jtheune
Ejection Handle Pulled
When I used to work near my home airport I would often go down to the pilot shack and eat my lunch there. One day I was sitting there eating lunch with the head of the local maintenance shop when I saw a plane of short final. The wind was blowing about 25-30 knots but straight down the runway. The plane looked to be low and slow on short final. As I watched I saw a gust of wind start then die away. As the wind died away his nose started to drop. instead of adding power, he pulled back on the yoke to regain pitch and he did not have enough energy in the bank. At this point he was perhaps 20 feet up and 100 feet from the threshold. He stalled and the nose dropped. He bounced perhaps 30 short of the threshold and veered to the right where his right wing tip hit a chain link fence that ran close to the end and moved away from the runway. The chain-link fence slowed him down in about 30 feet and he was ok. The whole incident took 3 or 4 seconds from the time I first noticed the plane until it had stopped moving. It did once again reminded me that aviation is not forgiving of screw ups.
As for the number of go around, I'd have to say it depends. I was forced to divert to a airport I had not landed at before because my home airport became unavailable when I was 10 minetes out. The approach was over the water and the runway was right up against it. I was worried about coming in over the black hole of the water and my first appraoch was too high. I went around and the second time was in much better shape but did not want to force the plane on so I went around again. The third time was the charm and I landed fine. I felt in control and did not see a need to go somewhere else. Now I was not fighting a bad cross wind so it was a matter of feeling comfortable with the sight picture more then anything else. I think before you set a number of attempts you need to understand why the attempts were not working.
As for the number of go around, I'd have to say it depends. I was forced to divert to a airport I had not landed at before because my home airport became unavailable when I was 10 minetes out. The approach was over the water and the runway was right up against it. I was worried about coming in over the black hole of the water and my first appraoch was too high. I went around and the second time was in much better shape but did not want to force the plane on so I went around again. The third time was the charm and I landed fine. I felt in control and did not see a need to go somewhere else. Now I was not fighting a bad cross wind so it was a matter of feeling comfortable with the sight picture more then anything else. I think before you set a number of attempts you need to understand why the attempts were not working.
