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Old 20th December 2011 | 19:34
  #10 (permalink)  
RTN11
 
Joined: May 2008
Posts: 1,366
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From: UK
I had the first stage of flaps out on the Ikarus and was turning final and just started to run the speed up a bit too much. I didn't notice until the wind noise increased quite a bit, the aircraft started to float a lot and it became quite bumpy and more violent to control. No structural damage was done
Perhaps not from that one occurance, but over time the knotch on the flap handle which locks it in place wears away. Then, the flaps may still engage but every now and then will slip, jolting back to a clean wing. I had this happen to a student on their first solo, luckily they had the prescence of mind to go around and then fly a flapless approach, but many would get very distracted and start faffing with the flap handle.

Any limitation, Vfe, Vne, Vno, will have some saftey factor applied, but that does not mean it is OK to regulalry execeed this limitation, even if it's just by a few knots. Bear in mind most SEP aircraft will make it well over 10,000 hours in their life, and you don't want to have to replace the flap mechanism for no good reason.
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