Originally Posted by
bomarc
irjt24
good one! more dc9's than sharp eyed controllers.
and to those who don't think the cops would be called...they have been...so you all be careful.
and if you are leaving your flaps down while taxiing in America, just casually mention...our flaps are down to inspect for icing or something else equally reassuring. and remember, that's for FULL flaps not just partial flaps.
Surely this should be the responsibility of the airline, not down to individual pilots? i.e if one airline has an SOP of leaving flaps at 40 degs to indicate a requirement for armed response units, then they should communicate this with the airport/ atc in question; as you have seen from this thread, it is standard practice to leave flaps down during certain conditions, and if these pilots were concerned over damage caused by retracting the flaps/slats, then there must be methods in place to opt out from the emergency signal.
I'm not saying that using flaps to signal a security sitation is bad practice, I'm simply stating that if such a practice is in operation, all pilots should be made aware of this fact, and their respective airlines should be given the choice to be put on a list of those opting out, at their own discretion and risk. I've lost count of the amount of times I've taxied to the gate, and looked out of the window to see the flaps still extended, and not a single terrorist in sight.
Edited to add: let's not pretend that most 'secret signals' aren't well known on a public level, let alone amongst those who have the resources to bring an aircraft down in the first place, especially considering such an obvious procedure, its like hiding the bat signal
.