Up, up, and away

A friend had purchased a used Cessna 182RG, and I was providing the instruction he needed to comply with insurance requirements. We were approaching Southern California’s popular Big Bear Airport with two passengers in back, so we were heavy.

Big Bear is a nontowered airport at 6,752 feet msl, and the density altitude that summer afternoon was 9,700 feet. While we were on a mile final to Runway 26, a Piper Warrior began taxiing from the run-up area toward the runway. My friend, however, was working so hard during this turbulent approach that he did not seem to notice the curtain beginning to rise on the impending drama.

Oblivious to our presence, the Piper pilot taxied onto the runway without making an S-turn to look for traffic or uttering a word on CTAF. I said nothing and waited for the inevitable go-around. After what seemed like an eternity, my friend gingerly applied partial power, but the heavy airplane was configured for landing and failed to respond with enthusiasm. At about 200 feet agl, it sagged toward the runway in a nose-high attitude.

Had it not been for my intervention, my friend’s timidity would have produced results that would not have been appreciated by his insurance carrier.

He had made two major mistakes. The first was not acknowledging soon enough that an immediate go-around was necessary; he had failed to shift mental gears quickly enough to reverse his course of action, even after the need to go around became apparent.

Psychologists say that such inaction is the result of “expectancy bias,” an expectation that conditions are as normal as we typically expect them to be. As a result, a pilot might tend to continue beyond the point where safety and logic dictate otherwise. Tragedy can result from not taking positive action soon enough.

Pilot experience is what helps to create expectancy bias. The more successful approaches and landings a pilot has made, the more deeply ingrained his confidence the next approach will be as uneventful as all others have been.

A number of fatal accidents occur every year because pilots are not as prepared to abandon an approach as they are to continue. This provides a clue to a reliably simple technique that can be used during every approach to combat, and hopefully eliminate, the hazards associated with expectancy bias. All a pilot needs to do is ask himself at some point during every approach, “Am I as prepared to abandon this approach as I am to continue?”

My friend’s second mistake was timidity. There is only one way to execute a go-around: aggressively. A go-around is an escape maneuver that demands immediate application of takeoff power (especially when heavily loaded at high density altitude). Because a go-around typically is initiated with the airplane in a high-drag configuration, full power is required to arrest the descent and begin a climb. Pilots sometimes apply only partial power because they expect the performance associated with having practiced at lighter weights and lower altitudes. Although there are times when it might be admirable to avoid rapid and large power changes, this is not one of them. Concurrent with the application of full power, adjust the pitch attitude to achieve the maximum climb rate possible. Consider that initially you might require a somewhat nose-low attitude and have to accept a sink rate, until the flaps are retracted sufficiently to enable the airplane to climb.

When flying a heavily loaded aircraft at high density altitude, it is possible that even an aggressively executed go-around might not prevent a temporary loss of altitude because of the limited power available from a normally aspirated engine.

One way to determine the go-around capability of an airplane at high density altitude is to practice the maneuver with a reasonable load at altitude. At 8,500 feet, for example, begin a simulated approach with the airplane in landing configuration to, say, 8,000 feet, not an unusually high density altitude for many high-elevation airports.

Upon reaching 8,000 feet, initiate a go-around to determine how much altitude might be lost before the aircraft begins to climb. This provides an indication of what can be expected during an actual go-around under similar conditions. An indicated altitude loss of 100 to 200 feet during a simulated go-around might not seem like much when practicing so high above the ground. Try, however, to imagine what such a loss would look like while on short final and experiencing the visual and unnerving sensation of the ground rushing up to meet you. Also, you cannot imagine how shallow and anemic the climb angle will be until you do this for real. It is not a time for timidity.