No flap take off in a heavy 767?
Ok, here's a question for all of you. This happened to me about 2-3 years ago. I'm in a UsAirways 767-200ER, sitting in Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, and we're about to leave for KPHL. I am sitting coach, right by the window behind the wing. We taxi out, I see one of the pilots working the checklist (ailerons going up and down, spoilers going up and down) and then, as I normally would expect to see some flap activity: Nothing...
Now I know some of you will say that it's easy to miss a flap setting called (I believe) Flaps 5. But the trailing edge of the flap surfaces were exactly flush with the trailing edge of the rest of the wing....I can say for sure: zero degrees of flap. With the flaps still at zero, we continue to taxi. A long ride, because we're taking off from Amsterdam's newest (long) north bound runway 36L. We taxi past the new control tower especially built for this runway. Then, with the flaps still at zero, we thunder down 36L and take off. So here comes the question. And I know it's a stupid one, because I already know the answer, but here it is anyway: Can a heavily loaded 767-200ER take off with no flaps? Obviously it can. But what are the circumstances?
I will tell you some of the specifics:
Flight took about 8 hours, EHAM to KPHL, almost full with passengers. So it had to be pretty heavy.
Weather at EHAM was about 60 degrees, with reasonably stiff winds from the north. Maybe 15 kts.
Zero degree trailing edge flaps, leading edge slats could have been deployed, I couldn't see them.
Normal take off, seemingly.
Now I KNOW some airplanes can do this. I fly the little stuff, and of course no flaps are needed on a C172, as we all know. The Fokker F100 can take off with no flaps, also. But I also know that certain airplanes will crash because of a forgotten flap, like the crash at DTW in 1987, which was either a DC-9 or MD-80. So what is the deal with these 767's? Any 767 captains or first officers around to shed some light on the subject?
One webpage suggests it's possible to get a 767 off the ground with something called "flaps 1". Apparantly, this is no trailing edge flaps, but they do deploy the slats. Can this be done with a fully loaded 767 about to cross the Atlantic, though?
Let me know
Mario