I have just returned with Beth from having an "incident". I now have a large glass of wine in front of me even though its only mid-afternoon.
I'm just finishing up some lessons before taking the general flight proficiency test. Today we left the playpen of the circuit and flew to the aero club's country airstrip to practice precautionary landings as well as an introduction to gravel strips and short takeoffs and landings.
Beth demonstrates the precautionary landing procedure. Inspection upwind at 500 feet, then inspection upwind at 200 feet, then climb back to 500 feet and do a short field landing which involves selecting 40 degrees flap for the last stage of the approach.
So she does a beautiful demonstration and does a touch and go. Full power, flaps up and around again for my turn to have a go.
As we accelerated down the runway I was thinking "Gee this gravel really drags us back, we aren't accelerating very fast, I must remember that."
So we get airborne at about 50 knots which is correct for a short takeoff in a C150. I'm watching a big tree in front of me and a set of major power pylons on the hill in front of us getting bigger - only they are not going "down" the windscreen. They are just getting bigger.
After a second or two I realise something is very wrong, and for some reason I turn and check the flaps - and the flaps are still all the way down!!!. I check the switch which is in the "full up" position - flap malfunction.
I tell Beth we are in trouble and a few seconds later we get a call from the CFI who was watching us asking if we meant to take off with full flaps (Beth says No). Then he asks if we are in trouble (Beth says yes). She is in full "Aviate" mode to keep this thing flying because it does not want to.
At full power we can barely hold altitude at about 100 feet. We can't clear ANYTHING in front of us. Beth makes a 180 degree turn which we made with the stall warning horn screaming at about 40 - 45 knots - and this is with full power!! The only way she got us round was by accepting a descent - AROUND the tree. We made it across the threshold at about ten feet and dumped it on the runway. Once we turned, we could have dropped it into a paddock if necessary and accepted damage to the aircraft.
After coffee we borrowed another airplane and finished the sequence, then headed for home in our original ship with the flaps up - the CFI had fiddled with the switch and it decided to work enough to get the flaps up. I would have chicken ringed the flaps circuit breaker if I could have, but you can't do it with the old Cessna type. I did however made a solemn promise that if the flaps started moving I would flip the master switch come what may.
We were lucky in a number of ways:
1) We had a very light fuel load.
2) The airplane has a brand new motor and prop thanks to the old prop hitting a concrete kerb and busting everything. I don't think the other C150's would have had the performance to survive.
3) Neither Beth nor I tried to cycle the flap switch. If we had, and they moved, we would have stalled and would now possibly be dead.
4) We had a pure 90 degree crosswind of ten knots so we could land back onto the strip without any wind problems
We landed back at the main airport in an uneventful flaps up landing. Beth has to write this up for the regulators. She earned her pay today. Enough exitement for one day.
I've since learned that Cessna flap switches are notorious, as are electric flap systems in general. The "problem" isnt a problem in normal operation if you think about it, just in a touch and go or a go around.
If we had been at our main airport with a 3000 foot strip we would have twigged to the lack of acceleration and landed ahead no worries.
The switch entices you to "set and forget" but you need to check that the bloody things are doing what you want them to!