Tower at KHND nearly did me in yesterday

I would have said, "Um unable. I'm going to need a headwind at my weight." The controller is not going to want to be the one on duty if it doesn't go well. If the controller has been around for any length of time, he/she knows the consequences.
 
schmookeeg said:
Had you been "done in", it would have been through no fault of HND Tower.
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Exactly. Never let a controller or anyone else fly your plane for you. You are the Pilot-in-Command and are ultimately responsible. If a controller screws up and causes a crash, directly or indirectly, they still get to go home at the end of the day.
 
Perfect example of why I have students do a takeoff and landing with a tailwind, just to show how 10 kts will affect performance.
 
TommyG said:
Perfect example of why I have students do a takeoff and landing with a tailwind, just to show how 10 kts will affect performance.
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Actually, when I got the plane I did a couple tailwind TO's and landings with a CFI as part of my transition (at my request). Just hadn't done at almost MGWT. BIG DIFFERENCE.
 
Sounds like your 11.5 knot increase in rotation speed increased your ground roll and you scared yourself. Why exactly did you increase the rotation speed?
 
Wasn’t scared. Stall warning and the looming end of the runway will wake you up though.
 
Can you tell us how you got a stall warning? Did you rotate at the proper calculated rotation speed? If everything published so far about runway length and aircraft weight is correct you have an engine that is way down on power and the aircraft should be taken out of service and inspected. We’re your rpm and manifold pressure correct?
 
Jeff - 100% pilot error. And the part I didn't mention in the post is that I had my CFII in the right seat as we were on our way to shoot some approaches.
1) I obviously rotated at too slow a speed unused to the shorter runway and the tailwind.
2) Plane had just come out of the shop and rudder trim was way off. They had to remove the ruddder trim knob in order to properly replace the seat apparently. I didn't check the rudder trim as I went down the checklist. I ended up troubleshooting this enroute.
3) Was close to gross weight so all the issues were exacerbated.
3) 1,2 & 3 clearly broke my concentration and I performed like a 100 hour rookie.
5) Plane makes plenty of power, engine is in A+++ shape and I had no problems taking off at Havasu or Needles as the flying day progressed. In fact I had climb rates in the 1300fpm range.
My post heading of "The tower nearly did me in" was a bit cheeky. Fault is 100% mine and no one else. Great lesson learned. I'm not afraid to put my less than stellar days (thank goodness not too many!) on the forum to get feedback from the community and it is truly invaluable.
 
How is the same piece of runway shorter in 1 direction vs the other, and since when is 5000 or 6500 short for a piston single?
 
EdFred said:
How is the same piece of runway shorter in 1 direction vs the other, and since when is 5000 or 6500 short for a piston single?
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An almost 10 knot tailwind will make a runway FEEL short very quickly. As Nick pointed out in his original post, tailwind plus being near max gross made the takeoff quite uncomfortable. I'd still think 5,000 would work, but it will certainly look a lot different and will feel unnerving if you've never used that much runway before.
 
Glad it worked out Nick and thanks for putting your less than stellar days up on the forum. Reading these threads helps me become a better pilot and my guess is this one helped others also.

After reading this I am going to make a placard to stick on the top of my iPad that says "It's OK to say Unable".
 
Controllers don't know your aircraft, performance and what winds you can take off and land in. What they will do is start calling out current winds over the tower frequency. When you start hearing that, take notice and make sure you can accept a takeoff or landing clearance. If you can't, tell them ASAP. They will understand. Happens all the time. Its hard to flip the airport around on busy days and they may not do it until pilots start saying "unable". I saw this yesterday in DCA... 7-8 knot tailwind became 11-12, about 5 minutes later after 3-4 aircraft had refused takeoff clearances and a go-around or two, they flipped it around.
 
OP has a great attitude.

You did fine. Honestly sounds benign to me. It just felt hairy because you are used to operating with more comfort zone. You recognized the cues, made appropriate adjustments, and kept flying the plane, just like you are trained.

Anyone who says they have not done similar things has very selective memory.

Good advice from Dell on how to handle it.
 
dell30rb said:
If you can't, tell them ASAP. They will understand. Happens all the time. Its hard to flip the airport around on busy days and they may not do it until pilots start saying "unable".
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I was approaching my Class Delta home base. The runway in use had a tailwind. Between 5~10 kts of tailwind component. 5 kts is the max tailwind component that I am comfortable with. I requested a different runway that favored the winds. Although Tower did not switch everything around, they did delay one other incoming traffic (obviously not busy at the time), allowed me to land (with a small headwind) then resumed landing on the runway with the tailwind.
 
Mongoose Aviator said:
I was approaching my Class Delta home base. The runway in use had a tailwind. Between 5~10 kts of tailwind component. 5 kts is the max tailwind component that I am comfortable with. I requested a different runway that favored the winds. Although Tower did not switch everything around, they did delay one other incoming traffic (obviously not busy at the time), allowed me to land (with a small headwind) then resumed landing on the runway with the tailwind.
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Taildragger pilots learn to be assertive on landing direction. My Decathlon has plenty of power so I don't worry about takeoffs. But I will not land with more than a few knots on the tail. That's just asking for a ground loop or nose over.

Can be more of an issue with uncontrolled fields. I've had a few conversations in the pattern along the lines of "that's nice that everyone is using 09, but I am going to land on 27."
 
Ed Haywood said:
OP has a great attitude.

You did fine. Honestly sounds benign to me. It just felt hairy because you are used to operating with more comfort zone. You recognized the cues, made appropriate adjustments, and kept flying the plane, just like you are trained.

Anyone who says they have not done similar things has very selective memory.

Good advice from Dell on how to handle it.
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Thanks Ed - The feedback here has been very helpful. Despite having my PPL since 1988 I don't have thousands of hours and my personal minimums are quite high - I consider myself a conservative pilot. I will most certainly handle future occurrences as Dell recommended!
 
Nick Geber said:
And the part I didn't mention in the post is that I had my CFII in the right seat as we were on our way to shoot some approaches.
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This is important information. Did you discuss the takeoff direction with your CFI on the way to the runway? Sometime we can be lulled into complacency or thinking everything's going to be fine because there's a CFI on board.
 
Lindberg said:
This is important information. Did you discuss the takeoff direction with your CFI on the way to the runway? Sometime we can be lulled into complacency or thinking everything's going to be fine because there's a CFI on board.
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Yes, we did. He advised against taking the downwind runway but I made the decision to take it as PIC.
 
The OP has the right attitude and it’s doubtful it will happen again. It really sounds like the key issue was an early rotation. The aircraft had plenty of performance for the runway used. When your norm is to be rotating ⅓ of the way down the runway rotating ⅔ of the way down the runway presents a very different visual picture.
 
Jeff767 said:
When your norm is to be rotating ⅓ of the way down the runway rotating ⅔ of the way down the runway presents a very different visual picture.
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Would that only be an issue if the vast majority of your takeoffs are from the same runway?
 
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