Joker 10
There is a real danger that young inexperienced pilots developing their operating style will read this and believe it is OK to ignore the POH/AFM and experiment.
That's right... which is why
NOBODY is suggesting they do so. Why don't you open your eyes a bit and read what is written, rather than jumping to ill-informed conclusions? As we have said... many times... if the AFM prohibits it, you shouldn't do it. If the AFM doesn't specify one way or the other, there is
NO SUCH PROHIBITION, either in law or in fact.
And I really hope that young, inexperienced pilots
DO read this, and
DO decide to get to know their aircraft properly in a controlled and safe environment. Nothing being suggested in this thread will put them at any risk whatsoever, assuming they apply basic airmanship principles.
Inculcating bad habits early in the development of skills inevitably leads to bad things happening sooner or later.
And a refusal to learn how your aircraft performs in the real world has a similar effect, usually when the weather is bad and the pressure is on.
The old wise folk are generally conservative people who don't take unnecessary risk to see what might happen.
Every time you step into an aircraft you are taking an "unnecessary risk". You reduce that risk by knowing your aircraft intimately and ensuring that you know what it can (and can't) do.
Experimentation is an uncertain science and there is no way every experiment will work, to fool around whilst close to the ground in the slow phases of flight essentially totally dependent on 100% power plant delivery is fraught with to many things that can go wrong.
That is so brainless a statement as to be almost amusing. There is very little that is uncertain about taking off with differing flap settings. You know what your stall speed will be (or at least the maximum value that it will be), there are no CG or weight issues to consider, and the very worst that can happen is that you may have to close the throttle and re-land. Luckily, you will be closer to a landing configuration than if you had taken off with zero flap and experienced an engine failure, with a lower stall speed and a lower nose attitude, so in every measurable way you are safer taking off with more than zero flap. As we know that we are exploring performance, we will always be ready to get the nose down and maintain flying speed, right? And before you start bleating on about the dangers of re-landing, I have already stated that you should only do this on a nice long runway.
The manual / handbooks job is to keep us all alive, to suggest that one ignores parts of it or re writes it to ones own criteria is just not smart.
Another utterly brainless statement. The only reason the POH/AFM exists is to satisfy a certification and regulatory requirement, and to cover the manufacturers arse. In many ways it is no different to a placard in the cockpit. You would be amazed at how these documents differ in different countries, under different regulatory systems.
But more to the point, you have once again completely twisted what is being said here. Nobody is suggesting ignoring the POH/AFM, or re-writing it. We are suggesting filling in the gaps that these documents leave in our knowledge.
If you want to continue flying with the degree of ignorance of your aircraft's performance that you clearly aspire to, then be my guest... but it is neither smart nor safe to do so.
Dog One
No doubt, in your endorsement training on the type, your instructor had demonstrated an engine failure with the aircraft configured with full flap, gear down, max t/off power and speed at V lift off. Was this why you felt confident in attempting the take-off?
I can't speak for FGD135, but in most multi training, just such a manoeuver is demonstrated and taught - it is called an engine-out go-around or baulked landing. Maybe it isn't taught in Australia, but it is in NZ, Europe and the USA. Admittedly it isn't done at "V lift off", which isn't actually a real V-speed in any case. If the failure happened at Vr (which is what you are really talking about, and on which performance figures are based), you just close the throttles and hit the brakes. In the case FGD was talking about, you would stop pretty quickly. It doesn't really matter as the difference between Vr and Vref is minimal in any case(by design).
Again, I can't speak for FGD135, but if it was me, I would have accepted the possibility, before departure, that if an engine failed I may have land straight ahead. That is, in any case, true of many light twins if they are anywhere near their gross weight (ie the Apache, Aztec, and other older twins would fall into that category).
All flying is a risk, it is how you manage the risk that determines your skill as a pilot.