Sadly, I've got a LOT of experience bring home planes missing control surfaces or major parts. All of the advice above is sound.
Below is my checklist when deciding on trying to ride my steed back versus taking a nylon letdown:
1) Assess your condition:
- Are you injured? (If so, how badly?)
- Will you have enough time to Return to a friendly field at a lower than normal speed if necessary? (bleeding out, fuel state, or major fuel leak)
- What parts of the plane are you missing? (Control and Aerodynamic parts)
- Are you able to move your nose up? ( If not, just go ahead and Bail out early ... Hint: Rudders become emergency elevators if you roll out of level flight)
2) As soon as practicable (When it makes sense to try), perform a Controllability Check at an altitude at which you will have time to Bailout if things go poorly.
Note: For a beginner, I would not advise attempting to land with 'split flaps' unless the damaged flap is under an intact wing
3) Presuming your controllability check panned out, plan your return routing for a long, shallow, straight-in approach
4) HOOK - OUT (Just do it ... costs you nothing to try)
5) If missing a portion of a single wing, fly your approach making turns into the good wing (its an aerodynamics thing).
6) Fly your final approach 5 knots faster than the slowest speed you were able to attain during your Controllability Check, pull throttles to idle/off only when landing is assured
7) Attempt to touch down centered on your landing surface (In cases where your gear fails on landing, you have max room to skid to a stop before leaving the concrete (or deck if its a carrier landing)
8) If it is necessary to crab your plane to maintain control, continue the crab (Rudders into the good wing) until touchdown, then release rudder pressure to allow your plane to streamline
CONTROLLABILITY CHECK CHECKLIST
- Decelerate to approach speed (150 indicated [IAS] is a good ballpark number)
- Confirm that you are able to adequately control your plane when configured with gear and flaps extended (or "NO FLAP" and/or "NO GEAR" should conditions warrant)
- Attempt to turn your plane (in the direction of the good wing if you have a damaged wing)
- Attempt move your nose up (Elevators, flaps, etc.) ... If you cannot keep your plane in a nose level/up condition, you are not going to land safely. You can always descend by reducing speed to create a controlled stall. However, if you can not get your nose above the horizon then odds are that you are destined to to impact the ground in such a way as to cause grievous bodily harm.
If you can not do these things at 150 IAS ... BAILOUT
...
If you are able to do these things, decelerate to your landing speed (Generally 80-100 IAS) and repeat the CONTROLLABILITY CHECK above.
- If you are able to adequately control your plane at 150 IAS, but have restricted options at or near landing speed, plan accordingly and make sure the only thing you have to do on final approach is slow down.
In a nutshell, the above will let you know if you need to bother trying to land.
{Always remember this moto: Go ahead and give this one back to the tax payers....its already paid for and besides, they'll make more}
- RODENT57