Do you Teach Touch & Go's?

A1Topgun

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Ron
Following the thread on "Plane down in Mississippi-Sad" and started to think, how many CFI's out there teach Touch & Go's and if so under what conditions?

Personally, I do not. If at a controlled airport with 5K+ runway I will ask for the Option (Go Around, or Stop and Go, or taxi back).

What do the CFI's on POA think?
 
Touch and goes with me in the plane full stop otherwise unless they are at some big 5k long runway.
 
Not a CFI, but I'll do a T&G occasionally when practicing a no-flap landing. I'll forgo trim here too and hand-fly it down, so there's no cleanup, and just touch down on the mains before taking off again. Good practice for that all-too-common double failure of flaps and trim. :D

T&G's are great for minimizing Hobbs time, but I like full-stops for 99% of my flying.
 
If I did a full stop taxi back at my airport, I’d be getting a landing and waiting on the ground for at least 0.3. Full stops aren’t doable unless the student doesn’t care about waiting on the ground.
 
If I did a full stop taxi back at my airport, I’d be getting a landing and waiting on the ground for at least 0.3. Full stops aren’t doable unless the student doesn’t care about waiting on the ground.
There are other airports around aren’t there?
 
Not a CFI but I did a boatload of them when I was learning to land, do them sometimes when there is something bigger and faster trying to kiss my arse.
 
There are other airports around aren’t there?
ISP is the closest. That’s at least 0.2 to get there. Spend another 0.3 just getting out of FRG. You’d never be able to get your license by doing full stop taxi backs at FRG. Never mind the 15 mile finals and frequent go arounds for jet traffic. Not everyone has the luxury of training out of a sleepy towered or non towered airport so we have to make due.
 
The main GOOD thing about TnGs is that, if taught and done properly, they remind you to continue flying the airplane once it's on the ground. I gained a lot of confidence and skill doing them with my CFI, and consider them very valuable. If you get in the habit of feeling that once you touch down you've made it, you've lost some pretty important emergency skills.
 
My CFI taught them, fairly non-eventful in a 172 on a 5,000 ft runway. I don’t practice them now, there’s a bit of a reset in my current ride (electric trims, cowl flaps, regular flaps, etc...)
 
Depends what the goal of the lesson is...if takeoff and rollout aren't a problem, we're just working on approaches and/or the flare, I'll do touch and goes.
 
I don't mind T&G's in something simple. I did them all the time in my Tomahawk and in C-152's before that. C-172's too.

But I do stop and goes in the RV-6, and will do those or full stop/taxi back in the RV-10 - reconfiguring it takes too much runway to make T&G's a happy thing for me.
 
Following the thread on "Plane down in Mississippi-Sad" and started to think, how many CFI's out there teach Touch & Go's and if so under what conditions?

Personally, I do not. If at a controlled airport with 5K+ runway I will ask for the Option (Go Around, or Stop and Go, or taxi back).

What do the CFI's on POA think?

I do dual touch and goes with students. The solo restriction prohibits T&G, but allows stop and go with 2500 ft of runway remaining. (50% of the home airport runway). Never T&Gs in complex.

But honestly I did not read enough in the news link to indicate the Missippi accident was the result of T&Gs.
 
Not a CFI but I wouldn't hesitate to incorporate T&G's in training. If a pilot is proficient then there isn't anything inherently dangerous about T&G's. I watched Alaskan perform several T&G's in MD-80's at KBOI in the early 90's. Full stop landings make sense for tailwheels just because the hard part starts on rollout. If someone is worried about reconfiguration for T/O, what are they going to do if they have to go around on short final or worse after touchdown?
 
Touch and goes are a great way to master landings through repetition. And they’re fun.

Maybe early on during training it’s good to take a breather and debrief the landing while taxiing back for another round. But when the goal is to really fine tune landing skills, it’s hard to beat the experience gained through a bunch of t&g’s.
 
Not a CFI. I prefer stop and goes. T&G doesn't get my plane slow enough to require "normal" amount of right rudder.
<-- needs lots of right rudder (not the dude, the plane)
 
I don't plan to practice at the bigger airports in the area. The quieter airports where I do practice typically feature short runways with obstacles and lots of water and mechanical turbulence. So the maneuver almost invariably involves a full stop with a full back-track. If there's anybody behind me after touchdown, I'll clear the runway to the ramp and wait for the traffic to clear also before lining up again.
 
Not only did we do T&Gs for the PPL, we did them in a Seneca for the multi-engine training. :eek:

That surprised me.
 
