I don't know about others, but I do use my flaps for deceleration. With manual flaps it's unreasonable to pull 30 degrees of flaps at Vfe due to the force required, so I pull 10, wait for the speed to drop, pull 20, wait for the speed to drop, pull 30, etc. Usually the first notch on downwind, second on base, third on final. That makes it an easy pull to each position, which means low loading on the airframe and linkages.In some planes, you can use the flaps for deceleration, and there are different max speeds for flaps 10 degrees and more than 10 degrees. Sometimes I wish that RVs had considerably higher flap speeds for just that reason.
When I was learning how to fly my RV I extended the flaps above Vfe a couple times - a blown fuse was the only result.
I've also flown home with a blown fuse and 20 degrees of flaps - do you know how hard it is to stay below 100kts for a hour in an RV!? Pretty sure I didn't exceed 120
Afterwards I did pull everything apart and checked the flap motor hinges attach point etc and everything was still normal...
So I think your good.
The person I did transition training with noted both of the actuator rods attached to the flaps had a slight bow in them when they had been deployed overspeed. He replaced them with aluminum hex rod approx. 5/16" with the ends drilled and tapped for the bearings. Not recommending, just passing it on.
The person I did transition training with noted both of the actuator rods attached to the flaps had a slight bow in them when they had been deployed overspeed. He replaced them with aluminum hex rod approx. 5/16" with the ends drilled and tapped for the bearings. Not recommending, just passing it on.
The fuse pins are not sized nor designed to allow the engines to "fall off" under excessive in-flight "g" loads.
As a side note, on Boeing jets, the wing-mounted landing gears are also fused, so that they will tear off cleanly without ripping open (or punching through) the inboard wing fuel tanks for similar scenarios as mentioned above.