Touch & Go Landing Safety

kontiki

kontiki

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Kontiki
I recall making an occasional touch and go landing with an instructor to save time, but I don't recall any formal briefing on proper accomplishment.

In fact, I seem to recall they were discouraged.

I haven't done them on my own, but was considering trying to squeeze a couple in before heading out on a cross country just to mix it up a bit.

Are they safe or dicey?

Aside from determining runway remaining and watching out for the flaps, any special gotchas to watch for?

As always, thanks in advance.
 
You are a student pilot in a fixed gear, BT?
They are a slightly more advanced maneuver and carry additional risk. If you are a student I would certainly make sure you discuss it with them.
 
Well, it primarily depends on how receptive she is to the idea of doing a touch and go ---- Ooooohhhhh Wait a second, you mean :hairraise::yikes: :lol:

How safe they are is directly porportional to the type of aircraft being flown.

Bob
 
Touch and go's can certainly be performed safely. I don't recommend them in retractables since there's more going on there and a real risk of raising the gear too soon or forgetting to put it down on the next trip round the pattern.

I'd suggest going out and practicing touch and goes with a CFI for an hour or so before starting on your own.
 
Maybe carb heat

Nothing dangerous about them. In a more complex airplane I can see why they can become bad practice, but assuming you're in a 172 or something like that, go for it.

I run through a quick mental checklist before hitting the power - Flaps, Mixture, Carb Heat, Runway

On the cessna the flaps, mixture, carb heat is a left to right quick procedure. Head down for only about 2 seconds
 
I don't do them for landing practice, stop and go's, yes. I prefer to fully stop the plane, to get the control down as you loose rudder authority and have to rely on the nose / tail wheel, feed in ailerons for wind correction. There's really none of that when you touch the run-way, then throttle up again.

That being said, I have practiced late go-arounds. During the flair, wheels on the ground, sometimes braking. Best with an instructor or pilot, who can make it random (but safe).
 
Don't forget to reset the trim.

And Dell meant right to left.

Only do them on long, wide runways at first.
 
I was getting a little sloppy with landings, and needed a flight review or something, so I told my CFI I wanted to spend some extra time getting critiqued on landings. After the first one he asked, "You do a lot of touch and goes, don't you?" He noticed I spent more attention on landing in "just the right spot" so that I would have enough rwy length for the transition and takeoff and that I didn't spend enough attention on just landing smoothly. The next landing was a plain old full-stop and things were fine. The touch and goes just enforced some bad habits in me. So, concentrate on landing first - if you land longer than you planned, stop and turn around instead of getting yourself in a hurry to take off again.
 
Matthew said:
I was getting a little sloppy with landings, and needed a flight review or something, so I told my CFI I wanted to spend some extra time getting critiqued on landings. After the first one he asked, "You do a lot of touch and goes, don't you?" He noticed I spent more attention on landing in "just the right spot" so that I would have enough rwy length for the transition and takeoff and that I didn't spend enough attention on just landing smoothly. The next landing was a plain old full-stop and things were fine. The touch and goes just enforced some bad habits in me. So, concentrate on landing first - if you land longer than you planned, stop and turn around instead of getting yourself in a hurry to take off again.
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Exactly right.

They don't save all that much time, they typically reinforce some bad habits, they make you think about thing 2 before you're done with thing 1, and they don't save much time (did I say that already?).

If you're on such a small runway you must doa TnG to have enough speed to take off, you're on too small a runway.

Therefore if you're on a long enough runway to land, stop, reconfigure, then takeoff, then why do a TnG?
 
dmccormack said:
Exactly right.

They don't save all that much time, they typically reinforce some bad habits, they make you think about thing 2 before you're done with thing 1, and they don't save much time (did I say that already?).

If you're on such a small runway you must doa TnG to have enough speed to take off, you're on too small a runway.

Therefore if you're on a long enough runway to land, stop, reconfigure, then takeoff, then why do a TnG?
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a little bit of thread drift here:

I learned to fly in 1987. T&G were the common practice (no pun) at the time, yes? So when did people switch to full stops?

(and I'm not sure why you claim that the T&G doesn't save all that much time)
 
kontiki said:
Are they safe or dicey?
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Depends on how they're done, the compexity of the plane, the proficiency of the pilot, and the size of the runway.

Aside from determining runway remaining and watching out for the flaps, any special gotchas to watch for?
Click to expand...
As applicable...grabbing the wrong flap handle (the one usually shaped like a wheel), cowl flaps, trim (pitch and yaw), carb heat, maintaining directional control on application of power (nose pulls left on most planes), etc., etc. That's why a lot of flight schools prohibit T&G's in complex airplanes -- too many things to do in a short space of time, and sometimes the wrong thing is done. Just ask my friend David Fletcher about why he was trying to find two Cougar props in a hurry a few years ago, and what happened to the instructor involved.

Personally, early in training, as an instructor I prefer full stop/taxi back so we can talk about the last landing before we do the next takeoff.
 
Bob Noel said:
a little bit of thread drift here:

I learned to fly in 1987. T&G were the common practice (no pun) at the time, yes? So when did people switch to full stops?

(and I'm not sure why you claim that the T&G doesn't save all that much time)
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They were for me as well, but now that there are fewer aircraft, more rules, and more liability I think about cost/benefits before suggesting a practice with minimal value.

On a decent runway we should be able to land, stop, reconfigure, and begin a t/o within the first third of the runway.

TnG are supposed to save time, but they really don't -- you don't have time to review the past landing because too soon we're roaring back down the runway to take off.

I don't do TnG in the Chief or any complex bird. I've done them in C150/152/172 bit looking back don't really see that much time was saved over a full stop and then take off.





