I work at a flight school teaching 141 instrument students in 172's. I recently raised concerns about configuration settings from the FAF inbound. I have been teaching approach flaps FAF inbound and holding about 80KIAS. I am getting told, "shoot all approaches clean. Add flaps at breakout or land clean. That's whats in the SOP" . I either forgot that, or don't recall reading that.

This blows my mind that this an accepted method and there is an AC that contradicts this exact practice. I am raising it as a safety concern.

Thoughts? Am i being to knit-picky? Should I just ****?

Is there something regulatory I can fall back on to facilitate a change?

 

Are you sure the AC was written for the 172?

 

Either way works in a 172. A lot of the early models have a Vfe of 100mph (87kt) which makes it very easy to overspeed your flaps in turbulent air at 80kt (which is kind of slow). Also, being clean gives you one less thing to worry about when going missed and flying single pilot.

 

Review the FAA website which defines criteria for a stabilized approach.

 

I hear both sides on this subject. The biggest talking point with 10 flaps is when you go missed you *could* und up in a power on/ elevator trim stall situation. The added somatogravic illusions in IMC could lead to that occurring. Adding flaps at an MDA will also lead to ballooning and getting high, then having to re-trim the airplane, all being potentially unstable..then maybe leading to being high.

On the other side, is it really considered stabilized to dump 30 flaps at 400/200 feet? Probably not! But in a 172 it is entirely manageable if you have the experience..

Boils down to pilot experience in my opinion as a CFII. If I myself am flying I'll wait til I break out to throw in the flaps. Just my preference.

 

172. Meh, whatever.

 

I get it haha, but its about laying a safe foundation in primary training. When/if they get to the 121 SOP level it won't matter.

 

When I’m landing an aircraft that only needs 600 feet on a 5000 foot runway use of flaps AT ALL seems pretty optional.

 

It all depends on the aircraft and the pilot. Personally, in a low performance piston, I would fly the approach clean and add flaps when I breakout, but there are some caveats.

The FAF is pretty far out to be at full flaps in a trainer. It makes the approach take way longer which holds up the entire airport, wastes fuel, and increases your chances of over-speeding the flaps.

The argument against adding flaps when you break out are 1. The pilot could lose pitch control and 2. The approach is not stable. If you are concerned about losing control of the aircraft by adding flaps at 200 feet, than land clean. The better solution is to become more comfortable with the aircraft. And as far as stabilized approaches, don't try to fly a 172 like a 747. Pistons airplanes do not need to fly the final 3 miles at a constant pitch, speed, and glideslope.

Look back at old training manuals from the 30s-70s. They knew how to teach people how to fly pistons. You should always be in a position to make the runway when your engine fails. A light single engine piston pilot should be able to fly a tight pattern (1 mile or less) at 800 feet AGL. If your engine fails right before you turn base, do you have enough energy to complete the turn and make the runway? Abeam the numbers you should be able to pull the power and get to the runway without touching the power or modifying your pattern. In order to do that, you need to be tight and high. Once you are on short final and have the field made, then you can start adding drag. Learning how to do this not only makes your commercial power off 180 landings a non-event, but also makes adding flaps short final during a ILS no problem.

The problem is flight schools started teaching people to be airline pilots instead of pilots. Instead of teaching students to fly their plane at their airport, they started teaching techniques that will simplify the transition to larger aircraft at big airports. As a result, there are 172 pilots at uncontrolled fields doing 2 mile patterns and adding flaps based on their location in the pattern rather than their energy state. And then every 2 years during their flight review, they have no idea how to judge their glide distance during a simulated engine out.

 

And since that is de facto stan now, that’s how you have to fly the airplane on your checkrides. I’m working on getting my CFI now (finally) and you HAVE to do the incremental flap/airspeed reduction on each leg BS—in the Navy, I learned to dirty up on downwind and fly the rest of the pattern configured and on-speed.

So. Much. Easier.