737- flaps for takeoff
 

Just curious as to the flap setting required for takeoff and the effect of having 0 flap set for takeoff on a 737.

I was on a flight 2 weeks ago and once lined up and ready to go, power was applied, then as soon as we started rolling, power back to idle and brakes applied... then i noticed the flaps being lowered...
seconds later we were on our way...

would there have been a warning sounded in the cockpit or might have the captain been testing the FO?? should this sort of event be notified to the airline? the only reason it had me concerned was that i've heard of planes not getting airborne because of the failure to set take off flaps..

I would have thought that flaps/slats should have been set prior to entering the runway..

That's a pretty darned serious error by the sounds of things. Would this event be revealed on the QAR? The recently revised Boeing 737 before take off checklist has "Flaps" as the only item. With no other trigger item before the word "Flaps" it showws perhaps a flaw in the design of the checklist?

A37575


Totally agree.

I would think the crew would have been very self critical of the fact that they missed setting the flap. Not having the flaps set for takeoff could lead to a very bad situation. However because of this, Boeing have a very affective take off warning system, that has been described above, and that worked as it should and the crew reacted correctly to it. Why they missed setting the flaps only they will know. Distractions happen for a multitude of reasons. But in the end a safe takeoff was achieved. Lets not bag them too much.

What is the flap setting for takeoff on a 73? 5 degrees?

Aussie

Yes, typically 5 degrees Aussie

What about landing? I know there would be certain factors which decide but typically is it 30 for the 700 and 40 for the 800?

Just interesting to know.. thanks!

For my operation typically;

737-700 Flaps 30
737-800 Flaps 40

These configurations will change depending on any performance requirements.

propelled,

What you witnessed was a very serious safety incident. You must report it.

Get in touch with one of the CASA Air Transport Operations field offices and go from there. Contact details: http://www.casa.gov.au/corporat/orgchart/atg_field.htm

aircraft and propelled sound like the same person to me! :suspect:
Oh dear, the lunatics have taken over the asylum!
What exactly has been witnessed here? Would someone sitting in the passenger cabin have all the facts, or just mere speculation.

Capt Fathom:
That is for the investigation to establish.

DirectAnywhere:
That "professionalism" would extend to encouraging a member of the public to report such a serious safety incident wouldn't it?

Why would it come up on the QAR? I understand that the various recording devices on the aircraft would have recorded the raw data, but would the existence (alone) of that data be enough to ring alarm bells?

If I had been that passenger I would not be able to sleep at night until I had reported it.

i would say 90% of qfs 737 (400 or 800) are flap 30 landings. recommended to use flap 40 when less than 2500m (800) or less than 2000m (400).

Autoland is at either Flap 30 or 40. (i am pretty sure. on 737 we never do them anyway)

Thanks for the info!

Aussie

nah sorry.. i only use one name here...
'Capt. Fathom', I'm no airline pilot, but I know what I experienced on that flight.. It happened no different to what I said in my 1st post..

'Aircraft', I slept quite easily on that flight, as stated in other posts, the crew knew the problem just after rolling and did what they had to do-flaps,etc..the other passengers knew no different...it was a 'non-event' in the cabin..

All i intended to do was share an event which I thought may be of interest to people on here...
I have no interest in reporting it to CASA, however I felt the airline might want to know about it just so they are aware that it happened and maybe some good might come out of it- checklists etc, so that its less likely to happen again..

Could you guys fill me in on what 'QAR' means please?

Oh, and 'Victor India', thanks for the explanation on the audible Take Off Configuration Warning in the 737s... that explains it for me..
cheers

for landing... flaps 30 most of the time, 40 on shorter strips :ok:

QAR = Quick Access Recorder

As you probably know there are 2 recorders in the tail. One a voice recorder the other a flight data recorder.

Originally they were designed to gather voice and data from the flight so that if an accident rendered the crew incapable of telling the story then the investigators could work out what happened from the info on the recorders.

In the new age of aviation these recorders (the data recorder mostly) are used for Flight Operations Quality Assurance by many airlines. As a result they are now fitted with removable disks that maint personnel can quickly access, collect and send to the relevent department before putting fresh disks in for subsequent flights.

How this data is used varies from airline to airline. At my current airline there are some 96 (I think) trigger events that will raise a red flag for investigation. Events such as flaps extended above placard speed, unstable approaches etc.

The data is sent to the relevant department on disks at the end of each day (depending on where the fleet is). Only the trigger events are looked at as it would take a large airline a huge team, and ammount of money, to wade through all data on all flights.

The question of this event trigering a red flag would depend on the airlines settings. It would be captured but not necessarily trigger a red flag.

