Idiot in St Barts...

Be more worried about clipping the edge of the road. The tourist makes a good means to gage your clearance. Wack the tourist and you still have a few feet of clearance to terra firma.

 

You can see where the road goes right in front there in this satellite view.

https://goo.gl/maps/NcKf4Bfdu8U2

You'd think even with topographical constraints for better road placement there'd at least be a warning system for drivers for such low overheads at least.. wonder how many get a big fright..

 

I have landed at many places like this in the NW and the good old slip made it a no big thing. I know that slips aren't good in some airplanes now but the airplane in the video can be slipped to good advantage. But then, they don't teach slips now. A shame because it's a damn good tool when you need it.

 

Most Cessna's are placarded "Avoid slips when flaps are extended". The earlier ones had 40 degrees of flaps and these fouler flaps when deployed would require a "dive bomber" approach anyway so it's hard to think that you'd need to slip one that often... Some later ones only have 30 degrees of flaps and are not placarded against slips.

That doesn't mean they won't or can't but it is not recommended. There are a number of explanations as to why this is not recommended. One is that if you slip it with 40 degrees of flaps it can blank the elevator and create an oscillation in the controls or in severe cases cause the nose to drop if the elevator stalls.. I've never encountered this so I don't know if it is so. Another theory is that the flaps can blank the rudder and cause oscillation of the rudder pedals. My mechanic told me the reason was that it was hard on the flaps and the the aero disturbance would cause rivets to pop on the flaps and you'd have to do some repairing... For whatever reason the placard is there on Cessna's that have 40 degrees of flaps available..

When I was on my private pilot checkride the examiner pulled power (in a place where knew well). I looked for a field and found one (it was the one he wanted me to find) and when we got close it became clear that there were wires that you had to get over and then drop the airplane into the field and if you didn't do something pretty aggressive you'd overshoot the field.. I'm sure he busted a lot of newbies with that trick

I cleared the wires and put in a heavy slip and hand the field "made"... The examiner said "Ok, you've got it made, let's get out of here".. so I applied power and as we flew away he pointed to that placard and said 'what about this???" I came back with " it says avoid, it isn't prohibited", and sometimes you have to do what you have to do.. He agreed and said that was fine, but he commented it was "hard on the airplane" so don't make a practice of it.

 

Fowler Flaps?????

I didn't know that any Cessna had Fowler flaps.

 

I was thinking of a no-flaps approach. You don't need them if you are exercising a slip. I assume that the slip is "hard on the flaps" and not on the airplane. I have slipped Cessna's many times but not with the flaps deployed.

 

I land St. Barth in the PC12 all the time.

 

My mis-spelling, but yes they do. This is one of the reasons the high wing Cessna's have such good short field performance. On high wing Cessna's, 172, 182, and 180's the flaps are on tracks and move aft as they are deployed. There's a considerable increase in wing area and for short field takeoffs the first notch of flaps is recommended and on some models up to two notches can be used.

Although they've cut the maximum flap position to 30 degrees on some newer models the 40 degree flap setting gave you a really short approach. You couldn't do a go-around at that flap setting so there was more pilot workload because as you applied power you had to retract one or two notches of flaps, which is likely the reason they got rid of that position.

Low wing aircraft couldn't have flaps like that or they'd be dragging their flaps on the ground.

High wing Cessna's aren't the fastest airplanes in their class but every airplane is a compromise. The gaps for those fowler flaps cost you about 2 knots of speed, but the also improve the low speed performance in terms of low speed handling and short field performance.

 

In one of the pictures, the scooter driver seems to be ducking his head as the aircraft approaches.

 

One of the first things I learned in sailplanes years ago. I don't remember (but not sure) the power plane instructor even bringing it up before I soloed in a Piper.

 

Thanks, Rob. I haven't been too close to what the FAA is requiring now.