Skyhawk 172/Cutlass 172
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Flight Instructor; Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 62; Flight Crew Total 390; Flight Crew Type 189
Troubleshooting; Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Loss Of Aircraft Control
Flight Crew Landed in Emergency Condition; Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem; General Flight Cancelled / Delayed; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft; Procedure; Human Factors
I was doing a training flight with my student. Our first four touch and goes went fairly smooth. The fourth touch and go we landed; cleaned up our flaps; visually checked our left flap was up; and added power. I was taught to visually check our flaps to make sure the motor works. I checked my left one and the motor was working. Previous flight instructors never stressed the importance of checking both flaps before taking off in case of a rod failure. I am not sure when our right flap rod broke. Our take off and landing appeared normal. After climbing 50 feet; we rolled to the left. I added right rudder to counter the roll and regain aircraft control. We made a much smaller pattern to get back to the runway we took off from. Our climb performance was poor. I made sure to keep airspeed up knowing if we stalled we would spin with the asymmetrical flaps. We safely landed without any damage to ourselves or airplane. Maintenance on the field replaced the rod on the same day and deemed the rod failure was metal fatigue. There were no signs of over-sped flaps. Although some POHs allow the first notch of flaps above the white arc; I stress to my students to never put in flaps if above the white arc. It is very easy to add too much flaps. Other instructors at the school do not teach it the same way as I do. Although not confirmed; I personally believe this could have caused the metal fatigue and the rod finally decided to give up during our flight.
Instructor Pilot reported a right trailing edge flap drive rod failure caused asymmetrical flap deployment and controllability issues. The Instructor made an immediate turn back to the runway and made a precautionary landing.