How Not to do a touch and go

[motzartmerv]

Hi Guys.. Here's a little video of an incident i had with a student last week..

 

We were doing cct's on r/way 31 at Jaspers Brush.. I should have know better, his mum and dad came to watch him for the first time (always a resicpe for disaster)..

 

On our first touch and go he landed ok, a little bouncy but not too bad, i told him to raise the flaps on the roll out.. Instead of doing that he applied full power, but, remembering that i said flaps up he instantly dumped the flap lever.. From 3 stages to nothing.. the result was an obvious Mush out.. The problem with that was with full power on we drifted ever so slightly off centre line, and over the top of a drain, all this happend in no time flat, i took over and rolled the wings as best i could to get the thing back on the runway as i was sure were going to touch down heavily.. If we had landed in the drain god knows what would have happend.

 

sorry about the video, for some reason it races a bit...

 

Ps, thats his mum you can hear..she needed some calming down after ...

 

Let me tell you, it looked a lot worse from in the cockpit.

 

 

 

[Trevor]

Wow Motzartmerv, did you need a good strong coffee and a trip to the little house after that? Bit hairy eh. Trevor

 

 

[Guest Decca]

Holy (what his Mum said).

 

Thanks for posting this week's lesson M.

 

Decca.

 

 

[facthunter]

Well.

 

C'mon andy, if that's the worse thing you have to contend with you are getting off lightly. You never learn faster than when you let a student take the aeroplane a bit further than you would ever do yourself. You have to let this happen so that they know that it was going to come unstuck, otherwise it looks as if you are a bit ready to take over, and that is resented. Walk the tightrope my friend. Nev

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Nev, mate, i never said that was the worst thing i have had to contend with, just lucky enough to get it caught on tape...But, i wont walk the tightrope and let the thing be rolled up into a ball, thanx for the advice but i think ill continue to save the aircraft from damage, even if i end up being "resented" by the student.... I very rarely take over when things go pear shaped, i prefer to talk them through.. Im astounded at your comments mate, really i am...

 

 

[Guest Gomer]

Sometimes I think (know!) that my instructor has nerves of steel, but I'll tell you that I never resent him keeping me and the plane in one piece! :)

 

 

[GraemeK]

I never resent him keeping me and the plane in one piece!

Same here - I'd much rather he take over before things go really pear shaped. But it's a difficult area - how far should he let you go before he reaches for the stick? Too soon and you'll never learn, too late and ........

 

Fortunately, it's something we discussed early on, so we both understand - and it's worked well in my case :thumb_up:.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Yea, its a very Grey area.. I really dont like coming on.. If anything i let it get a bit too far sometimes. Patter works so much better i feel.. If the picture corrisponds to good clean patter then hopefully the picture will trigger memories of the patter like an automatically triggered recording.. I DO draw the line at letting the thing be put down in a ditch...

 

 

[Tracktop]

I agree instructors should not wait to long to correct.

 

Yes sometimes I may think "yes I was doing (or about to do) that"

 

Trikes are dual control by nature and my instructor usually just pushes harder or earlier than me to correct my mistakes or late operations.)

 

BUT as it's my plane, if it takes longer to learn then so be it. In the long run it is cheaper to pay for a few extra lessons than stress MY plane even if no apparent damage is caused ie less than smooth landing.

 

My thoughts as a student

 

Ray

 

 

[Ultralights]

i usuallly take over early as well, if things start looking ugly, but as i do, talk them through it and explain the consequences. if they dont really understand what went wrong, then get some height and demonstrate what could go wrong but in a controlled fashion in a later lesson. a good one is the overbanking in a steep climb. i stop em going more than 20 deg angle of bank, explain what would happen if i didnt, and when the opportunity arises later, at height, ask the student to show best angle of climb, and then a climbing turn. if they have learnt from before, they wont mess it up, if they havnt, a stall in a climbing turn at height is a real eye opener. fortunatly only 1 student has suffered that. he has a new respect for stalls and bank angles in turns. and now he dicatates to me what hes doing in th turns.

 

On the video though, i have never landed at Jaspers, hmmm if weathers good might come down tomorrow.. anyway, we are fortunate here at bankstown that if the student has forgotten flaps up after landing, i wont let him advance the throttle till he has. we have 2000 mtrs of tarmac to play with, so probably not a good idea at jaspers...

 

and i thought the sportstar would climb out better than that?

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Hey Rob.. Yea mate, comon down.. 06/24 and 13/31..