I think that we can, and have, all agreed that the cost of getting the PPL is a major entry burden to new pilots. As other have pointed out, that full-stop and taxi back adds up over the training period. Not to say the reflection time and pause in training is not beneficial but is it as beneficial as another look at the runway and all the skills learned through repetition to land well?

If getting the same amount of training over 40-45 hours was added to by another .3 you're really looking at another $2.5-3K for a license. At minimum wage here in MD for a young person that's another 295-300 hours of working to be able to afford that PPL and that's IF people do the license in 40-45 hours which seems increasingly rare.

In 1984 I started flying at 3FK, Frankling Flying field in Indiana. 2400x35 of suspicious pavement in Tomahawks. After solo at 10-ish hours I was out doing T&Gs solo there and at other similar strips. Perhaps not elegantly, and certainly sucking the seat cushion up some, but I was learning.

Fast forward to 2018 as the time money curves finally intersected again and I was went back to finish the private @ FDK. 5200x100 foot runway and we flew T&Gs with an instructor but you couldn't do them, along with frankly absurd wind limitations, solo. With the time from 1984 (and having accumulated a fair amount of SA in my NFO time) I was able to finish the private in minimal flight time and 4 months over the winter but I saw students flying the same 2-3 times a week as I did as their training stretched out. Mandatory phase checks, no T&Gs, wind limits, X/C wx limits. All the adds up as a cost and time burden.

Have we simply been driven to become too risk adverse? Flying can be a little dangerous (news flash) but not as dangerous as many things. We learn to stretch our skills through doing things over and over again and making small tweaks to improve both with an instructor in the plane and without.

T&G's dangerous? If you can't touch down on a standard airport runway, apply power, select flaps up, carb heat off (if needed) rotate and fly away (and put the gear up if needed) then I think perhaps you might want to consider some more time flying with or without an instructor. Do you need to do a T&G every time? Nope, in fact I routinely stop and taxi back after an instrument approach to set things up again and reorient myself. T&Gs are simply another flight maneuver in our range of things we do as Aviators.

I'm lucky. Still working but I have the time/money to fly mostly as I'd like but many many folks, especially the young ones coming into Aviation, do not. When I read people propose updates to the PPL standards like "we should have to do spins again", "We should mandate taildragger or glider time" or "PPL students need at least 10 hours of instrument" it just adds time/expense and may not significantly add to safety but certainly will keep many people from joining our ranks.

Certainly, the NTSB could give us stats on how many mishaps occur on a T&G evolution. Would they be able to give us how many T&Gs are done safely to come up with a ratio? As a former USN safety officer I can say with authority that safety is not our primary mission. Flying as safely as we can within our, and our equipments, limitations is the goal. If we want to be as safe as possible we would sit in a lawn chair and look at the plane in the hangar.

Just my 2 cents. Sorry for the thread drift.
 
I don't do T&G's in my complex aircraft. A lot to do quickly to reconfigure the aircraft from landing to taking off, and if not done right the aircraft undergoes the mother of all pitch up motions that can be difficult to control, especially while swinging the Johnson bar to retract the gear. That, and repeated gear retractions does a number on my arm. That, and lots of pilots flying retractables have lots count and inadvertently landed gear up. Others may and will disagree. I think T&Gs are fine for trainers, but I don't like them for complex aircraft at all.
 
I don't do T&G's in my complex aircraft. A lot to do quickly to reconfigure the aircraft from landing to taking off, and if not done right the aircraft undergoes the mother of all pitch up motions that can be difficult to control, especially while swinging the Johnson bar to retract the gear. That, and repeated gear retractions does a number on my arm. That, and lots of pilots flying retractables have lots count and inadvertently landed gear up. Others may and will disagree. I think T&Gs are fine for trainers, but I don't like them for complex aircraft at all.
Yup. I’m the disagreeable one. I do them all the time in my C model mooney. Not on my home airport at 3700 feet, but nearby on 5000+. Yes, it’s a lot of workload, but I think it provides good practice at needed skills, and once you become adept it’s not that challenging. I perform them on the larger runway in less than 3700 feet, with more than enough obstruction clearance, so I know I could do it at home if the situation ever arose that I needed to.
 
I think that we can, and have, all agreed that the cost of getting the PPL is a major entry burden to new pilots. As other have pointed out, that full-stop and taxi back adds up over the training period. Not to say the reflection time and pause in training is not beneficial but is it as beneficial as another look at the runway and all the skills learned through repetition to land well?

