Originally Posted by Checkboard
We have a company requirement not to select flap until 10 knots above the manoeuvring speed. I don't know that it's a Boeing recommendation, though.
We have the same requirement within our company SOPs (737). Actually it's recommended to select flaps at min. manoeuvring speed for that particular flap setting. It is to preserve the flap mechanism. Works quite well and we just learn not to use flap as speedbrake. There are other options to get down, first of all increase airspeed (when altitude/track miles are sufficient), second use speedbrakes (altough they are ineffective at low speeds), third is to configure with flaps (and then we also decelerate to the manoeuvring speed) and the last resort is to fully configure in the landing config.
Most efficient way to descent quickly <10.000ft is to fly 250kts with speedbrakes flight detent and gear down... works very well if you're suddenly cleared for a visual circuit and you just lost 15 track miles or so
