Airplane Owner Maintenance

A Maintenance Oriented Podcast For Airplane Owners, Pilots, and Mechanics

Tag: sr22flaps

256 – Not Quite Full Flaps

February 26, 2026 /

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In the last podcast episode, we talked about an issue with my friend’s Cirrus SR22, and how the flaps occasionally would not retract.

That problem got mostly resolved at the recent annual inspection when they made some adjustments due to the flap 50% and 100% travels being out of spec.

However, there is now a new issue.

Now, the flaps always retract when selected, so that problem has been fixed.

But now, while in flight, the flaps always go to 50% when selected. But when 100% is selected, the flaps move to almost 100%, but not quite, and the 100% light does not turn on.

Then, after maybe 45 seconds or so, the flaps extend just a slight bit more. You can feel the aerodynamic different of this last bit of travel, and then the 100% light turns on.

This issue only seems to happen in flight. On the ground, they work perfectly.

Perhaps it’s something to do with the aerodynamic load on the flaps.

We will likely need to send the airplane back to the shop who did the annual inspection and see if it needs another adjustment to make it work perfectly, not only on the ground, but in flight as well.

If you have a thought on this, feel free to send me an email to dean{at}airplaneownermaintenance{dot}com

Thanks for reading, and for listening to the podcast!

Hopefully we’ll get this issue resolved soon.

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255 – Cirrus SR22 Flaps Sometimes Won’t Retract

January 16, 2026 /

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Don’t you just love intermittent problems?!

This one has been just that… intermittent.

In the 2005 Cirrus SR22, the flaps have 3 positions: up, 50%, and 100%.

Our intermittent problem has been that occasionally, when selecting 50% or 100%, the flaps will begin to move down, but the “up” light will stay on. The flaps always stop at the selected position of 50% or 100%, but then when trying to retract the flaps (with the “up” light still on,) they don’t move. After a short time (seconds) the “up” light then extinguishes and the flaps travel up normally.

Listen to today’s episode to hear some thoughts about this issue and what we might do to fix it.

Months ago, I dug into the issue trying to see if there was something I could do to fix the problem.

I removed the rear seat and accessed the openings to the flap drive and the flap circuit board assembly.

Here’s the flap drive with the 3 black proximity switches, presumably one for “up,” one for “50%,” and one for “100%” :

These switches are magnetically operated.

The following photo shows the circuit board for the flaps:

I removed the plug on the left and the relays to the right and applied corrosion-X to the connections to ensure positive electrical contact.

After putting everything back together, I was hoping I had fixed the issue.

Nope… the issue was intermittently still there.

After all this my primary thought has been that the “up” proximity switch might be sticking in the closed position when extending the flaps.

Then, when selecting up, the flaps don’t move because the system things they are already up, and there’s no need to move.

Let me know if you have any other thoughts about this.

You can email me at dean{at}airplaneownermaintenance{dot}com or leave a voice message at the side of the page.

Thanks!

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