Is it a good idea using less flaps during landing with tailwind?

Question

is it good to land the aircraft with lesser flap angle during tailwind landing instead of fully down flap and to what extend is the effect?

Answer 1

With more flap you will be able to fly slower, hence groundspeed will be slower. With a tailwind your groundspeed is higher than your airspeed so you will use up more runway that a convential landing. Surely you want to land in as little runway as possible?

As regards the ground effect I dont think this will make much difference.

Answer 2

If you are landing in a tailwind you may want to try something else, there are times when doing this in inherently necessary, but in most cases you land into the wind, and again it depends your approach profile. If you are going into a grass strip with nominal runway length or a major airport with 2 miles of runway.

So my suggestion is study the airplanes take-off and departure procedures before attempting this at home..

Answer 3

No.  

But there can be an advantage in using less flaps when landing in a very strong crosswind.

Answer 4

The answer is NO. The whole idea of landing is to touch down at the minumum safe speed. A tailwind increases the speed at which you touch down and using less flaps will further increase that speed, making an unnecessarily long landing roll (which on a short runway is harder on the brakes and tires). The extent of the effect on your ground roll with a tailwind is greater than that of landing with less flaps in a headwind because the speed-mass-energy relationship is not linear, it's exponential. This is usually shown in the landing charts, possibly something like +10% vs +15% for the same 10 knot increase in landing speed with reduced flaps. The time you might want to reduce flaps for landing is with a strong, gusty wind, and in those conditions you're always going to pick a runway favoring the wind.