Flaps primarily function to increase maximum lift, enabling slower flight and significantly reducing landing speeds, rather than directly increasing an airplane's rate of climb.
The article debunks the misconception that flaps improve climb rate, explaining that steady climb is powered and primarily limited by minimizing drag. Flaps generally increase drag, which typically reduces an airplane's rate of climb.
While flaps can facilitate a steeper *angle of climb* by allowing slower airspeeds, this is distinct from improving the *rate of climb* and is still constrained by the increased drag they produce.
“I always use flaps for climb. I get more lift that way.”
Some would call this statement perfectly logical, because flaps do increase lift and increased lift certainly ought to make an airplane climb faster. Others would say that the reasoning is fallacious, and that flaps, by increasing drag, reduce rate of climb rather than increase it.
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