The jury is out on the recorders use in this fashion. Certainly for a reponsible airline with a good safety culture it can be a useful tool. For an airline keen to punish offenders (such as mine - and I mean US $ fines for errors) it has the opposite effect and just results in crews flying to avoid triggers.

Hope that helps.

(edited for inclusion of reasoning for use of "Quick Access" term)

I think the fact of the matter is that is SHOULDN'T have happened in the first place...full stop. Many accidents have occurred after the crew realised a mistake a bit too late...

Propelled:
Propelled, you do not seem to grasp just how serious an incident this was.

You have a moral duty to report it. By choosing not to, you may think you're being a "good bloke", but you are in fact making a significant negative contribution to air safety in Australia. The accident that may stem from this incident may have nothing to do with flap settings at takeoff.

If you don't have the intestinal fortitude then PM me and I will take care of it.

What do we know?
 

Did the tower tell him to "line up and hold"?

QAR
The QAR will have picked up an "Out of Config" warning and high lighted it as an "trigger event" for those whom monitor such things, it will be plain as day. plus on most modern aircraft the "ACARS" system will also dob in an errant operator to his/her masters if an exceedance, config or fire warning is triggered. (Not sure if this true for the 737 classic)
The aircraft will send a message to ops, maintenace watch etc so there is no where to hide.

I am pretty sure most tech crew know this and would have self reported.

Get off your soap box "aircraft". Regulation of safety is well in hand without your assistance.

Aircraft, I'm afraid that it is you that doesn't grasp the incident.

Yes, the crew likely made an error. Yes, it was caught by the configuration warning horn. Yes, the crew corrected their error and continued.

My boy, the system worked as advertised. The QAR WILL have captured and flagged it, but I guarantee you that the crew WILL have self reported.

How do I know? I fly 737's. Whilst I haven't personally seen this one occur, I have seen plenty of other things which would probably have you sh1tting in your nappy.

So pullleeease don't get on here and lecture professional pilots about their moral responsibility. They are fully aware.

Sandy Freckle:
The "config warning" part worked, but that is the last resort catch. The part that a professional pilot would be extremely concerned about is that it required the config warning to prevent the takeoff continuing (that it happened at all, in other words). How well did the warning horn work in the case of the Helios 737 that failed to pressurise?

How can you guarantee that the crew self reported? I thought only used car salesmen handed out guarantees so freely.

Is it one of your guarantees that the incident will be detected by the person analysing the QAR data? Other posters to this thread have stated that what gets picked up is dependent on how sensitive the analyst chooses to run the analysis. Is the QAR data from every flight analysed? Does it require humans to do it? What if those humans call in sick or get snowed under?

Some are aware, but by no means all. There are powerful reasons not to self report at times - but surely you would be aware of that.

Aircraft Profile;
Age:
22
Licence Type (eg CPL. Pilots only):
ATPL
Current a/c Type (eg B737. Pilots only):
PA28
Location:
Perth, Australia


With all due respect aircraft I think you are way out of your depth.

Via second hand information coming from someone who was not on the flight deck or in the loop about the decisions being made and basing their assumptions purely on an observation way back in row 16, you have neither relevant qualifications nor appropriate expertise to make intelligent comment.

:ugh:

Thanks for pointing out the "experts" qualifications Shapeshifter.
Don't ya just love the gawl of these 22 y.o. armchair experts that just know it all :hmm:
Thanks for the advice Aircraft, now get back to flight sim or the PA28 and leave us alone will ya.
The system is well able to take care of mistakes of this nature.
And don't even begin to compare the Greek accident with this.

Aircraft I can assure you that the experienced crew on that 737 would be very aware of their responsibilities.
They have more than just a basic CPL on their licence.

No sledging of crew here, because it can happen to any one of us...something that our mate Aircraft hasn't grasped!

Professionals do make mistakes Aircraft.....and you could make one of those mistakes one day. I'm sure the crew has learnt from it, but until you know the full facts, ie, were the crew rushed by ATC, was it a faulty flap guage, the crew may have thought they had done the before takeoff checklist etc etc, be very carefull about "dobbing" people in.

Another thing Aircraft, with good CRM, aircraft and systems knowledge, and a professional attitude etc etc we go to work in the aim of minimising mistakes. And if they do occur, we report them and learn from it. If you are an up and coming professional pilot, you may want to adopt a more humble attitude, thats no personal attack on you, just a bit of advice.

aircraft, you referred to the Helios accident warning horn.
Well it worked perfectly well, and remained on the whole time I believe. I dont think they even cancelled it.

Gday,

In a previous life, I have done 2 successive RTO's due to the TKOF Config warning. Each time we cleared the runway, ran through a scan of all trigger items, again ran all checklists to see if we had missed the bleedin obvious.

