Do Touch-and-Goes Instill Bad Habits?

Do Touch-and-Goes Instill Bad Habits?

  • Yes

    Votes: 5 14.3%

  • No

    Votes: 30 85.7%
  • Total voters
    35
Nothing quite like doing a good tng in my 140 when it goes perfectly. That wheel landing where you barely feel the mains touch, especially when I can repeat it over and over.

Nothing quite as frustrating as those days where I can't seem to get it on without a bounce! TNGs are fun!
 
Someone above mentioned practicing go-arounds, and that we generally don't do that often enough. I've done a few, now and then, when things just don't feel right and I just am not in the mood to try to salvage things. But there's still one that I remember from 2-3 years ago on a hot, muggy, gusty day, when the bottom dropped out on me. That one was unplanned and an immediate instinctive reaction, and I still thank my CFIs for pounding the go-around mentality in my head over that one.
 
Lachlan said:
PFC is for Power (carb heat cold,) Flaps, Climb.
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Ah. Thank goodness. That's much better. I'm sure I'd forget to "climb" on a go-around without that mnemonic. :p

No need to have a prompt for "carb" though since no pilot could possibly forget that! :D

(Ithink you may get the idea of what I think of most mnemonics.)
 
Matthew said:
.... But there's still one that I remember from 2-3 years ago on a hot, muggy, gusty day, when the bottom dropped out on me. That one was unplanned and an immediate instinctive reaction, and I still thank my CFIs for pounding the go-around mentality in my head over that one.
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My CFI in 2006 would place his students through every possible scenario. My least favorite were when he'd call for the go-around a split second after touchdown (C-152, high DA and HOT). Often plane would attempt to go around and settle a second time and he'd say,"expect that and keep working" or "this is why I have you do these so I'm with you when you see it the first time". One of the sessions we were only getting a climb rate of 50 FPM, afternoon, hot and thermal-downdraft activity.

That said, it paid off TWICE on desert landings the next year. I hit dust devils that were over pavement (invisible) right at the threshold ... plane suddenly turns 90* approaching the flare (low and slow). Both times after going around the dust devil would move off pavement and was easy to see.
 
I see C5's and KC135's doing touch and goes on a regular basis, so I guess the Air Force seems to think they are a good idea.
 
Matthew said:
Someone above mentioned practicing go-arounds, and that we generally don't do that often enough. I've done a few, now and then, when things just don't feel right and I just am not in the mood to try to salvage things. But there's still one that I remember from 2-3 years ago on a hot, muggy, gusty day, when the bottom dropped out on me. That one was unplanned and an immediate instinctive reaction, and I still thank my CFIs for pounding the go-around mentality in my head over that one.
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When I teach my students landings, I tell to go into every landing like they're going to go around. Landing should be the second option.
 
Sac Arrow said:
I see C5's and KC135's doing touch and goes on a regular basis, so I guess the Air Force seems to think they are a good idea.
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One of the 747s used as Air Force One was doing touch-n-goes in Austin yesterday.
 
jordane93 said:
When I teach my students landings, I tell to go into every landing like they're going to go around. Landing should be the second option.
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Somewhere in an earlier post I mentioned another of my CFIs training me to say, after my final GUMPS check, "everything ready for go-around".
 
N659HB said:
I prefer to save my brakes. :D I'm sure I would operate differently with a complex aircraft.
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I've oft seen that argument but I think it's bogus, at least on planes I've flown. I've horsed my '58 182 around for 12 years using the brakes. I almost always do short field landings. I do stop and goes because I'm one who thinks that regularly doing T&Gs does indeed instill bad habits...

...and I've replaced my pads once in about 1700 hours of flying. About 5 years ago. It cost less than $100 IIRC. They were still in great shape at the last annual. The cost of pads is a non-factor for me.

The same held true on my '57 172. I used my brakes all the time and never had to replace pads but I only owned that bird for 4 years.
 
