s to my knowledge – the risk of tail strike is very real, and much, much worse than with full flaps.

I have noticed some pilots flying a distinctly low final when making flapless landings. I believe it is because they use the windshield as a reference and unconsciously try to put the runway at the same spot in the windshield – which, with a more nose-up attitude results in a lower approach path.

There was no forward visibility, and peripheral vision was need to keep aligned with the runway at the very late stages of landing.

And furthermore I imagine there was a lot less drag in the TB than you would experience in a typical blind tailwheel aircraft. So you can’t (unlike in a totally blind biplane!) fly to the runway fast, runway in sight, and then once on short final pull power and almost get thrown into the shoulder harness by deceleration, then flare and land. I suppose a curved final would work just the same though, like a Spitfire.

I’ve been doing some flying now and again in the back seat of an instructor friends Citabria. The idea is to get up to speed with landing blind so that I can transition into antique biplanes and/or maybe, someday, a Pitts. I’ve found it more frustrating than I’d imagined. Although much of my time has been in tailwheel aircraft, none were terribly blind on approach.

I can’t say slipping has ‘scared any of my passengers stiff’… I typically enter the a left slip slowly, pushing them towards me and not out the door (better with women passengers). Just before I tell them “OK, I’m going to ease the plane sideways to scrub off just a little speed”. They seem to understand that description intuitively, even though in actuality I keep the speed basically the same.

Peter, had I stuck my head out the window I might have heard your aircraft – at the moment I’m working that close to Shoreham.

I reckon Peter is spot on with his comment re. choosing a suitable airport. Without flaps you are basically flying a different aircraft and you need to consider the change to landing performance and choose a runway to match that performance. That is the most important ‘technique’. Further keep the approach profile the same by using an appropriate power setting. It is good to have a figure in mind for that (e.g. base setting normally 13", flapless base setting 11"). You can still fly the same circuit however fly a wider circuit if you need some more headspace. Also keep the go-around in mind, if your aircraft needs take-off flap, you may not be able to go around!

I agree with others that a flapless in a Cessna is a breeze in terms of soft landings. There is hardly a flare required which makes for an easy landing.

On the other hand landing a Cessna with Full Flaps (particularly 182, 206) is tricky because it is very easy to land nose wheel first due to the attitude. Some flight schools recommend not landing with full flaps for this reason. If you are familiar with the aircraft and know how to consistently land main wheels first there is no reason not to land full flaps as it increases your margins.

and the landing roll for no flaps is not in there.

Not the landing roll, but the landing distance, on page 54: “Plan a landing distance increased by approximately 60 %.”