Originally Posted by
darien-l
Thank you for the comments, everyone. The recommended go-around procedure in the Grumman AA-5A POH (Full power immediately; carburetor heat OFF; establish a positive rate of climb at 60-65 KIAS; retract the flaps and trim for normal climb) still does not make sense to me, for the following reason: say I was operating at a higher density altitude than I was, and was unable to leave ground effect with full flaps down. If I were to follow the procedure verbatim, I would stay in ground effect until I crashed into the obstacles at the end of the runway.
It appears that most people here are in agreement that it's OK to retract at least one notch of flaps while still in ground effect. If anyone sees this as a serious safety issue, please speak up.
The Grumman flaps are not very big or very effective. If you cannot accelerate in ground effect with the flaps down you almost certainly won't be able to accelerate in ground effect if you retract the flaps, so if you find yourself in this position your only recourse is to close the throttle and take your lumps straight ahead. In my experience the POH procedure works just fine and should be followed. Rather than messing with the flaps immediately after applying full power I would suggest you concentrate on accurate attitude control to stop the aircraft from climbing until it has accelerated to Vx.