Flaps and slats for Airliners

Fly-n-hi

kg4kpg

I would love to have the time and patience to do a flaps-down build, maybe a dio taking off or landing. My problem is when I get into the small, intricate details like that, my band-aid usage goes through the roof. I wish some airline kits came with them but I guess tooling would make it expensive.

Contrails makes some flap down sets for some airliner kits.

I almost forgot about Contrails. Nice sets despite limited subjects. I bought a Heller 1/72 C-118 Liftmaster, I think I'm going to drop the flaps use some prop blurs as if at the beginning of the runway heading out. Should be a challenging and fun project.

Good info, thanks much!

Ok,

First, taxiing in with full flaps down is a signal to tower that you are in distress.

Second, the take off configuration horn will sound with the flaps not in the take off range with the thrust

levers at a high trust position. Like crossing a runway after landing.

For most airliners that is between flaps 1 and 15 deg. Airbus is different, maybe Fly-N-Hi will chime in.

Another far more obscure reason is on the Boeing's Lockheed's, and Douglas's I have flown the

Hydraulic quantity gauges read the most accurate indication with the flaps up.

mach71

f8sader,

Nope.

want me to tell?

kg4kpg

I would love to have the time and patience to do a flaps-down build, maybe a dio taking off or landing. My problem is when I get into the small, intricate details like that, my band-aid usage goes through the roof.

I wish some airline kits came with them but I guess tooling would make it expensive.

Contrails makes some flap down sets for some airliner kits.

f8sader,

Nope.

want me to tell?

I would love to have the time and patience to do a flaps-down build, maybe a dio taking off or landing. My problem is when I get into the small, intricate details like that, my band-aid usage goes through the roof.

I wish some airline kits came with them but I guess tooling would make it expensive.

mach 71, I'll take a guess...to keep out critters?

Here in PHX we taxi in and park the A320s with "Flaps 1" when the temperature is 38C or higher.  The reason is that the WAI overheat sensors have been known to go off in the high air temps. Leaving them out helps ventilate them.  So its very common to see the flaps in the take off position at the gate here in the summer.

Also, its not that uncommon to see a plane at the gate with flaps fully extended in maintenance is doing some kind of check on them.

Most airlines use a slotted Fowler flap for the trailing edge of the wing, Boeing uses a triple slotted Fowler flap on the 737 classics but went to a double slotted flap for the NG's. I'm pretty sure the MAX will have the same double slotted flap.

Flaps/slats are retracted after landing for a few reasons, one being to protect them from ground equipment servicing the aircraft, The second and third are much more obscure. Would anyone care to guess?

Just a small point, most narrow body airliners need to have the flaps in the full landing configuration for an evacuation. They become slides for people exiting over the wing.

I guess the only fly in the ointment is.....standard procedure is to retract all flaps, slats, and spoilers on rollout.....as the airframe sheds speed, the pilots button up all the "dirty bits"......it helps prevent FOD damage during the taxiing process to the gate.  Trust me - you'll probably never, ever, see a modern airliner at the gate with flaps extended.

But.....I think I've seen the model you're talking about - that 737 with everything hanging loose.....and he did an amazing job on that.  Very impressive.

I almost always do a google image search before I start a project.  Even if I cannot find scale drawings of the plane, I usually get enough pictures that I can figure out the flap and slat configuration from those.  Also, the major airframe mfgs tend to use the same flap setups from model to model.  Not infallible, but a good start.

Looks like you figured it out. As far as I know, Brad's article on airlinercafe is sort of "the Bible" on the process.