Originally Posted by
ShotOne
It may be true but doesn't touch on the issue of conf 3 vs full. There doesn't seem to be any unanimity In the responses. Clearly the physical geometry of the landing gear isn't changed by flap setting. Is perhaps my informant getting at a slightly lower deck angle with conf3, because of the higher approach speed?
This is exactly what could explain a better tail clearance.
Higher speed -> less aoa and less pitch angle required.
However, I'm currently wondering if we do or do not take the chord line to be the line joining the the trailing edge to the leading edge, including flaps and slats.
If we did, then the chord line would be at a varying angle when compared to the reference fuselage horizontal line.
I believe that this is what leads to a higher nose up attitude when landing a light aircraft (no slats) with no flaps (despite the higher approach speed)
Based on the values given by Capt Scribbles (Flap 3 is 22/21 deg S/F and full is 27/25), this would be consistent : flaps 3 could have a chord line more pitched up than flaps full, which could in turn lead to a higher tail clearance (that sounds improbable, but maybe when coupled with speed increase it could lead to this surprise)
You really are looking at the Airbus aero data (Cl as a function of alpha for all configurations and all speeds) and geometrical data (for the tail clearance + maybe the chord line angle thing)