Would it KILL You to Forget THIS During a Go-Around?

Can't tell you how many times I've been on short final and out pops a bus full of nuns...

8:30 as a CFI I have preached this religiously for years. For most light aircraft, flaps beyond 20 degrees doesn't decrease your stall speed appreciably (maybe 1knot at best), and provides no additional lift. 20+ deg flaps is all about drag and steepening your approach to clear obstacles. Becasue of this, often times you don't even need full flaps to land depending upon conditions. In my cessna, she stalls very gentle and benign at 0, 10 and 20deg flaps, but at full flaps my cessna breaks hard in the stall and drops a wing aggressively. Not the kind of behavior I want on landing, so I rarely land with full flaps. Also, with full flaps my Cessna bleeds speed in the flare instantly, giving you no margin for error in your landing, so again, I only use it when necessary. Every plane is different, so read your POH performance numbers, and practice stalls with different flaps at a safe altitude to get to know your specific aircraft.

Great video, thanks! The bus full of nuns at the end was a nice touch.

Former Bush PIlot CFI. I taught to push carb heat in BEFORE throttle. That way you wont forget it due all the other things to do after throttle. Also if that is a 40 degree Flaps. Pre 1978 model with under 180 hp, it wont climb in the summer with 30 degree flaps or only one notch up. Manual says on all to bring flaps to 20 after full power. Check if 40 flaps or not.

Excellent video! When I was training, I did both cases: forgetting to bring the flaps up and bringing the flaps immediately to 0 on a go around, and both situations were pretty scary, but fortunately, my training airport was completely flat all the way around. So, I learned my lesson the hard way, but not the REAL hard way.

The thing that I have in mind taking out flaps promptly is that retracting the flaps at the wrong time can kill you. Going around and not climbing? You instinctively pull back (slowing airspeed and increasing AoA) and then go “oh, flaps!” and completely raise them while still slow and pitched up and low to the ground (and possibly banking!) and now you’re increasing the stall speed of the wing. Not good.

I saw a video on LewDix’s channel where he had a friend from England visiting. His friend said in the UK, they instruct students to turn off carb heat just prior to landing so they have one less thing to remember on touch-and-gos or go-arounds. I’m not sure it matters one way or another, but I thought it was interesting

My CFI beat that into my head.

It would have been an interesting experiment to test those two items separately to see which is the more important factor. I suspect that forgetting to raise flaps decreases the climb performance by more than forgetting the carb heat.

In Europe they train to shut off carb heat when the wheels touch

I like how you didn’t frantically rush with carb heat and flaps like I would do. As someone who has the opposite problem of doing everything too soon, seeing that really helped.

Congratulations on 123 videos, there is something oddly satisfying about that number.

Thank you! This was extremely helpful

My training has all been in 172’s, 1 k model and 2 n’s. Each flap setting has its merits, but I find settings 2 & 3 are generally the sweet spot depending on conditions. Keep these excellent vids coming!

Very good as usual, thank you!

This is good. "When in go around, turn off carb heat". Nice. I will remember this.

Wow... very important information! That would explain why I have those problems on my flight sim.

You are by far the best aviation training channel its not even close! Also hello from wasilla!

Great video 👍🏻😊

Super vid….I fly an older 172H as well and the POH is mute on questions I have just like this! Thanks for validating my process.