IIRC, Luscombe brake pads are not known for longevity, plus I've been told the planes are easy to flip with aggressive braking. I'll certainly use them if needed, though!
 
I do more stop and goes than touch and goes. TnG's don't get me much below rotation speed and my right foot doesn't get a full workout.

Go around's seem to occur naturally for me. I'd be lying if I said I they were for practice. If there's anything I don't like about the approach I take another lap.
 
rolivi said:
I do more stop and goes than touch and goes. TnG's don't get me much below rotation speed and my right foot doesn't get a full workout.

Go around's seem to occur naturally for me. I'd be lying if I said I they were for practice. If there's anything I don't like about the approach I take another lap.
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I'll do full stop landings, with a taxi back to the threshold, when practicing takeoffs. I do T-n-Gs when I'm working on my approach and landing techniques. My right foot gets a good workout, whether full-stop or T-n-G.

Like you, I'm prepared for a go around, and on windy days I plan for a GA. I typically do GAs on bounced landings, unless it's dead calm.

My new airport has a berm about 50 yards from the threshold of Rwy 22. It generates some interesting lift and almost always disrupts my approach set up if I get low coming in. Less an issue if I aim well past the numbers. Still learning the airport's quirks.
 
Y
midlifeflyer said:
Ah. Thank goodness. That's much better. I'm sure I'd forget to "climb" on a go-around without that mnemonic. :p

No need to have a prompt for "carb" though since no pilot could possibly forget that! :D

(Ithink you may get the idea of what I think of most mnemonics.)
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Sure. You've probably never used one in your whole wonderful life. Your obvious disdain for them shows us that you're above all of that. Power first, flaps in and then climb... Looks like the OP got it wrong, so perhaps if he had been as amazing as you are he would have nailed that go-around. ;)
 
Never thought about it in depth before, but I look at a TnG as a landing with a go around occurring after my wheels have touched the ground. So I treat it the same; power first, flaps immediately to 20 and then retract them incrementally as airspeed increases. Haven't flown a plane with carb heat yet.
 
Lachlan said:
Y


Sure. You've probably never used one in your whole wonderful life. Your obvious disdain for them shows us that you're above all of that. Power first, flaps in and then climb... Looks like the OP got it wrong, so perhaps if he had been as amazing as you are he would have nailed that go-around. ;)
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It has nothing to do with being wonderful. It's more about how mnemonics are a poor, and severely overdone replacement for learning in which the need to create a mnemonic becomes more important than the information it supposedly contains.

The prime example is the famous one about burning red fruit. An informal survey I've done over the past 20 years have indicated that those who learned it are more likely to get a simple inoperative equipment question confidently wrong than those who never heard of it.
 
jaymark6655 said:
Never thought about it in depth before, but I look at a TnG as a landing with a go around occurring after my wheels have touched the ground. So I treat it the same; power first, flaps immediately to 20 and then retract them incrementally as airspeed increases. Haven't flown a plane with carb heat yet.
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A TnG is a normal landing, followed by a reconfiguration on the roll, in which flaps are reset to the normal takeoff setting (which in most singles is no flaps) , followed by a takeoff. In those same aircraft, dumping all the flaps at once would not be a good idea.
 
midlifeflyer said:
A TnG is a normal landing, followed by a reconfiguration on the roll, in which flaps are reset to the normal takeoff setting (which in most singles is no flaps) , followed by a takeoff.
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This depends on the aircraft but I agree that it is true for most GA airplanes. When performed this way, there is more of a distinction between the takeoff and go-around.
 
denverpilot said:
It's really easy in most Cessnas to get both the carb heat and the power simultaneously. Just stick out your thumb. Just sayin'...
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Absolutely. And it is one of the reasons for the difference between the carb heat use recommendations between Piper and Cessna. Pretty easy in a Piper too since, for most pilots, carb heat won't be hot to begin with. ;)

But I think the key here is the universality of a climb and clean regimen in which, depending on the make and model, a particular item may be in the "climb" box, the "clean " box, or both.
 
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