New Pilot

Tips for one of aviation's most harried maneuvers

Of all the flight procedures learned during training, few must be extracted from a pilot's bag of tricks on such short notice as the balked landing, otherwise known as the go-around. Lodged somewhere in that gray area between normal operations and emergency procedures, the go-around challenges the pilot to change plans in an instant while flying the aircraft smoothly through a transition from glide to climb, low power to full power, arrival configuration to departure configuration — all while avoiding a traffic conflict or monitoring some other kind of problem on the runway. To execute a go-around efficiently and safely, the procedure has to be known to the point of reflex and initiated without hesitation.

Flying is an orderly business most of the time, and it is fairly easy to judge a pilot's competence by observing his or her method of tackling flight operations. Does the pilot use checklists, plan ahead, have a backup plan, fly with precision, and keep track of the big picture?

All right — go around! Obviously this is no time to fumble for a checklist or fail to arrest the aircraft's descent for having forgotten the procedure. Go-around time usually occurs near the ground, at a low airspeed, so its proper execution must be a matter of quick and accurate response. During a go-around your airplane is transitioning from a descent to a climb, undergoing a change of configuration (retracting flaps or gear), and responding to a rapid increase in engine power, creating sudden pitch and yaw forces — and it's all happening while you divide your attention between aircraft control, departure course obstacles, and whatever caused the go-around in the first place.

Go-around procedures vary from one aircraft to another, but the fundamentals remain the same: The pilot must arrest the descent, begin the transition from the landing configuration to the climbout configuration, establish the initial climb at the recommended speed, complete the cleanup, and climb out at the appropriate airspeed (V _x or V _y) on the desired departure course. This last consideration is the reason it is often recommended that pilots fly their go-around slightly to the right side of the runway, giving a pilot in the left seat the best view of what is happening down below.

Let's assume that you are on final in your older model Cessna 172, on approach to a short field, using the recommended short-field landing procedure. You are on a stabilized final, holding 60 knots, with full flaps extended (40 degrees). Your plan is to touch down at your chosen spot near the approach end, lower the nose, apply heavy braking, and retract flaps for better brake effectiveness. But it becomes apparent, as you get closer in, that a landing in the desired touchdown zone will not be possible. So you decide to take it around.

As you apply full throttle and remove carburetor heat with your right hand, the nose attempts to rear up. (You are trimmed for 60 knots; the nose rises in an effort to maintain that speed as the propeller's thrust increases.) Now you must simultaneously apply considerable forward pressure to the yoke and keep the wings level with your left hand while adding right rudder pressure to keep the nose from swinging left in response to the power increase. At the same time, your right hand darts from the throttle and carb heat to the flap switch because a Skyhawk with 40 degrees of flaps extended must be quickly reconfigured for 20 degrees of flaps to reduce drag for the initial climb. Your left hand on the yoke continues to control the airspeed (pitch) with forward pressure as your right hand moves next to the trim wheel to trim off some of that pressure. Once established in a positive climb and clear of obstacles, it is time to retract your remaining flaps one notch at a time, while further adjusting pitch and trim to control the airspeed.

Somewhere in the back of your mind you are reminding yourself that once the airplane is cleaned up and climbing, you will reach for the microphone and announce your change in plans — perhaps also inquiring about the intentions of any other party involved in the situation. If another pilot caused the problem, suppress the urge to remonstrate over the radio — you still have a lot of flying to do, and you don't need the distraction.

If you are a student pilot, a healthy sprinkling of go-arounds should be included in your dual sessions in the traffic pattern, initiated from a variety of configurations and heights above touchdown. Some should be initiated right out of the landing flare. Prevent the airplane from touching down during the transition. This challenging drill may pay big dividends someday if you ever find yourself unable to correct drift down low during a landing in a strong or gusty crosswind. Certainly during your solo sessions you will find yourself performing a few go-arounds for a variety of reasons. The ability to perform them smoothly will increase your confidence. Remember that landing is only an option for completing an approach. Driving a misaligned or floating airplane onto the runway is a common temptation, but one that can lead to trouble and frequently appears in accident reports.