 

The sporty climbs pretty good, its decieving in the video, going from 31 its all rising terrain underneath.. And he probably didnt have best climb speed happening.. Can't remember..

 

This guy is usually quite good, we talked about it later and couldnt explain why he applied full throttle before identyfing and raising the flap.. Its always been a concern of mine training in acft with a single throttle, and the vernier makes it even more an issue i believe... At least with electric falp instant retractions rn't possible either.. was one of those swiss chees things that came together in about 1/2 a second...

 

The runway (31) is very skinny down that end due to works being carried out.. Probably 2 meters clearnace each side of the wings...so no room to play silly buggers...

 

cheers..

 

 

[skeptic36]

and i thought the sportstar would climb out better than that?

No doubt it would have, but with the extra load that was now in the back of Mervs' shorts........ Too heavy

 

Regards Bill

 

 

[motzartmerv]

.......:thumb_up:

[Mazda]

Well done!! I bet the student will never do that again.

 

 

[Guest pelorus32]

Nev, mate, i never said that was the worst thing i have had to contend with, just lucky enough to get it caught on tape...But, i wont walk the tightrope and let the thing be rolled up into a ball, thanx for the advice but i think ill continue to save the aircraft from damage, even if i end up being "resented" by the student.... I very rarely take over when things go pear shaped, i prefer to talk them through.. Im astounded at your comments mate, really i am...

G'day Merv,

 

nice video :big_grin:

 

Couple of things. I'd be interested on your comments about whether that incident has changed your thinking/practice and if so how? It's always interesting to know what you decide on reflection after something like that.

 

As for Nev's comment - whilst it sounded a bit bald here, I suspect that it was a continuation of a number of discussions that he and I and others had been conducting sporadically during the course of the day.

 

So I'm not going to try and "answer" for Nev, but the context of our conversations during the day had been about the three interacting issues:

 

1. How far do you have to let a student go in order that they learn, and what's more understand where the edges of the envelope are and what it looks/feels like when you get there;
    
    
   
2. Do you have the skills to gracefully catch it when you get to the boundaries;
    
    
   
3. What happens when a student puts you somewhere where you've never been before.
    
    
   

 

 

Part of that conversation was generated from a beautifully executed (even if I do say so myself) ground loop. The instructor sat there with his feet flat on the floor and let me "ground loop" a tail dragger - albeit taxiing at less that walking pace - as an example of what happened when you got things out of line. It was nice and safe - low energy, slow enough to learn from rather than happening in a blur...There were many laughs around the place but I learned heaps!!

 

Quite different for example to conducting the same demo during a landing - that would be very nasty and I'd want someone intervening long before I got near that.

 

I'd be interested to hear Nev's response but from the conversations during the day I'm sure he wasn't advocating allowing mayhem!

 

Regards

 

Mike

 

 

[Guest basscheffers]

I did something similar once, probably about 20hrs in or so. This was dual, in the SportStar also.

 

I had drifted and decided to go around so applied full noise. However, my mind was in touch and go mode so for some reason I did the same as your student did. Luckily, we were a bit higher above the ground and I realised my mistake straight away. I felt the lowering rate of climb (don't think we ever sank much) as less than 1 G and immediately, simultaneously, I pushed the nose forward to level and re-applied the two stages of flap.

 

Wings stayed level and we were never in real danger of hitting the ground. And the instructor was happy I identified my mistake and corrected appropriately.

 

Yet another way your students can screw up in this regard! :)

 

 

[Ben Longden]

I think you handled that situation well.

 

Ben

 

 

[facthunter]

Response.

 

Merv, I think you are being entirely too sensitive, here. It wasn't intended as a put-down. Let me assure you of that point. Perhaps I was being too subtle. I thought I was communicating to you as a fellow traveller and trying to give an insight to students and prospective instructors just how difficult the judgement is and how it is an on-going thing that the instructor has in the back of his mind all the time. The student at an early stage of training has no concept of how dangerous some of the situations are, and that is quite understandable. It couldn't be otherwise.. Also if you outlined all this before commencing training, the prospective student would no doubt go and do something else. You would put him/her totally off the idea.

 

Re SAFETY, let me assure you that it is foremost in my mind concerning aviation matters, particularly where the adequacy and effectiveness of pilot training is concerned, If you think anything that I have said suggests otherwise then it has come across incorrectly. Nev.

 

 

[Guest watto]

Good on you motza, you let it go far enough that it was still recoverable but enough to bring the student to earth and yet point out that you can get a little pear shaped and get it back if you keep your kool.

