So you’ve never used differential braking during a high crosswind wheel landing (airplanes flying, needed for directional control, that’s a flight control)... I find your assertion of DC-3 time suspect.

Next time I take my 180 into the Idaho back country I’ll make sure I use only flight controls getting in and out of some fishing and camping spots. Really put that pponk gear to the test.

Ok. You've got limited conventional gear experience. That's all you needed to say. That, and you have no clue what you're talking about.

Pick up any aircraft maintenance manual. Find landing gear in the flight control section. Show me.

Pick up any aircraft flight manual. Find landing gear cited as a flight control. Show me.

Find one case of landing gear cited as a flight control for aircraft certification. Show me.

I manage to go an entire season in an Air Tractor 802 and hardly touch the brakes save for initiating and ending taxi turns. If I have enough airspeed for rudder, then I use rudder. If the crosswind has exceeded the aerodynamic capabilities of the aircraft such that brake is required to takeoff or land, then I exercise my ability to not be an idiot, and either don't fly, or choose a different runway.

I recall watching a russian rocket surgeon in an armored T65 thrush a few years back, who managed to heat his brakes enough for the left to fade, on landing, as he tried to use them to manage a crosswind. Chief Pilot for the US State Dept was in the back seat, ended up going for a ride when the airplane made a smart 90 degree turn, with no further directional control and went cross country, winding up nose down in a ditch. It had just come out of maintenance and had all the bullet holes repaired, too. That guy's future didn't last longer than the time it took to kick him out of the cockpit.

Brakes: not flight controls.

Brakes; best used when the tail is on the ground, not when doing wheel landings.

Brakes; best work when the weight is on the wheels, not when it's supported by the wings.

When you have sufficient airspeed and power applied to raise the tail and use the rudder, you have flight controls. If you're riding brakes while taking off or landing and your tail is in the air, then you have a lot to learn. If you think brakes are flight controls, you have a lot to learn. If you think you've got the tiger by the tail and don't need to learn, then you're not long for this world. Grow up, wise up, and don't paint yourself into a corner with bad habits; they WILL bite you.

You're wrestling with a pig in mud here.

By the way I remember an airplane where pumping the brakes in flight could enable you to transfer hyd fluid from one system to another.

In a glider I can stick my hand out the window and get the aircraft to yaw. When a passenger heads to the lav while someone is flying a light jet, it will cause the nose to pitch up. Just because something has an effect on the movement of the aircraft does not make it a flight control.

In this emergency, the aft landing gear was lowered for directional stability.




The Time a B-52 Landed Without a Tail Fin

I remember one where you had to cycle the parking brake to do that. I just called MX on the ground, but some folks liked to take care of it themselves enroute. Sometimes they landed with the parking brake on too.

All your statements are about braking with the tail up/down are wrong, especially in the back country. If limited experience is most of what you’ve listed, plus Ford Tri Motor, AN2, B-17, Thunder Mustang, and a couple others, then sure.

By the way gear in/out is required for certification of Vmc (since you asked).

I’m out.

Back country makes no difference. In fact, if you're on rough surfaces, unprepared surfaces, wet grass, etc, keep your toes or heels or hands off the damn brakes. Especially if your tail is in the air.

Lowering landing gear during a dive certification test does not make the brakes a flight control. Show where any document states to the contrary. You cannot.

Brakes are not a flight control, and simply because you either wilfully misuse brakes in the "back country" or simply have bad habits, or just outright don't know what you're doing, does not make them a flight control, either.

Show a document or source that states otherwise.

Reel me back in...

What are you talking about? Do you have a multi engine rating? Do you know what Vmc is?

FAR 23.149

As for the following paragraph, visit the Valdez competition and tell everyone of those guys they’re doing it wrong.