If getting the same amount of training over 40-45 hours was added to by another .3 you're really looking at another $2.5-3K for a license. At minimum wage here in MD for a young person that's another 295-300 hours of working to be able to afford that PPL and that's IF people do the license in 40-45 hours which seems increasingly rare.

The time/cost savings reasons are why I will do touch and goes or stop and goes with a student. I think the learning that needs to be done can safely be done this way.

Just think of the outcry we’d see on this board if some student came here and posted that every landing they did was a land and taxi back. The same people advocating doing things like that would likely be telling that guy that their instructor is just a time builder and screwing them by racking up extra time.
 
Another option I will use when winds are calm and no traffic (small airport, 3K runway), roll out to end, turn around and take off. This gives practice to both patterns and runways.

I've taken off and tear dropped back to the opposite runway. And before someone yells "you can't do that" read 91.126(b) closely.
 
We do touch and goes when dual, but solo practice are full-stop/taxi-back only.
 
I'm not an instructor but if I were, my vote would be to do T&G's. Along with everyone else, I did tons of T&G's during training. Along with the full stops at the end of each lesson I felt it just expanding my learning. Now I would feel comfortable to do either a T&G or full stop.
 
I did tons of T&G during my PPL training/dual and Solo. 4400 foot rwys at CRG in 152 and 172 no issues. Most of mine I liked to touch the mains added a little power kept the wheelie down the runway cleanup, powerup and off she goes. Fun stuff.
 
I've done enough government mandated touch and go flights for my lifetime. Plus, they're prohibited at our airport. If I want to be efficient, and things are quiet, I'll do stop and taxi backs, 'runway behind you' and all that. Away from home, I don't prohibit them.
 
My ab inito instructor had me doing T&Gs, but if the mains touched, and the tailwheel didn't, it wasn't a T&G.

A T&G could be considered good practice for a go-around when you've touched down too late to stop before the end of the runway. (Of course, it's better to slowly run off the end of the runway than to hit the obstruction past the runway at flying speed.)
 
7000’ delta we do touch n go landings. Wish they would let us do 2-3 in one pass. That’s what we did at an untowered during tail training, lots more ground time. Taxiing is easy, don’t need too many hours of that.
 
Following the thread on "Plane down in Mississippi-Sad" and started to think, how many CFI's out there teach Touch & Go's and if so under what conditions?

Personally, I do not. If at a controlled airport with 5K+ runway I will ask for the Option (Go Around, or Stop and Go, or taxi back).

What do the CFI's on POA think?

Land & taxi back is definitely safer especially on short runways, but stop & go is riskier than touch & go.
 
The main GOOD thing about TnGs is that, if taught and done properly, they remind you to continue flying the airplane once it's on the ground. I gained a lot of confidence and skill doing them with my CFI, and consider them very valuable. If you get in the habit of feeling that once you touch down you've made it, you've lost some pretty important emergency skills.
Bingo. I wonder if this is the entire problem. Pilots miss the lesson of the touch and go, or lose what they learned (even temporarily due to task saturation).

It’s the same as with crosswind landings and takeoffs. How often do you see other pilots ignore the crosswind other than from flare to touchdown? The plane must be positively flown by the pilot from before engine start until after shutdown.

Only perfect practice makes perfect.

As far as teaching touch and goes, I am not a CFI but I was taught them from day 1 in the Cub. I don’t think they are an unacceptable risk. People ball planes up when they make mistakes in every phase of flight.
 
The only stop and goes during training were for night currency; otherwise, everything was TNG. In the 152 in summer here with high DA and crosswind, the instructors often called for a go around AFTER the mains were on (usually on your best landing/greaser) ...

The Tiger was prone to nose shimmy requiring re-torquing, proper inflation and sometimes balancing ... the TNGs I did in that aircraft were "mains rolled on" only with the nose never allowed down ... not a big deal.

Am sure it is heresy, but flight reviews around here usually have an engine out on take off and a lot of spot ladning power off 180's.
 
Student pilot here, we do lots of them. Did 11 today. Our runways are 3,700 and 4,500ft. Pretty much all the pattern work is touch and gos except the night landings which require stop and go to count as full stop landings towards the 10 required. When going cross country and flying into new airports we generally do full stop, then taxi back around, but pattern work at home, touch and go all day.
 
I've found that stop-and-goes are possible in a 172 on 3,800' of runway; my usual reason for practice was night proficiency, so after training I got out of the habit of T&Gs.
 
Yea, I fly a 172, our shorter runway is 3,700 and I was doing stop and go night landings/takeoffs earlier this week. Plenty of room.
 
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