Originally Posted by
Trevor the lover
No not even close Layman. Whoever is giving you your info should be shoved in a blender. Firstly, the 604 has no slats. As for the speed - nope, doing a RAT drop test flight has the aircraft back at under 140kt with just one stage of flaps. So drop speeds with one stage of flaps, Flap 20, is no problem. BTW, there are 3 stages of flaps.
So Cobham are flying the 604 at 140 knots with flap 20? That's a disaster waiting to happen. Last time I flew the 604 our min speeds were 190 clean, 170 flap 20, 160 flap 30 and the Vref flap 45. And that was a transit operation, A to B. Not a dynamic low level operation. If you're flying around at min speed eventually it's gonna bite you.
What's the plan when the flap doesn't retract? Recovery at FL140? Below 231 knots. Hope that's factored into the bingo fuel!
The more I hear about this operation the more I'm worried about the potential for an accident. Wrong aircraft for the job.