 

Thanks for sharing

 

Watto

 

 

[Simonflyer]

**Facthunter**

 

It is really too hard to tell what you may or may not do in a given situation..it depends where the student and the instructor are at in terms of experience..another thing is about visual perspective..I doubt that the camera from that distance would really do justice to what it actually felt like in the aircraft, and im not sure letting the student clip a wing and possibly bury the nose into a drain is really going to help anyone learn all that much..

 

It actually didnt look all that harsh on the film on the first run, but if you run through to the actual point where the flaps get dumped(hit mute cause mum keeps squealing) the tail very nearly scrapes beacause of the nose high attitude(not so bad in the scheme of things as long as your going straight which merv has said wasnt happening), and then there is a quick input to the rear and the right(one in fright no doubt and definitely not good at low speed, and i reckon when the wings leveled out would be when merv gotta hold on it)..The wingtip itself was probably cutting the grass, and it wouldnt matter who the student was,i would be looking to correct things at that height..If they were to resent me for looking after our safety, and a very expensive piece of equipment then so be it..

 

I do respect and agree that students need to be allowed to make mistakes to learn, but not in a position where there is no room for error like that.Its too possible to go very bad, very fast.

 

 

[jordy]

Still Merv, apart from all that it looked like a good day to go flying......:thumb_up:

 

 

[facthunter]

Again.

 

All I am trying to say is that students will put you in positions that YOU would never put yourself in, and often very quickly. As the instructor you have to be able to safely cover ALL of these situations. I often call it "pulling a rabbit out of a hat" , BECAUSE YOU ARE READY FOR IT. I have not suggesting that you let people bend aircraft so that they may be able to learn something. Give me a break. For the record I have never ever damaged an aircraft. There is some luck in that I suppose, but I believe that you make your own luck to a great extent, by preparation and anticipation amongst other things. I am sure Merv. learnt something from the experience, and I would be interested to get his opinion of what that was. I imagine that he will continue to learn from the situations that he is exposed to. I think posting the event is a great idea as well, but I am becoming a little frustrated that I am being misread. Nev.

 

 

[Guest drizzt1978]

Well guys, As my First instructor said, who is quite high up in our circle said to me.

 

"As long as you aren't going to kill me or damage the plane, I will let you do it, then fix it" He has over 17k hours.

 

So I suppose what i am saying is everybody has a different interpretation of that. And if you produce students that don't kill them selves then that would be a benefit... Unless you have walked in someones shoes, you cant judge that situation.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Fair enuff Nev.. But you must admitt that your first post did come across a little umm, Bald..

 

I always push the point with students to learn from mistakes, that way its never really a mistake, just an example of what not to do..

 

I have been in similar positions before in other aircraft and at other airfields..

 

Actually when i come to think of it, most of the close calls i have had have involved the use of flap in go arounds and touch and goes.. One other experiance that leaps to mind involved a guy raising all the flap in a J160 and LOWERING the nose instead of raising it in a go round situation on a very short grass strip with trees at the end..

 

we were very low and overshooting and i could see quite easily we were never going to make it in, i left it till the last possible moment to allow him to make the no go discision.. That turned out to be a mistake as i hadn't allowed any time for him to recover from "ballsing it".. He was sapposed to raise the flap to takeoff position but just held the switch in and raised all the fl;ap, and stuck the stick forward.. There was Zero time left, i had to take over and manouvre the plane between two tall trees. When we passed the tops they were higher then us..

 

Sorry for the long story but it irritirates the point i was tryoing to make when posting this video.. That is ( and something i have learned even more after this last one) to have a very clear, highly practised procedure for going around, and i endevour to spend more time teaching the "problems" regarding flap retraction at low speeds and high Aof A..(altough this was not a go round)

 

I have a saying that i was taught and i try to live by.. "there;s no such thing as bad students only bad instructors.." probably not entirely fair, but whenever a student makes a bad discision like this i try to get to the root of the thinking behind it, and later, self annalyse to work out where in the training i could have done a better job..

 

Another thing i leraned from this experiance is that not every problem can be "spoken through".. sometimes it all just happens too fast...

 

Thanx for the kind ones fellas.. And Nev, i understand what you were trying to say, but only after subsequent post's from yourself.. As always, i have tonns of respect for your opinions..

 

cheers

 

 

[dunlopdangler]

Excellent training video, now if only we had on board vision and sound!!