Training Tip: Tumult on takeoff
The Cessna trainer was accelerating down the runway for takeoff when a tremendous banging noise began, accompanied by heavy vibration—all seeming to emanate from the front of the airplane.
Veterans of the flight training environment can guess what was going on, but to the student pilot, it was a moment of confusion and indecision.
Not all unexpected occurrences are so easily remedied, and if the aircraft’s odd behavior doesn’t immediately suggest a cause, the pilot must do some troubleshooting on the fly.
Suppose you are on the “go” portion of a touch-and-go and the airplane becomes airborne sooner than you expect, but isn’t accelerating or climbing normally, and the pitch attitude seems all wrong for the condition. What’s going on?
The sluggish behavior and odd pitch attitude are cues to check your flap-position indicator. Likely you forgot to retract the flaps or mispositioned them during the ground roll. Take care reconfiguring at this delicate moment when it will be necessary to gain some acceleration without retracting flaps so abruptly that you descend. Basically you are now performing a go-around.
Speaking of pitch attitudes, being able to confidently establish the pitch-and-power combination to climb at a safe airspeed will save you unnecessary aggravation if your pitot-static system reveals itself to be obstructed at an awkward time, like right at rotation. Training texts explain how pitot-static-system instruments react differently to a pitot-tube blockage than a static-port blockage—but partial or intermittent pitot-tube obstruction may not play by the rules you memorized. Don’t let erratic airspeed indications distract you from flying the pitch and power to a safe return.
OK, now you are a seasoned veteran of the nosewheel shimmy scenario—so when it happens again, you’re ready. Only this time, the banging doesn’t stop once you leave the ground.
In just such a real-world scenario, this time it was the engine doing the banging. A highway landing soon followed, accomplished safely because the pilot knew the territory, maintained control, and resisted temptation to try extreme maneuvering at low altitude to get back to the runway.
