You have all got me really worried,I've never been taught how to use flaps on the Piper Cub.:)

What are the flaps there for, if not to be used during landing (and preceeding phases like approach and final)?

Landing is the very RAISON D'ETRE for flaps, and a beginner pilot should first learn to land in the normal way. Normal = according to NORM = POH, which will say a certain degree of flaps for most planes in most circumstances.
Further on in training you can and should practice exceptions - both to prepare for the day your flaps fail on you, and to make you a better pilot generally.

BTW the craft I was flying today ( http://www.skylaneulm.com/index.asp?lg=3 ) would require at least 1500 metres of runway to land without flaps, at least in my beginner's hands. I pray I'll have enough fuel left to reach the closest main airport, the day the electrical flimsiness fails on me.

BTW a training organisation where instructors don't speak from one mouth is suspect. A training organisation where you are bullied by an outsider to your training is a no-no.

I submit that if your flaps keep "getting stuck down," then you don't have very good maintenance at your home base. Forget anywhere else.

When the rental agency tells you not to lower the flaps in case they get stuck, it's a good time to rent some place else.

"Doctor, it hurts when I do this." "Then don't do that."

Not really a workable solution to a mechanical problem, in an airplane. Flaps are supposed to be able to go all the way down, and come all the way back up again, on a regular basis.

I once flew with a gentleman while checking him out in a company Cessn a210, who insisted he wanted to leave the landing gear down. His theory was that if we never raised the gear, it could never fail to come back down. While I can't faul this logic, I insisted that he raised and lowered it for every trip around the pattern. Imagine an instructor ingraining a bad habit like not reaching for the gear handle every time!

Let's face it, bald logic suggests that if we never move the airplane, it will never break (it's not true, of course), so flaps that never go all the way down can't get stuck, gear that never comes up won't refuse to come back down, and engines that never get started will last forever, right? Wrong, all three counts (yes, gear that doesn't get retracted can still fail, but that's another discussion for another time).

If you find someone is telling you not to do something in the airplane because something keeps failing, sticking, burning, frying, or unusual procedures or maintenance are used to correct a normal action, then it's really time to go fly something else.

Hello The Dead Side, it's in Portugal. Gestair (old Aerocondor).

BTW the craft I was flying today ( http://www.skylaneulm.com/index.asp?lg=3 ) would require at least 1500 metres of runway to land without flaps, at least in my beginner's hands. I pray I'll have enough fuel left to reach the closest main airport, the day the electrical flimsiness fails on .

I'm assuming that's a typo and you mean feet, not metres?

It was not a typo but there was a slight bit of poetic exaggeration. Still, in the flare this bird floats and floats and keeps on floating even with the flaps in the second of three extensions. Setting full flaps is not recommended because the bird is hard to take off / go around with so much flaps , it really is a big difference from the second to the third (fully extended) position. Then again; don't forget I am really a beginner pilot, and a slow learner.

This aircraft stalls at less than 30 kts so with a bit of practice you'll be able to pull off some seriously short landings. Happy flying.

Floating and long landing is the result of an incorrect approach, at the incorrect speed. A little extra speed often means a lot more landing distance. Fly the correct speed to landing, and you'll have much more positive results.