If you are a pilot who has just earned a private certificate, remember to stay sharp on procedures, as well as to learn the balked-landing techniques for the new airplanes you will be flying. With the checkride behind you and a regimen of routine flying on the agenda for the foreseeable future, you may find yourself slipping back from the sharp edge of proficiency. First to recede from memory are the things least practiced. High on that list are such items as emergency procedures, crosswind landings, and the go-around, even though it is the B side of every landing approach. But just the absence of a flight instructor bellowing orders from the right seat is no guarantee that some other cause of a go-around won't crop up. Turbulence or strong crosswinds may destabilize your approach. Traffic at an uncontrolled airport may be slow to clear the active runway or may taxi out for takeoff just as you turn final. At a tower-controlled airport, an air traffic controller confronted with diminishing separation between aircraft of different speeds may, without warning, command you to go around. An animal may rush onto the runway — in recent months I have seen deer, foxes, birds, and a dog on runways — or you may spot hidden obstructions. Maybe you just don't like the way the approach is looking and would rather set it up again. We all do that once in a while.

Some reasons for a go-around may be downright outlandish, so keep an open mind about what can happen. Once I simulated a forced landing for a student over a remote airport in eastern Maine, only to discover on short final that someone had left a forklift parked on the runway centerline. But that's not all. Stacks of wooden crates had been piled on the pavement — turns out they were beehives that had been shipped in to pollinate the local blueberry crop. The unplanned go-around that followed avoided a nasty ambush. You just never know what may be out there.

Timely go-arounds avoid accidents, so why do some pilots still try desperately to wrestle the airplane onto the ground when all indications point to setting up and trying again? Often it is plain old stubbornness — inability to admit a problem — that makes pilots continue an approach that should be abandoned. Some pilots don't want passengers, check pilots, or observers on the ground to witness the event. (The check pilot would rather see you use your head and go around than force an unhappy airplane to land.) And some pilots seem to forget that landing is just an option that a sudden gust, a badly timed flare, or a long float caused by improper airspeed may make it necessary to disregard.

A poorly executed go-around often is a sign that the pilot not only forgot the procedure, but — worse still — was completely taken by surprise by the need to abort the landing. Common errors committed by those who are rusty on balked-landing technique include retracting flaps before adding power (losing control over their sink rate); announcing the go-around before performing it (microphones are a poor source of climb power); flying off in no particular direction; and failing to control pitch and trim, perhaps flirting with a departure stall. Periodic review of the go-around procedure for your airplane, plus practice, practice, practice, is the cure for all of these ills — arming the pilot with confidence, alertness, and the ability to react swiftly to changing circumstances.

Practice Area: Aviation Myths and Insight

BY WILLIAM K. KERSHNER

There are myths in aviation that won't go away, and it's well known that a myth is as good as a mile. (Sorry.)

"Squared" power settings

A persistent belief has been circulating for years that engine manifold pressure, in inches, should not be higher than the revolutions per minute, in hundreds, because this would damage the engine. For instance, at 2,300 rpm the manifold pressure should not be set higher than 23 inches.

This is not correct and, in fact, for a more efficient operation, in most cases it's better to have a lower rpm, higher manifold pressure combination than squared, as long as the power setting is within the engine manufacturer's specifications. If, for instance, you have a choice between two different power settings for 65-percent power — 27 inches manifold pressure and 2,200 rpm or 24 inches and 2,400 rpm — at a given (probably lower) altitude, use the former setting. You may find on the lower power-setting table that the fuel consumption is maybe a tenth of a gallon per hour less because of smaller friction losses at the lower rpm, but as one engine manufacturer put it, "use the setting combination with which you are most comfortable."

One of the arguments for "squaring" is based on somebody's knowledge that one of the "requirements" of the older radial engines was to never have the manifold pressure higher than the rpm. I don't know where this got started.

The SNB-5 (Twin Beech) had a couple of cruise power settings of 34.5 inches at 2,200 rpm, and 30.5 inches at 2,000 rpm.

The F4U-5N Corsair had some endurance-stretching settings of 35 inches and 1,200 rpm and 30 inches at 1,200 rpm, but the pilot's handbook cautions that such settings could cause engine surges at intermediate and high altitudes.

