Adam
Frankly that is not fair!
You said:
and I've flown 50nm once without raising them and it was only when I was
going to lower first stage of flap in the circuit I realised they were already
down! I did remember thinking the airspeed in cruise was low
followed by:
Fuji - my 32.000hr instrument instructor also forgets the flaps all the time,
I think you will find I have very little history of "admonishing" people's piloting skills. I contributed orginally to this thread by pointing out that most "errors" dont matter a great deal and to boot often there are few ways of traping some errors if they are "missed". I then went on to say that on the other hand there are some errors that are safety critical and however much we may all miss these as well, its dangerous and not something of which to be proud. You happened to give the example of flaps and I agreed it is something we have all done. In itself it is unlikely to be an issue.
However for the reasons I gave in most cases performance and handling issues should identify the "problem" unless these are also ignored. Clearly you did ignore the airspeed was low in the cruise but decided for whatever reason not to investigate further. Had you done so your investigations might have revealed a more serious problem that the flaps or the gear being down.
So the only reason I drew attention to your post was not to admonish you but to point out that there could be a worthwhile lesson to take if not helpful to you of benefit to others. In short if the aircraft is not performing as it should it is well worth your while investigating why. Something is wrong!
Mate, I have made more than my fair share of "errors" and happily nearly killed myself twice on the present count due to my own stupidity.
I recall some fun and games I had once with the governor. The performance in the cruise was less than sprightly and yet I ignored the signs - and they were there. I then chose to carry out a T and G and you have guessed it the prop. didnt go fully fine and I was lucky to make it off the runway. The engineers claimed they had fixed the problem and the chief engineer even agreed to accompany me on the "test" flight. The prop still didnt go fully fine and I had enough reasons to suspect it wouldnt. We staggered into the air, barely climed to half circuit height and recovered quickly and a little worse for wear to the engineers' hangars. I learnt some good lessons. I also learnt that ultimately it doesnt matter if the engineer says its good to go, or the instructor says "I do that all the time" which was another reason I commented on your post.
So please forgive me but my posts were well meant.
