full flaps for every landing?

[Salty Dog]

Great thread as I have a similar question about light a/c. When first learning to fly 150/172 I always used full flaps. With a new instructor he sugguested only half flaps as the landing roll in the 172 is still under 1000 feet yet initial climb performance in the event of a go-around is vastly superior.

Just curious what others have been told or seen as a best practice. Book just says as required.

 

[bobbysamd]

172 landings

Full flap landings during a crosswind in a 172 are a challenge, at best. I always had better luck with half flaps or no flaps at all.

I remember the POH for the 172 in which I learned was coy about the subject. "Use the minimum flap setting for the runway length," or something like that. Maybe I should mention that the 172 I was flying was an older model with the ASI calibrated in mph and provided a POH that looked more like a pamphlet than the POHs of today.

That same 172 had 40-degrees of flaps. So, if you used full flaps in that airplane for a normal landing you were really spooling up the engine. 30-degrees or even 20-degrees were better.

As RockyMnt1 points out, you must differentiate between a 172 and a transport-category airplane. The techniques are bound to be different.