Very bemused we returned to the gate. Once investigated, it was found the warnings were generated by a micro switch, which measures condition lever angle, that had collapsed.(Damn Turboprops)

We have all missed things at times, that is why we have 2 pilot aeroplanes, checklists and Config Warning systems.

No foul in this case, as mentioned earlier, the system worked. And, the chaps at the pointy end would indeed be very self critical if an error was made in this area. No one would take an omission like that lightly, we have all seen the outcome of attempted Flapless takeoffs.

Cheers,

Con:ok:

Qantas Maintenance Memo
 

QF Maint Memo M06-0047 issued 27 Sept 06

"...Procedural change.......take off flap will be selected after Engine start and PRIOR TO the dispatching engineer being advised to disconnect."

Applicability 737-300/400 737-700/800 :ouch:

IMHO, the selection of flap for take off is both critical and forgettable, thats why there is a this warning. This is particularly so, if for example, the flap selection has to be delayed until just prior to lining up, just post de-icing.
The operation I work for does autoland the 737 classic and NG. Flap 40 is the recommended setting as it gives a lower nose attitude and therefore a greater chance of seeing some lights, but flap 30 is certified.

Am dumbfounded that an aspiring "professional" aviator is suggesting that someone sitting in the back drinking beer and eating peanuts should report fellow professional flight crew to CASA. What has happened to the world.
I bet they would make a helpful and supportive F/O, NOT!
BB

No one would ignore a warning - Surely
 

"TERRAIN, TERRAIN, PULL UP"
"SHUT UP GRINGO"

testImagine a multi-sector four day trip?
Anyone else hoping the psych test works as advertised...

It has been revealing, how so many posters claim not to have a problem with self reporting but get all sqeamish at the idea of making a report that involves another pilot.

And throughout all this discussion, the word "professional" keeps coming up.

It seems the posters here regard making such a report as "dobbing". One poster (Pete Conrad) even used those exact words.

Well, maybe it takes somebody with my lack of humility to point out the following:

If you have a problem making a report that implicates another pilot, you are not as professional as you think you are.

No further questions your Honour.

geez i didn't expect the thread to turn out like this...'aircraft' is very passionate abot me telling someone other than u guys abut this event isnt he/she...

thanks again to the few posters who gave me the info on how the crew would have got the alarm from takeoff config warning... and also for the explanation re:QAR.

We all can agree that this shouldn't have happened, but it did, and the crew presumably did the right thing and carried on..

hey bundybear, it was rum, not beer..:ok:

QF peanuts...THE BEST!

Aircraft, I have some experience and advice I'd like to share with you.

As a very, very, very, junior engineer at AN, I was once asked to investigate rather unpleasant nosewheel vibration on a few aircraft (F27 Fokkeri) and proudly presented my typed report, complete with diagrams, graphs and some impressive statistics...............and my recommendation that the entire fleet be grounded forthwith pending the assembly of a task force to deal with the matter.

To his everlasting credit, my boss politely, tactfully and privately tore me to shreds in such a way that I didn't feel the complete git that I obviously was (and probably still am). My complete overreaction and jumping of miles to conclusions about the matter was never mentioned again, and I like to think they eventually beat some sense into me.

From memory the problem was fixed by tightening the balance specs on the nosewheel, a bit of re - rigging or giving someone a kick in the backside, or all three, can't remember which.

I would respectfully suggest that you learn to consider when it is appropriate to shut up or perhaps make further inquiries before opening mouth, otherwise I suggest that your aviation career is going to come to a very short and embarrassing end.

To put it another way, How do you think you are going to feel when you stuff up again, and one of your colleagues gleefully runs off to ATSB before you are out of the aircraft?

Aircraft...............grow up
ya plonker.

A configuration warning system is installed to serve a purpose. Obviously the system worked as advertised.
What's all the fuss about?
There is not a single pilot I know of that would not report this kind of incident.
"Boss, we stuffed up. Will do our best not to do it again", can't really be argued with.
Does anybody here really know the full story. Was this their 5th sector of the day, or maybe a 2nd sector after just completing a redeye?
I can only hope to be as professional as "aircraft" one day. :mad:

either flap 30 or 40 is ok, depending on field length and what you feel like doing.
the main reasons for using 30 instead of 40 are better approach climb gradient ie higher landing weight and/or lower minima and also better control in strong x-wind landings.
flap 40 is normal for autolands because of better slant vis in low vis conditions but there is no reason why 30 can't be used except for the above.
it's up to the individual.
in the 300's you mainly used 30 in hot weather because of approach climb limitations but apart from icing conditions it doesn't make much diff in a 700.