Damage to the flaps

[CavemanJ]

Ok, this needs a little addressing.  Are they shot off or jammed?  Which is it?

Seems to be jammed, though if ya look at the wing they're shot clean off.  Earlier today I was in my pony cruisin around taking a shot here and there.  Find an idjit La7 up around 25k and sent said idjit back to the tower .  As I go up and over from the flaming wreck that was an La7 the pony I had been keeping an eye on had almost closed to gun range.  Yup, you guess it, the spray and pray and hope to God to hit something.  I still had 1 notch of flaps out as I went over the top after flaming the La7 and as luck would have it this S&P pony nailed my right flap.  About this time I spot a high P38 and a co-alt 190 comin my way pretty quick, so I dip the nose and head for safer skies, my missing flap momentarily forgotten.

I was reminded of the flap situation quite abruptly as I passed 400 indicated and the left one retracted on its own, causing a fairly sharp roll to the left.  I assume this roll was caused by the excess lift generated on the right wing by the jammed, invisible flap.  Got clear of the bandits, let my speed bleed under 400 indicated, dropped the first notch again and had to retrim for level flight since the lift on the wings was balanced again.

How about showing the flaps in the jammed position instead of invisible?  Looking out to the right that gaping hole in the trailing edge would lead one to expect the bird to roll to the right, as that wing isn't producing as much lift as the left wing.  But the invisible, jammed flap is there creating more lift on the right side so you get the opposite of what you'd expect.

Just annoying as hell.

Now back to your regularly scheduled whine.....

[Shane]

i think the flap indicator is tied into the left flap, so if the left is "gone" the flap indicator stays wherever, and you can still use the right flap (i think) (check it visually).

otoh, if you lose the right flap, the indicator will still merrily show whatever position the still usable left flap is in.

or something like that.

[CavemanJ]

I think yer right about the flap indicator.  But that's not what I'm talkin about

If my right flap is jammed down and going to create an uneven lift situation if I exceed the speed for keeping the left flap down at the same angle I want to know about it w/o learning about it the hard way.  Like diving away from a bandit and ya hit that magic number to raise the undamaged flap 25ft off the deck as you're starting to follow a hill around to avoid it.  

First thing I do after taking hits and making sure I'm not about to fly into something is a quick look around the plane looking for missing peices.  A great big gap in the trailing edge of a wing suggests that wing is going to generate less lift, not more as is the case with flap damage if they're deployed.

[Sancho]

if a flap is extended when it is shot off, it affects the aircraft as if it were jammed in the down position.  even though there is clearly no flap on the wing.

[Raubvogel]

What are these flap things you keep talking about?