Gentlemen, I reference Garrisons article on this subject. I was taking off from Show Low, Az on a cool morning at light weight, less than full fuel and one passenger. I was in a Piper Cherokee with 160 hp, mixture properly leaned for the 6000 foot altitude and 10 degrees of flaps as was my custom. The aircraft took off normally, climbed to 50 feet and simply stopped climbing. The power lines were over a mile away but they were not getting any lower and I was not getting any higher. I grabbbed the flap handle between the seats and lowered the flaps and the aircraft instantly flew and climbed out normally. Flaps, especially the simple hinged variety may increase lift but at the expense of drag. If you do not have excess horsepower, it can be a mistake to use them for takeoff. This was one of the most important things that I learned about flying. Ken
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It sometimes works the opposite.
I was doing touch & goes in my Cessna 310.
My co-pilot was in chg of flaps, a big mistake. He forgot to raise the flaps on one landing. We climbed so fast that the tower asked if we were leaving the pattern. We were at 500 feet half way down the runway. I had to slowly retract and dive toward the runway even to reach best climb speed. At abt the end of the runway I had enough speed to climb out normally.
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