Heading Off Trouble

For a long time I was based at an airport with a runway that was 2,000 feet long and had flawless, clear approaches over lakes at each end. One of the local pilots' favorite entertainments was to sit in the lobby and watch transient pilots land. Or try to land. Where most runways have rubber on the approach end from touchdowns, this one had a layer of rubber at the other end from when pilots, seeing the lake rushing at them, would lean on the brakes and smoke their tires-more than a few went swimming.

It was a never-ending source of amazement to watch something like a Cessna 172 come sailing past the runway mid-point, 20 feet in the air, nose down, and determined to land. The pilots saw the lake coming. They knew that they had less than 1,000 feet of runway left. They knew it was going to be close. But they tried it anyway. It was the rare and prudent pilot who dropped the hammer and went around.

Going around appears to be against many pilots' principles. The same thing holds true for aborting takeoffs. But, there are a lot of situations, both on landing and takeoff, where the smart move is either to stay in the air or stay on the ground and, in either case, avoid a potentially messy transition.

Even when it's the right thing to do, aborting a takeoff must be approached with caution and full, instant understanding of the consequences. The decision to abort a takeoff is almost never as clear-cut as the decision to abort a landing. Nor is it as easy.

Why would you abort a takeoff? The most obvious reason would be engine problems. Imagine that you push the throttle in, the engine coughs and shakes, and it's obvious that you've got trouble. Decision made: throttle back, coast to a halt. A no-brainer.

But what if you're rotating and you sense a power change? Not a major power loss, but a subtle change in rhythm. In the airline industry there's the old axiom, "Got four engines, start thinking about three." Where there's only one engine, the axiom should be, "Got a small problem? Start thinking about big ones."

The last place you want to be with an ailing engine is in the air. But what is ailing, and when do you make the decision to abort the takeoff?

The proper decision-point is the instant that you sense something is wrong. However, the go/no-go decision is fraught with questions, such as how serious the problem seems to be.

It should be understood that airplane engines seldom catastrophically fail. They may cough and bark but continue to run because, basically, they are simple, rugged machines. Even with a developing problem, these engines will usually deliver some power. The question becomes how much power will the engine deliver and for how long? The safe assumption should be that it won't be enough to get you into the air and back to the ground safely.

So, if we're going to look at the dark side of the situation, what do we do about it? Do we go or abort?

First let us toss in a caveat. There are so many different factors to take into account at the moment of a power loss or reduction on takeoff that there are no hard-and-fast rules. Keeping that in mind, the factors that enter into the decision to abort a takeoff include, but are not limited to: the type of aircraft compared to runway length; the status of the takeoff-have you lifted off already; the remaining runway length; and the perceived severity of the problem

Let's consider runway length and aircraft type. If you're flying a Cessna 172 from a 3,000-foot runway and you're just short of liftoff when the problem develops, it's an easy decision. Power back and you'll be able to stop with half of the runway to spare. If the same situation occurs in a Cessna 210 or Beech Bonanza, however, it could be close.

Now imagine the same situation except that you're already 20 feet off of the ground. Here's where it gets tough to decide, and the deciding factor is going to be how severe the problem seems to be. In the Cessna 172, getting it back down is the obvious thing to do because you probably have at least 2,000 feet of runway left. In bigger birds, the gear may already be on the way up, and the decision becomes much more difficult. Putting the airplane down on what's left of the runway is going to be very expensive because it's unlikely that the gear's going to make it all the way to the down-and-locked position. (This is one reason that some instructors recommend leaving the gear down until you no longer have enough room to land on the runway in the event of an engine failure.)

Again, every situation is going to be different, but a couple of general principles apply. For instance, it's better to slide off the end of the runway with a curled prop and the gear up than it is to stagger off the end 100 feet in the air only to have the engine quit completely.

Yeah, it's expensive to land and run off the end of the runway, but it is almost never fatal. Drop down from even 100 feet and chances are that you'll be injured at the very least. If you abort the takeoff and run off the end of the runway, there will always be the nagging question, "Would the engine have kept running?" But if the engine quits at 100 feet, the questions may be "Will I ever walk again, and did my passengers survive?"

