difference between emergencies and minor problems

[jope-dope]

at this time, fs passengers makes difference between emergency situations (mayday mayday mayday) and minir problems (pan pan
pan). Today i experienced my aircraft's flaps remained locked in the up position. I pressed ctrl+shift+m to call and a pan pan pan was
called. But then the stewardess said i was going to make an emergency landing.
In my opinion, this was not going to be an emergency landing because i could still land the plane safely. Passengers were told to
evacuate the aircraft immediately even when there wasn't reason to do so. It were just the flaps that remained locked up. So my
suggestions is that in a 'pan pan pan' situation the stewardess is talking about a precautionary landing and passengers aren't told to
evacuate the aircraft.

[Turbine]

Thats a good point Im not the biggest expert on this but I know in real life a aircraft was taxing to the runway for takeoff and on the taxiway it had
a flat tire emergency vehicles were called with the sirens on and everything like a very serious problem happened. I guess either its your flaps or
just a flat tire I guess its taken very serious. Compared to real life but Im just guessing.

[Igor (EY0106)]

no flap landings can be quite hard and quite fast. Pilots are trained to land aircraft with their flaps normally and it can be asumed that if they
land without they might make a mistake like touching down too hard or gonig off the edge of the runway. Flaps Increase lift but also Increase drag.
Meaning you can land an airplane at slower speeds without stalling the airplane. Flaps use Newtons 3rd law also known as ski effect to create this
amount of life. Ski Effect counts for 20% of an airfoils porduction of lift with around 80% of it being used under Bernoulli's theory. Bernoulli's
theory states where speed is greatest pressure is least. For me to properly teach how an aircraft creates lift through bernoulli's theory id need to
write up diagrams same as newtons third law. Thing is with flaps they can maybe put up the amount of lift created by ski effect by 5-10% at a full
setting. 5-10% can make a big difference in the amount of lift created by an aerofoil. Back to main topic if the pilot messes something up like
landing it hard the people would probably have to brace and get out of the plane as soon as possible. If an electrical problem was why the flaps didnt
go down or something more serious the plane would be able to bust in flame like the flight of Swissair 111 where a MD-11 caught fire from an
electrical systems malfunction which caused both pilots to faint and the airplane to crash. Now is somehow this fire were to make it to the fuel tanks
or another important systems its going to be yippi ka yay (you know the rest from a very famous movie involving a 747 on a runway with terrorists inside). You never risk the life of someone in aviation anything can happen. Better
safe then sorry.

Sorry if this reply is a little big but im in a typing mood today



Post Edited ( 05-25-06 10:42 )

[Serviceman]

In real life I think they would call out the equipment because there is a good chance you would overshoot the runway.