Why do you retract flaps after landing?

Retracting conventional wisdom on landings. Last year in this column I made passing reference to the technique of retracting the wing flaps immediately after touchdown. The purpose of this is to reduce wing lift and add weight to the wheels, which significantly improves braking effectiveness and deceleration.



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When an aircraft is unable to touch down with its landing gear fully extended it must perform a gear-up or belly landing. Such a landing does carry a small risk - there is likely to be damage to the aircraft; it could conceivably catch fire or flip over if it lands too hard.

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The most common cause of gear-up landings is the pilot simply forgetting to extend the landing gear before touchdown. On any retractable gear aircraft, lowering the landing gear is part of the pilot's landing checklist, which also includes items such as setting the flaps, propeller and mixture controls for landing.

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But extending the flaps also increases drag and slows the plane down, thereby reducing the control over the aircraft that you want. So to counteract that, pilots will throttle up to maintain speed and control.

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Passenger lands plane without landing gear after pilot suffers medical emergency. A pilot of a small plane suffered a medical emergency in the air, prompting a passenger to take over controls and make a crash landing with no landing gear at Martha's Vineyard Airport, authorities said.

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A takeoff may be rejected for a variety of reasons, including engine failure, activation of the takeoff warning horn, direction from air traffic control (ATC), blown tires, or system warnings.

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There's no fixed number – each individual is unique, as is the ejection that they endure. After ejection, a pilot will be given a full medical evaluation and it is down to that medical professional to advise whether it is recommended that the pilot continues to fly or not.

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Answer: Usually the autopilot is engaged soon after takeoff and remains engaged until just before landing. I would estimate that over 90% of most flights are flown with the autopilot engaged.

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Most of the time, landing flap will be determined by the landing performance required, flap 30 is nearly always desirable unless we need the lower approach speed, or if increased forward visibility is required such as during low vis ops. Performance is the determining factor.

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