I had to use best miles per gallon settings (max range) on occasion to get back to the carrier after a stretched patrol because, as I suspected, as soon as I was out of sight over the horizon, the admiral turned the task force of three carriers and 11 destroyers to a new, unspecified course, just to create trouble for me. This assured that the ships would be long out of sight when I got back to where it was said they'd be. There's nothing like an empty ocean when the fuel gauge is getting close to zero. I would pull the prop control back until it seemed I could count the prop blades going around, and set the manifold pressure to maintain altitude. Either the admiral turned the task force (my theory) or my navigator wasn't all that good.

There can be adverse effects at low rpm and higher manifold pressure, but if you stick within the manufacturers' limitations, you'll be OK. For instance, the Piper Comanche 400 has one power setting at sea level of an approved 28 inches at 2,200 rpm.

A good book to read about engines in general is Aircraft Engine Operating Guide (Revised Edition) by Kas Thomas.

"The step"

For 52 years I have searched for this elusive super condition, but I haven't been able to find it in any airplane, jet or prop. (I'll get letters about this one.)

When I worked at Piper in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania, the airplanes awaiting delivery had to be flown every 30 days. So, on afternoons (some after flying all day), I would grab some keys from the operations office and fly Pawnees, Super Cubs, Comanches, Twin Comanches, and Aztecs. Before I did this, I called my long-suffering wife and told her that "I have to fly late this afternoon."

I decided that this would be an ideal time to find or not find "the step," so I grabbed a trustworthy stopwatch and the great scientific, aerodynamic experiment began with different airplanes.

I tried climbing a couple of hundred feet above the chosen altitude and diving; I tried leaving full power on after level-off until the expected cruise value was attained (a procedure I always used anyway). I tried cracking the flaps a few degrees. (I had heard that this would allow a change in the pitch attitude of the fuselage at cruise, streamlining it more to pick up more airspeed.) The implication here was that the designers couldn't set up the angle of incidence properly, but the pilot could correct it by cracking the flaps.

It turned out that no matter what procedure I used (except for the flaps, which told me nothing), each airplane stabilized at its same particular airspeed after approximately five minutes. The diving procedure accomplished stabilization more quickly if the time required to climb above the cruise altitude was not considered. Turbulence had an adverse effect on the time required for final stabilization. I stopwatched and checked airspeeds in the single-engine Comanches more than 40 times, for instance.

During this time in 1961, I was writing the chapter on cruise control for The Advanced Pilot's Flight Manual and wanted to see if other sources might clarify "the step" theory, so the next move was to call Professor C.D. Perkins, coauthor of Airplane Performance, Stability and Control, the definitive book on airplane flight performance. Professor Perkins was in the Aerodynamics Branch of the U.S. Army Air Forces Materiel Command during World War II and taught at Princeton University after the war.

I put the question to him: Had their research discovered the phenomenon know as "the step"? His answer was that the USAAF was unable to verify the existence of such a condition.

There had been transport and bomber pilots who had indicated that through special manipulation of controls, they had obtained cruise speeds noticeably above those predicted by cruise charts. The military was very interested in being able to extend all of its airplanes' ranges, and was quite excited about that possibility.

The results, after much testing, were that "the step" was missing, at least in the area of cruise. In writing this article, I contacted knowledgeable test pilots at civilian and military universities and schools. The consensus was the same as that discussed earlier.

We did agree that "the step" was a factor for seaplanes, but that's another story.

Spinning the Cessna 152

This one is particularly interesting to me.

I keep running into people who, not knowing that I teach spins in a 152, tell me the spin characteristics of the airplane as they had heard them from a "cousin, whose brother-in law's father had talked to a flight instructor," etc., etc.

A couple of the stories included the information that after three turns "the spin gets tighter and tighter," implying that if three turns were exceeded, the pilot was in big trouble. I have just more than 6,200 spins logged in the 150 and 152 (a couple of hundred with 20 turns or more), and this spin-tightening information is always news to me, but I'm never able to get to the end of the people-chain to find out exactly where it starts.

I find that up to two turns it's possible to release the controls and the airplane will recover on its own. The procedure is to trim the airplane nose-up (so that it will pull out of the post-spin dive for dramatic effect), make sure that the throttle is closed at one turn, and release all flight controls at two turns. The rotation stops in another turn and the airplane pulls out of the dive (still hands-off). This is possible because the airplane is still in the incipient stage of the spin; past two turns, particularly in a left spin, the airplane will stay in the spin and the normal recovery procedure must be used.

