Find my takeoff error?

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jcepiano

Pre-takeoff checklist
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jcepiano
I was doing some solo patterns today and had a slightly scary experience.

I had touched down, put flaps up, and then continued to apply full power to complete my touch and go.

There was a decent crosswind from the right. Runway 01, wind approximately 050 ant 7. As I rotated, the plane began to drift left of centerline rather quickly. I feared running off the runway and rotated pretty aggressively to get off the runway before an incident took place. Fortunately I was beyond rotation speed and just about at Vx so there was no issue with approaching a stall.

My question is, during my rotation, was my crosswind correction not enough if my plane started to drift left of centerline so quickly? This definitely left me a little freaked out and I made my next landing a full stop.

Thanks for your thoughts!
 
P-factor and torque is going to make you drift left anyway, a little extra wind and it will be noticeable.
 
I was using right rudder, it just felt that if I pushed any harder on the pedal, I'd whip the plane to the right at high speed.
 
Sounds to me like you didn't have enough aileron input.

Kind of makes the argument to do stop and goes, or full stop landings rather than T&G.

Anyway, it is a learning experience.
 
More right wing down, gradually roll to neutral as you accelerate.
Probably rolling it out too quickly.

Get up to alt and fly slow in line w/ a road in a forward slip.
Use the rudder to "fly" straight down the road"

slow speeds and fast speeds.
 
Did you apply right rudder when putting power back in? Just like when you have to hold right rudder during a normal takeoff for p factor you still have to do it when doing a touch and go. It is easy to forget when everything else going on. The little bit of crosswind probably just exasperated it.

Keith
 
jcepiano said:
I was using right rudder, it just felt that if I pushed any harder on the pedal, I'd whip the plane to the right at high speed.
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What kind of airplane? And based on the first post, it sounded like the nosewheel was already off the ground, therefore more rudder would be appropriate. The only way you would "whip the plane to the right at high speed is if you just floored the rudder. Even then, depending on airplane type, I don't think it would have been alarming.

Bottom line is that you have to do whatever it takes.
 
Two things come to mind. One is insufficient crosswind correction. The other is insufficient right rudder.

Quite a lot of folks relax the crosswind correction when the wheels touch the ground. Any chance this happened to you?
 
MAKG1 said:
Yes, but during a touch'n'go. A landing happened seconds earlier. Just a speculation that the crosswind correction might be a lot less than what was landed with.
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I'll give you that. Seeming as the problems started when he lifted his nosewheel.
 
I used to have the same issue on landing. When approaching for a crosswind landing, remember, aileron for drift, rudder for alignment. Same rules apply whether the wheels are touching or not.

Also, keep in mind that right aileron will provide adverse yaw which will straighten you out to the left.
 
This was a Cessna 172R with a 180HP engine.

This must have been a compounded event where the wind accelerated with a direction shift and as I rotated there probably wasn't enough right rudder or right aileron to prevent the aircraft from drifting to the left.

I felt quite a lot of bumpiness in the climb out which might be indicate the wind had picked up.
 
Do stop and goes, and take a little time. But yeah, it sounds like you just didn't have enough aileron in to stop the drift..
 
There was wind at Concord yesterday?

It was dead nuts calm at Moffett, and a slight breeze at Palo Alto.

Two of the four runways at Concord are long enough for stop'n'go's (5000+ feet). Don't be afraid to request them.
 
jcepiano said:
This was a Cessna 172R with a 180HP engine.

This must have been a compounded event where the wind accelerated with a direction shift and as I rotated there probably wasn't enough right rudder or right aileron to prevent the aircraft from drifting to the left.

I felt quite a lot of bumpiness in the climb out which might be indicate the wind had picked up.
Click to expand...

When you have some more hours all this will be automatic. It's simply practice. With that horsepower in a 172 it should be pretty much a non event.
 
Sounds like a good reason to do touch and goes. Need practice flying the plane. Head out the window, ailerons to maintain centerline, rudder to maintain direction. Anticipate additional power at slow speed will require additional right rudder.
If he always does t & g s what will be his muscle memory when he needs to go around when it really counts.
 
NotEnough said:
If he always does t & g s what will be his muscle memory when he needs to go around when it really counts.
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Good point. Or not? Unless I misunderstood, the OP retracted flaps before adding power.

dtuuri
 
Some good advice already.

In a crosswind, you should still have some aileron into the wind as you rotate, all the while "steering" with the rudder.

So as you left the ground, that aileron should have banked you just a bit to the right, setting you up with an initial wind correction angle. THAT is what should prevent the plane from "blowing" downwind.

I don't know if he'll want to share, but I think Bullwinkle had a similar scary incident in his CT that he shared a video of in another forum.
 
A big part of my growth during training involved taking positive, decisive action in the airplane. Too often my tendency was to react with timidity. My personal mantra became: "fly the plane, don't let it fly me".

Talk this event over with your instructor. If the above issue applies to you, endeavor to take decisive, useful action on every flight when needed. In the instant case, you may wonder why you didn't simply apply right aileron to correct the leftward drift once you realized it was happening. After all, that's what you would have done if you were at 1,200 ft and drifting left of your intended course. Understanding why you didn't take the correct action, and fixing it next time, is a part of the student pilot training process.

Next time, you may still fail to anticipate the correct crosswind correction for the takeoff. But, rather than clamming up, you'll apply aileron to fix it. Later on, you'll get good enough to anticipate nearly the right amount of rudder and aileron correction for the existing conditions. Now we're making progress!
 
asechrest said:
A big part of my growth during training involved taking positive, decisive action in the airplane. Too often my tendency was to react with timidity. My personal mantra became: "fly the plane, don't let it fly me".
Click to expand...

Good advice. For whatever reason, I was the same way. I also try and keep that attitude in mind when dealing with my wife.
 
Thanks to everyone for the great input. I'm pretty sure it must have been a lack of wind correction in the ailerons combined with not enough right rudder for torque that led to the violent left side drift.

I will definitely be reconsidering how I fly those touch and go's after this experience!
 
Great video. This perfectly demonstrates what happened to me. Thanks for sharing!
 
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