"long ago I suggested to my airline that we set flaps prior to leaving the gate area and have a visual confirmation by the mechanic in charge of pushback.
that didn't make sense to the boss
ha!"
As a non-pilot can I please ask a question about this point? .....and I hope it's not a silly one. I seem to remember that the airlines (I regular fly with) used to retract the flaps to T/O configuration at the end of a flight. In other words in the B737 ( at the end of flight) when the a/c is leaving the runway the flaps are not retracted to zero but to 5 degrees. This practice seems to have stopped in recent times, and the flaps are retracted fully and redeployed to T/O configuration when taxiing to position for the next flight.........just my observation