Matthew Rogers
Ejection Handle Pulled
- Joined
- Dec 1, 2017
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Matt R
Alternate Title - Go-around practice is a good idea, but it can also be dangerous.
So I had my first bad decision. I feel like it is a good decision to admit this mistake. Get it off my chest. Nobody else at the airport saw me, but one person was there in a hanger.
25 hr student pilot. Comfortable in the plane, doing well, but I guess a bit too confident and certainly not experienced yet.
Aimed for three landings in a quick flight in my 1/3 ownwership 1966 C150F. 19 Gal fuel, 170 pound pilot, 9 pound flight bag in back. Density altitude 2300' and humid from nearby storms. Wet but hard grass, cut yesterday.
First two landings were great. The wet grass made for soft and short landings, takeoffs were not very long either. Used 10 degrees flaps on one and 0 on the other.
Third pass I wanted to try a technique I had seen to help with runway alignment - slow flight down the runway. The problem is that our runway is not very long (2700') and I guess I kept it low too long. I had 25 degrees of flaps, pushed full power and did not gain speed very fast. Raised the flaps to 20, but forgot to remove the carb heat. The plane stayed close to the ground and my airspeed was not going much higher than 50 indicated, even in ground effect. Could be that I got up too high and got out of ground effect too early. As the trees came closer and closer, I resisted the urge to pull back and just kept it flying hoping to gain the altitude to clear in time.
So what I did wrong was try something new without easing into the maneuver. I could have made a pass at 30 feet to start to see how the climb out would be like and then go lower the next time around. I also forgot to immediately take off carb heat. Anytime that I know I could be going around, I will also only have 10 degrees of flaps max. And I have to practice over my go around flow check many more times to make sure that carb heat is off and flaps go to 20 ASAP.
With the soft ground and longer run out to the trees, I also could have dumped the plane onto the ground and skidded/broke my nose gear/rolled into the trees resulting in a damaged plane, ego, and maybe some injuries, but less than if I hit to tops of some 50 foot trees - or failed to control the plane in extreme slow flight and did a deadly stall-spin into the ground. I estimate that I pushed full power about halfway down the runway, which would have been plenty of time to stop before hitting the trees too hard.
What I did right - kept flying the plane the entire time. No turns except slight movements to try to aim for the lowest tree. Pitched for Vx and held it there. Did not freak out and executed a nice pattern to follow and soft landing back to my parking space.
So I will be back flying tomorrow or Monday. I made a mistake. I will leave it at that.
So I had my first bad decision. I feel like it is a good decision to admit this mistake. Get it off my chest. Nobody else at the airport saw me, but one person was there in a hanger.
25 hr student pilot. Comfortable in the plane, doing well, but I guess a bit too confident and certainly not experienced yet.
Aimed for three landings in a quick flight in my 1/3 ownwership 1966 C150F. 19 Gal fuel, 170 pound pilot, 9 pound flight bag in back. Density altitude 2300' and humid from nearby storms. Wet but hard grass, cut yesterday.
First two landings were great. The wet grass made for soft and short landings, takeoffs were not very long either. Used 10 degrees flaps on one and 0 on the other.
Third pass I wanted to try a technique I had seen to help with runway alignment - slow flight down the runway. The problem is that our runway is not very long (2700') and I guess I kept it low too long. I had 25 degrees of flaps, pushed full power and did not gain speed very fast. Raised the flaps to 20, but forgot to remove the carb heat. The plane stayed close to the ground and my airspeed was not going much higher than 50 indicated, even in ground effect. Could be that I got up too high and got out of ground effect too early. As the trees came closer and closer, I resisted the urge to pull back and just kept it flying hoping to gain the altitude to clear in time.
So what I did wrong was try something new without easing into the maneuver. I could have made a pass at 30 feet to start to see how the climb out would be like and then go lower the next time around. I also forgot to immediately take off carb heat. Anytime that I know I could be going around, I will also only have 10 degrees of flaps max. And I have to practice over my go around flow check many more times to make sure that carb heat is off and flaps go to 20 ASAP.
With the soft ground and longer run out to the trees, I also could have dumped the plane onto the ground and skidded/broke my nose gear/rolled into the trees resulting in a damaged plane, ego, and maybe some injuries, but less than if I hit to tops of some 50 foot trees - or failed to control the plane in extreme slow flight and did a deadly stall-spin into the ground. I estimate that I pushed full power about halfway down the runway, which would have been plenty of time to stop before hitting the trees too hard.
What I did right - kept flying the plane the entire time. No turns except slight movements to try to aim for the lowest tree. Pitched for Vx and held it there. Did not freak out and executed a nice pattern to follow and soft landing back to my parking space.
So I will be back flying tomorrow or Monday. I made a mistake. I will leave it at that.
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