The decision to abort a takeoff should never be hardware-oriented. Forget about saving the airplane. Save yourself and your passengers.

Right now, some readers out there are saying, "Yeah, but if it's just a minor engine problem, why not keep going?" That's a fair question. And that's where the ability to judge the severity of an engine problem becomes a deciding factor. It would be nice to say, "If the engine is doing this, it's minor. But, if it's doing that, it's major." But that's just not how it works. In general, the louder the noises, the more severe the problem, but even that's not always true. If it's making noises, it's still making power, which is better than sudden quiet.

Another factor in the decision is your geographic location. A faltering engine in northern New Jersey isn't the same as a faltering engine in northern New Mexico. When the density altitude is up, even the healthiest engine delivers sick performance, and a problem that would be the mechanical equivalent of a slight rash in the flatlands becomes as serious as a heart attack at the higher elevations.

And it doesn't take an engine problem to create an abort situation at high density altitudes. If more pilots were willing to pull the plug on takeoff at high density altitudes, there would be a lot fewer summertime takeoff fatalities in the Western states. Most of the locals know better, but flatlanders transiting the area often push a takeoff by forcing the airplane into the air, then realize too late that it's not going to gain any altitude. Most of the time these pilots could have saved themselves by chopping the throttle and putting the airplane back down.

There are lots of other reasons to abort a takeoff. I recall two memorable aborts: one after hitting six Canada geese right at rotation; the other after a lightning strike off the end of the runway from a storm that had looked to be much farther away. I can't count the number of times I've aborted a landing. It must be in the thousands.

There are also reasons not to abort a takeoff. When a door pops open it may scare you and sound terrible but aborting after rotation would be more dangerous than flying around the pattern and landing to lock the door. The same thing is true of the horrible sound of a loose seat belt flailing the side of the fuselage. It's not life-threatening unless you make it so.

Deciding to abort a landing is much easier than deciding to abort a takeoff. If you want to make the decision to go-around really simple, just say to yourself, "If it doesn't look or feel right, it isn't right." Then take it around.

Certainly the most common situations requiring a go-around include getting the airplane off the correct approach profile on short final or in the flare. Let's say that it's a Cessna 172, and you flare and get a pretty healthy balloon. You look down to find that you have 85 knots indicated airspeed and only 2,500 feet of runway in front of you. Take it around. You could probably get it down, but why try? Why land on the last quarter of any runway? That's just bad aviating.

Or let's say you're fighting a crosswind and get into one of those yo-yo things where you're overcontrolling and swinging subtly back and forth, never quite zeroing out the drift and never quite getting it under control. Take it around. The situation is unstable, and you need to go back out and regroup.

Perhaps you're flying into an airport that, because of topographical features, has wind shears at the approach end and you suddenly sense that the bottom is falling out. Forget about landing and fly the airplane. Apply full power and initiate a go-around. Don't try to save the landing. Save your own hide instead.

In general, when an approach has gone wrong and you find yourself doing something that you don't want to be doing, take it around. And don't hesitate. If you're flying a loaded Cessna 172 or something similar, just plan ahead, knowing that the airplane is not going to respond to power well. If it's hot or you're at a high-altitude airport, remember that the airplane is doing all that it can to stay aloft, so don't wait until it is slow and out of energy to ask it to go around.

OK, so you've decided that it's time to get out of Dodge and throttle up to go around. Now what? For one thing, be aware that the airplane is going to try to pitch up, because you've trimmed it nose up for final approach and landing. Also, the trim suddenly becomes very effective because of the increased prop blast over the elevator when you add full power. The situation gets even more interesting if you have full flaps out.

Your first concern is to hold the nose close to level. The objective is to accelerate to climb speed. If you let the nose come up too much too soon, you'll be flirting with a departure stall. Once the speed is up, let the airplane climb slowly and gradually milk the flaps into the fully retracted position to get rid of all that drag. Then trim the pressures out.

While all of this is going on, remember to fly the airplane. Nothing in the cockpit is as important as keeping control of the airplane.

The decision to abort a takeoff or landing should be based on safety, period. Ego and appearances have no place in the equation. The decision process can actually be short and sweet: When in doubt, don't go. When it's not right, don't land. It's as simple as that.