EMPHASIS for the comprehension impaired: I am NOT advocating abolishing Touch and gos! I am not suggesting every landing must result in a taxi back! I am not saying pilots who do TnG are wrong!
 
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Bob Noel said:
a little bit of thread drift here:

I learned to fly in 1987. T&G were the common practice (no pun) at the time, yes? So when did people switch to full stops?

(and I'm not sure why you claim that the T&G doesn't save all that much time)
Click to expand...

My instructor had me do touch and gos most of the time when i learned to fly (a couple years ago).

Versus a stop and go, i don't think there is that much time saving. But you save a bunch of time compared to a land, taxi back, and takeoff which is what my instructor had me do when i wasn't doing touch and gos.

As far as safety...
Scariest landing i've ever seen from inside a plane was someone doing a touch and go. He was so absorbed in preparing the plane for what it was about to do that he wasn't paying attention to what it was currently doing.
If you're working harder than normal to keep the plane under control during a particular landing, it's probably not wise to give yourself even more to do by immediately trying to take off again without stopping.
 
dmccormack said:
TnG are supposed to save time, but they really don't -- you don't have time to review the past landing because too soon we're roaring back down the runway to take off.
Click to expand...

Now I think I understand what you meant by saving time/not saving time. I thought you were talking about time spent on the runway, but you were referring to instruction time.
 
They do save some time... In my opinion, and at least here in TX during the summer, I'd rather keep the airflow going to keep the student cool. doing even a 1-2 minute taxi back can get the student significantly more uncomfortable. Yeah, I do them with students some. I usually find that crosswind to downwind is plenty of time to discuss the last landing. It's not like we're breaking it down at the chalkboard.

Ryan
 
RyanShort1 said:
They do save some time... In my opinion, and at least here in TX during the summer, I'd rather keep the airflow going to keep the student cool. doing even a 1-2 minute taxi back can get the student significantly more uncomfortable. Yeah, I do them with students some. I usually find that crosswind to downwind is plenty of time to discuss the last landing. It's not like we're breaking it down at the chalkboard.

Ryan
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If you're taxing back, that will take time.
 
I am in the camp that T&G are not that productive in primary training and they are hard on the aircraft. You can get in more takeoffs and landings but the quality is reduced and very little is retained, especially by a primary student. What I have seen is that students are so focused on the Go portion that they hurry the landing portion so they can perform the reconfiguration and takeoff and they frequently force the airplane on the ground. Any critique during the takeoff phase is poorly absorbed by the student. The T&G is also stressful on the student when compared to a full stop, exit the runway, stop, reconfigure, taxi back and discuss the landing in a relatively calm atmosphere.
 
dmccormack said:
If you're taxing back, that will take time.
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Especially if your airport is busy enough. Stop and goes are great, and that's almost exclusively what I do in the Cub, but not so much when there are others with you in the pattern. If you're doing just a stop and go, then using the time to talk about the landing puts you on the runway far too long IMO.

Ryan
 
Ron Levy said:
As applicable...grabbing the wrong flap handle (the one usually shaped like a wheel), cowl flaps, trim (pitch and yaw), carb heat, maintaining directional control on application of power (nose pulls left on most planes), etc., etc. That's why a lot of flight schools prohibit T&G's in complex airplanes -- too many things to do in a short space of time, and sometimes the wrong thing is done.
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There are a lot of things to do in a hurry, and they are not in the same order as a go around.

In a complex aircraft, the consequences of grabbing the wrong handle, or grabbing the handles in the wrong order for the operation, are far more expensive than with a fixed gear plane.
 
dmccormack said:
I've done them in C150/152/172 bit looking back don't really see that much time was saved over a full stop and then take off.
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At a busy tower-controlled airport, TnGs most definitely save time. I am by no means gung ho for touch and goes, but there are times when it is nice to do - I can generally get as many landings in as tenths on the hobbs meter at MYF (ie 10 landings in 1 hr). No way would I be able to do that with full stops and stop and goes are prohibited there due to runway length.
 
Well, we've been doing "slow down" get even / steady and goes... that's kind of in between I think and it seems OK for the students...

Sorta what Airguy below said...........

Spose you could call them "yield" and go's
 
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I do them occasionally just for brush-up, especially on the narrow runways that I tend to land on. My habit is to get down, suck up the flaps and get the speed below about 40 knots in a nice stable configuration - then roll back into power and proceed with another takeoff. The idea is to make sure you make a smooth transition from flight to ground handling. Granted - this is in a tricycle gear aircraft - a taildragger is a whole 'nuther animal, that rascal has to be flown until it completely stops.
 
Dave,

I got about 300 hrs spread over 25 years (started flight training 3 times). Finally got the pilots liscense (in maybe 2004) then next year got my IR. Im a weekend flier at best, at least when I can get my ducks in a row.

I see a lot of good stuff in the thread.
Thanks all.
 
Transport Canada inspectors tell us that touch-and-goes are a major source of training accidents. The student can lose control while reconfiguring and forget to fly the thing, especially in a crosswind. And crosswind T&G's are useless anyway, since the most difficult control is encountered as the airplane speed falls off in the roll and the relative wind vector increases and tries to lift a wing or weathercock the airplane.

Dan
 
Jeanie said:
Well, we've been doing "slow down" get even / steady and goes... that's kind of in between I think and it seems OK for the students...

Sorta what Airguy below said...........

Spose you could call them "yield" and go's
Click to expand...

+1, If you aren't slowing down to a fast taxi speed then there is no point in doing the touch in go.

I do lots of touch and goes with students. Many tailwheel students are stop and goes. When they have them down we may use touch and goes to expedite the training.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
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