If I’m flying in the “white arc” where flaps can be deployed, does that mean flaps should be deployed?
I’m thinking of a situation where I’m cruising along at a good clip in a clean configuration and I come across someone in multiplayer in a much slower plane. I want to slow down to their speed and fly in formation for a bit (don’t know if this is a social faux pas but that’s a different topic), so I pull power and maintain pitch to slow down. When I get into my plane’s white arc, should I be deploying flaps just to fly around? Or is my plane just as happy flying slowly clean above stall speed? I know flaps can provide necessary lift when taking off and landing (not to mention drag), but do I need that lift if I’m not near stall speed but going slowly?
Depends a bit on what type of plane you’re flying. Bear in mind, the white arc is the full flaps range. You can often deploy partial flaps at speeds above the white arc. In the 172 or Warrior or such you can put in one notch of flaps around 110 knots. And to answer your question, sure, go ahead and drop a notch of flaps in that case. It will help stabilize the airplane at the lower speeds.
You can try various flap settings and see what configuration “feels” best. It is a “personal technique”, or pilot preference kind of thing.
If your goal is to maintain flight, as a rule of thumb , you can assume that no flaps to partial flaps will probably work best. Full flaps usually provide more drag than lift and are most useful for approach to a landing.
The slower you go, the more flaps you might like. That said, the plane should be controllable in “clean” configuration all the way to the clean stall speed, which is indicated on the airspeed indicator by the bottom of the green arc.
Flaps are not necessary in the white arc, but it all depends on the speed you want to fly. Don’t forget that extending flaps will reduce your stall speed, for instance on the 172, flying with flaps 0, the airplane will stall at around 44 knots, and with flaps 30, stall speed is 33. Now it all boils down as to what speed you want to fly in the formation.
Really? In the 50+ years of flying/renting 172’s, I’ve yet to find one with a 33-knot stall. The POH for a 1978 172N says 50 knots without flaps and 44 knots with full flaps.