I take CFI applicants to a high altitude over a large, nontowered airport (the tower kept complaining when I did it over The William B. Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport) and have them do a 20-turn spin, dispelling the myth of the "spin-tightening syndrome" and showing that the recovery technique is the same and works exactly as well at any point between three and 20 turns. I think that it's a good confidence builder, and it is done as the last step in the spin course. The engine usually stops at 13 to 14 turns because of unporting of the fuel (the prop stops because the high angle of attack won't allow it to windmill), and the point is made that you shouldn't sit there in the spin (rate of descent about 7,500 fpm) but make your recovery and then restart the engine — don't forget to holler "Clear" before hitting the starter.

Incidentally, in the 6,200 upright spins from three to 25 turns (entered in the Cessna 152 Aerobat from loops, snap rolls, or any attitude that a student can get you in) I've never had any problems at all using the Cessna information manual recovery procedure. I have had trainees not push the control wheel forward enough to "get the nose down" because looking down over the nose, they figure the nose is down far enough, thank you. Sometimes verbal persuasion and a little "assistance" is necessary to prompt a recovery.

I also keep hearing that all you have to do is close the throttle and let go of the controls at any number of turns in the spin and the airplane will recover by itself. With some airplanes, particularly airplanes built specifically for aerobatics, closing the throttle, using rudder opposite to the rotation, and releasing the stick will work. This has proved to be a lifesaver, particularly in situations of aerobatic excursions into spins where there is a question of what exactly is happening. The turn-and-slip/turn coordinator gives the direction of rotation, and rudder is used opposite to the needle or small airplane bank or turn indicators. However, in an inverted spin the turn coordinator could give invalid information. But this is the subject of another article, and I don't do inverted spins in the Aerobat anyway. Pressing the rudder pedal hardest to push is another method of proper anti-spin action in some airplanes because in those airplanes the controls (aileron, elevator, and rudder) will move into a pro-spin direction.

Another point is that a number of pilots have been told or have read that all airplanes certified for spins must recover hands-off at any number of turns of a spin. Not so. FAR 23.221 gives the requirements for spin testing for certification of Normal, Utility, and Acrobatic category single-engine airplanes, and hands-off recoveries aren't mentioned.

Read the Pilot's Operating Handbook (or the equivalent) recovery procedures and, even with an approved airplane and experienced instructor, always plan to be out of the spin and level above 3,000 agl (and higher is better).

Now for the deep philosophical insight: On my classroom wall I have a framed set of four rules given to me by a former aerobatic student. These are in addition to the original 25 ("Don't fly wearing spurs. Don't take off if the motor is dripping," etc.) These extra four are added for young pilots who want to be old pilots:

26. Never eat at a café called "Mom's."
27. Never fly with a guy named "Ace." (My flight school is "Ace Aerobatic School."
28. Never spin the ____ (fill in the blank). This goes for any airplane placarded against spins.
29. During this aerobatic course do not upchuck on Mr. Kershner. He becomes testy on such occasions.

In one aerobatic series 25 years ago in a side-by-side aerobatic airplane, I had a student who was having trouble with nausea, and we both had been gradually working him out of it. (I always had a "comfort bag" open and pointed mouth-forward under my seat.) We took a break for lunch and he was cautioned to eat a light, bland meal. This advice was given twice.

The next flight, in the afternoon, started well; at least there were no nausea problems during the takeoff and climbout.

The first maneuver was a loop followed by a roll. Without warning and before I could pull the bag out (and I am known as the fastest comfort-bag draw in the East), the instrument panel received the full benefit of his efforts.

My comment based on the evidence was, "You had a giant-size pepperoni pizza with anchovies, didn't you?"

Sometimes my insight amazes me.

When I started instructing as a green 19-year-old, I asked a veteran instructor if he could sum up in one sentence the truth, the basic core, of being a flight instructor.

His tanned face took on a thoughtful look, and the crow's feet at his eyes deepened. I took out a pad and pencil to record his answer. He cleared his throat. "Don't let students eat chili and hot dogs before you go up to do spins," he said. He didn't mention pizza.