There are plenty of cons especially in the beginers context. They do increase drag as well as lift and the that ratio is dependant upon deflection. They will reduce the stall speed (slightly) and they will make the stall departure when it does occur much more dramatic.

This increased drag and lift will allow (cause) a much steeper final approach if the speed is kept low near the stalling speed and therefore your runway requirements will be slightly less. Now back to the real world Since when used in this way you are closer to a stall and a stall that will be more pronounced when it does happen therefore you will tend to use more power in the final approach and this power management unless done well, often results in no advantage with flaps using more runway and increasing the pilot workload during approach. This increased workload often when especially beginners are involved results in lots of approach accidents.

Flaps are the most desired thing the guys first want when learning how to fly because it sounds like a magic crutch, well its nothing of the sort and cause a lot of bad approachs and even accidents when you first start playing with them.

I am not talking about some overweight warbird or jet that sure may bennefit from their use and certain assumptions can be made about the pilot skills who will be flying them and not talking about some hot dog 3D plane where flaps are for an entirely differant purpose with an 'elevator to flap' mix. That is a very different mix from 'flap to elevator' for a very different purpose.

What made worse from every one just having to have flaps when their piloting skills are very much in the formative stage is what most are talking about is using flaperons because its so easy to do with modern radios and two aileron servos. Well the problem is flaperons are not as effective, cannot acheve sufficient deflections and will cause an even deeper departure when it does stall when compared to coventional dedicated flaps. Those are the simple facts and that always reads as a more difficult pilot challange.


John

Only just my opinion