Originally Posted by
Vessbot
Sideline gripe on linguistics and not hydraulics. I read this sentence: "The SOP philosophy regarding landing gear extension is to get it down and locked before reaching the final landing configuration." and thought WTF kind of sentence is this, the gear is down before you're in landing configuration by definition, there's no logically possible way to have this problem to need avoiding. Gear up in landing configuration is an oxymoron.
Well, the context of the rest of the paragraph sheds light on that "configuration" here means flaps. OK, but we already have a word for that: "flaps!" Now, we're sacrificed a perfectly useful word (configuration) at the altar of long and impressive technical words for ornamentation... we can be in "final landing configuration" but land gear up
(Oh, maybe they wanted that to specify flaps AND slats, not to be confused with flaps only? To avoid the mass confusion and chaos of every other airplane that just calls it "flaps" and everyone understands that it includes both? How about, oh, "flaps/slats" which still leaves "configuration" to mean that you can be configured for landing and have a normal safe landing?!)
Hahaha. I think airbus technically refers to the various positions of the high lift devices as config 1, 2 etc
But I take your point