Airbus 321 Flaps IFE At MSP

Was flying to work from PHX-MSP today when shortly after configuring for final, flight crew cleaned the plane up, flew around for an extra half hour at different flap settings, then landed as an IFE with all us cargo holding our heads between our legs. They said problem was with full flaps so they landed with what looked like 20-30 degrees of flaps, so faster, but pretty normal otherwise. We just taxiid to the gate as usual after clearing the fire crews. Anyone here know how big a deal this is?

 

Probably depends on how old the tires are and how many flat spots prior crews have created.

 

Not a big deal and maybe bit overkill to have you guys brace IMO (with exceptions). The bus only has 4 selectable settings (1, 2, 3 and full). The only real concern I could see is a flap mis-compairison situation or tail strike issue when landing at a lower flap setting due to a failure. With those two conditions I would have had passengers and crew brace for impact. The A-321 is susceptible to tail strike because of its length aft of the mains.

 

This reminds me of an incident at ORD years ago, when I was awaiting an inbound United 757 for a flight to ATL. The flight was expected early but wound up arriving about 20 minutes late. It turns out that when the crew tried to go down past flaps 15, they wouldn't go any further on one wing. After troubleshooting the situation and finding no answer, they wound up landing a bit hot with flaps at 15; no word on whether they made the passengers brace.

Needless to say, they immediately took the airplane out of service. We had to go back to the main ticket counter where everyone was rebooked; in my case for another flight 4 hours later. They opened several ticket windows just for passengers on my flight and did a very fine job rebooking everyone in reasonable time.

I understand that the problem with the flap drive was a sheared jackscrew...

 

Thanks all! Had not considered the tail strike aspect. In mil aircraft we practice no flap landings all the time. The Talon would have us landing about 200 KIAS heavyweight no flap. Those were fun.

 

Ugh... always think of Alaska flight 261 when I hear the word 'jackscrew'.
Horrible... caused by almost zero maintenance. And no failsafe should failure occur.


How sketchy is it to land with zero flaps, for instance on a plane like an airbus, as opposed to a mil plane?
Very high speed?

 

For us in F-111s, no flap, no slat added about 50-60 knots to the landing speed, but we had a hook, tires rated for that speed (180-200 kts), huge brakes, and usually at least 8000' of runway (NATO standard runway). Not sure about the airliners because they have problems flying at optimum AOA for landing because of the length, as noted.

 

Found this:

https://www.quora.com/How-dangerous-is-it-to-land-a-passenger-plane-without-flaps

With long runway, good conditions, not much of an issue, apparently.

 

Not sure how much this would help figure out how possible landing with no flaps, but my buddy that is a captain for SWA tells me he can land the 737 at MCO's longer runway (12,000ft) without having to use the brakes and only thrust reversers. Those runways were made for the B52 so obviously long enough too allow that. As long as the tires can handle it, I would think it could land at higher speeds as there would be enough runway to stop.

 

I was really just wondering how much faster we were going to be over the threshold with half flaps (my guestimate from looking out the window) as compared to full and why it was such a big deal, as in why bracing the cargo for landing. I get the IFE as it was a flight control issue and the landing was non-standard.

 

Depending on weight probably about 25?kts faster. We always finish up our check rides with a no flap landing. Our tires are rated up to 195kts. So normal Ref is 130ish, Flaps 20 160ish, flaps zero 174kts. Dont know how the Airbus numbers compare.