Are people not learning to fly these days?
How much of a tongue in cheek answer would you like? 
Here in the UK, a student pilot got killed on a solo flight when asked to do an orbit for spacing. That could have been a deficiency in training combined with a “deficiency in student aptitude” but the “PPL” is a commercial product after all. The school/club doesn’t get a bonus for turning out good pilots, and anybody with enough money can get a PPL eventually.
What is the roll rate generated by asymmetric flap deployment? 100 degrees per second maybe. So what difference does it make if the aircraft was banked 20 degrees before that or not? And the chances that the asymmetry will act into-turn is 50 percent. The other 50 percent your initial bank angle against the asymmetric flaps will actually give you 0.2 seconds more time to retract them before ending inverted…
If you are talking full flap and it goes fully assymetric then probably yes you would get that. But that doesn’t always happen.
Diagram above shows the current RAF military light aircraft (Tutor) oval circuit.Flap is selected initially as part of pre landing checks, then final flap selection when wings level on final. It is a very good circuit pattern for ensuring tight/slick circuits, and I think builds good judgement and wind awareness for the forced landing pattern as well. On the downside, joining aircraft have to be switched on to fit in correctly, and it does not cater well for the all too common odd circuit patterns that are forced on airfields because of noise avoids.
Interesting to see that link thanks.
That topic was hotly debated on COPA, after someone proposed it after a recent series of loss-of-control accidents close to airports. Well, what can one say: The overwhelming majority of outspoken “old boys” didn’t like it.
I think it would be a good idea to allow these as ICAO standard, because it would put the final nail in the coffin of the German (and Swiss) precision VFR circuits which have to be flown following an undulating line around houses towards final. Once you have aircraft with different speeds flying a continuous turn to final, this will ultimately render it impossible to prescribe one “politically approved” track that all planes must follow. That again would free up resources for pilots to focus on things like airspeed and traffic lookout in the circuit.
I currently only fly continuous turns to final during low-level circuits, and I think it is generally more fun.
It would also make the circuits tighter. Not cross-countries where you are established on base for a minute…
But, to quote “Gone with the Wind” – frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. Both techniques work well. If the pilot can’t fly and stalls in a rectangular circuit, this won’t fix it.
Peter wrote:
f you are talking full flap and it goes fully assymetric then probably yes you would get that. But that doesn’t always happen.
Sure. But anything else than full flap should be controllable with aileron. And in many operations (all operators and training providers I have flown and trained with and trained for) will set full flaps late on final. The danger there is the proximity to the ground, not some bank angle…
BTW: It was not so long ago that I first came across that “no flaps during turns”, almost 30 years after my first solo flight. I was flying on the bizjet with a new first officer and called for “flaps up” while following the departure route. He answered “No!”. I pulled back the power in order not to bust the flap limiting speed and asked why and he told me “because we are in a bank”. After the flight we had a longish debrief and I never heard “beacuse we are in a bank” from anybody ever again.
Reconfiguring the aircraft and trimming in a turn is a bit harder than to do than with wings level. Hence probably sensible when training beginners.
Cobalt wrote:
Reconfiguring the aircraft and trimming in a turn is a bit harder than to do than with wings level. Hence probably sensible when training beginners.
Not if you train beginners that way right from the start.
It depends on the capability of the beginner… Some you just tell – that’s the attitude, and they fly it. Others can’t spot if a wing is hanging by 5 degrees… but I agree, once they have achieved the level required to fly a circuit properly they should be able configure in a turn.
Out of pure laziness, I’ve done this for years. Maybe my patterns are too small, but whenever I tried the squared-off method it all goes tits up and I have to fly unnaturally large patterns that don’t play well with other traffic.
