Look inside or out?

If you are going to do it (TnGs) then LOOK as to what you are doing. If you can't keep the plane on the runway for the 3/4 second it takes to look down and verify, you probably shouldn't be allowed at the controls of a plane. The next move I would do on a TnG is eject the CFI from the plane, and say "Oops, I was just doing it by feel, I didn't look - sorry!"
 
Touch and Go in a Complex A/C is simply not worth the risk. What are you saving -- 5 seconds?

As far as airplane models -- some of us get to fly in more than one type airplane, Nick -- good and bad habits carry over.

Anyway, for the Awesome Aviators TM who don't think twice -- why not come to a full stop after a short field and then takeoff on the remainder?
 
dmccormack said:
Touch and Go in a Complex A/C is simply not worth the risk. What are you saving -- 5 seconds?

As far as airplane models -- some of us get to fly in more than one type airplane, Nick -- good and bad habits carry over.

Anyway, for the Awesome Aviators TM who don't think twice -- why not come to a full stop after a short field and then takeoff on the remainder?
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Depends on the plane. There is no way I am ever confusing the Johnson bar flaps in the Comanche for reaching up and behind the yoke/wheel to raise the gear. There is no more risk in that than doing it in a 152. Actually, probably less because the 152 had electric flaps and who knows what could bind in that system.
 
SkyHog said:
Ever fly xxx model with yyy gear?

No. But in most COMMON complex trainers, like the Arrow, for example, you'd have to be mighty stupid to mistake the gear switch for the flaps switch (which happens to be a giant bar between the seats in the Arrow).

These discussions need to be aircraft specific: Arrows are fine to do T&Gs in. Beeches with the similar knobs? Probably not. But banning all T&Gs because of the mistakes that are very aircraft specific is just dumb and often a waste of money.

It'd be like saying "You should never spin any aircraft, because you can't spin Yankees. If you're doing spins, you're asking for trouble."
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And all that said, the club I used to belong to outlawed T&Gs in the two Arrows after 3 gear up landings in two years. I wasn't the Chief Instructor so I'm not sure exactly what the issue was perceived to be, but we had no more gear ups after that.

John
 
EdFred said:
Depends on the plane. There is no way I am ever confusing the Johnson bar flaps in the Comanche for reaching up and behind the yoke/wheel to raise the gear. There is no more risk in that than doing it in a 152. Actually, probably less because the 152 had electric flaps and who knows what could bind in that system.
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Right -- which is fine if you fly one airplane only and frequently.

But switching airplanes means you carry habits with you. Better to have good habits than to reach for a bar and then realize you should be flipping a switch.
 
dmccormack said:
Right -- which is fine if you fly one airplane only and frequently.

But switching airplanes means you carry habits with you. Better to have good habits than to reach for a bar and then realize you should be flipping a switch.
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But if I reach for a bar, and it's not there - what's gonna happen? :D
 
The problem with feel is that I have to put my hand on it to feel it. I'd rather not have my hand touching the gear selector in a touch and go.

I keep an eye on the students hand to make sure they don't go for it either. Haven't had to slap a hand away yet but the day will probably come.
 
I know one CFI who didn't quite slap in time when an advanced student was doing short-field in a Cutlass. For some reason the student reached for the gear handle to dump the flaps after touchdown instead of the flap handle.

The nose gear of a Cutlass folded because the student was holding back pressure properly and no weight was on it yet. Main gear stayed put because weight was already on them.
 
denverpilot said:
I know one CFI who didn't quite slap in time when an advanced student was doing short-field in a Cutlass. For some reason the student reached for the gear handle to dump the flaps after touchdown instead of the flap handle.

The nose gear of a Cutlass folded because the student was holding back pressure properly and no weight was on it yet. Main gear stayed put because weight was already on them.
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Students will do the damnest thing. I had one make a really really nasty landing and I had to help them save it as were were headed off the runway and ready to come down on teh nosewheel. They completely retracted the flaps during my recovery attempt which made things even worse. It wasn't pretty.
 
jesse said:
Students will do the damnest thing. I had one make a really really nasty landing and I had to help them save it as were were headed off the runway and ready to come down on teh nosewheel. They completely retracted the flaps during my recovery attempt which made things even worse. It wasn't pretty.
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That just sounds like a normal operation at Gastons!
 
Mtns2Skies said:
My previous CFI always said to look inside the cockpit to pull flaps up on a touch and go because if you get in the habit of doing so you may hit the gear switch inadvertently. My current CFI says reach don't look, his reasoning is that if you look inside on the go you may veer off the runway. Which would you recommend?
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looking at what your doing is an essential part of good airmanship IMO. I strongly advise saying "flaps verified" before touching the flaps handle/switch.

I cant tell you how many times I have watched students hit the wrong switch, radio knob, button, handle. AP mode etc...that could have created an ugly situation they may or may not have recognized without instructor annunciation.
 
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In training, I once changed the transponder when I was supposed to change radio freq (SFRA no-no).
 
We did touch and goes once, really just to practice touch and goes. By the time I get to train in something fancy that has retractable gear, what would be the point of touch and goes? Especially on a shorter runway, you're just asking for trouble. I'm new so if there is an advantage to touch and goes please explain to me, I just don't see it and my instructor agrees (he's pretty new too)

I find that I learn more doing land, taxiback, and takeoff. It only adds a few minutes to each pattern and I get more practice with checklists, radios, taxiing, flipping switches, things like that. I'm training in a 172 right now and the only thing I glance at is the flap lever. It's one where you have to hold it down and then flip it off, it has a "gauge" that shows you how much flaps are down but it's completely unreliable, I don't even look at it. I just count to 3 for 10 degrees, 2 more for 20, 2 more for 30, and just leave the switch down for full (Only will ever use full for short field landings anyhow). I look at the wing to confirm they are where they should be.
 
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taters said:
looking at what your doing is an essential part of good airmanship IMO. I strongly advise saying "flaps verified" before touching the flaps handle/switch.
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Do you look at the trim wheel every time you adjust it?
 
Fearless Tower said:
Do you look at the trim wheel every time you adjust it?
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maybe enough to make sure my knee isn't in the way so the motor doesn't rip it off...but Its pretty damn obvious that a trim wheel is not a gear handle...
 
taters said:
maybe enough to make sure my knee isn't in the way so the motor doesn't rip it off...but Its pretty damn obvious that a trim wheel is not a gear handle...
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And going back to my earlier comment, in the Pipers, it is pretty bloody hard to confuse the flaps and the gear.
 
jesse said:
Students will do the damnest thing. I had one make a really really nasty landing and I had to help them save it as were were headed off the runway and ready to come down on teh nosewheel. They completely retracted the flaps during my recovery attempt which made things even worse. It wasn't pretty.
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Sadly, that sort of bone-headed thing isn't limited to students - witness the FO on COLGAN 3407 that retracted the flaps while the Captain was pulling the yoke into his gut.
 
taters said:
looking at what your doing is an essential part of good airmanship IMO. I strongly advise saying "flaps verified" before touching the flaps handle/switch.

I cant tell you how many times I have watched students hit the wrong switch, radio knob, button, handle. AP mode etc...that could have created an ugly situation they may or may not have recognized without instructor annunciation.
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And it's a well proven bit of human nature that touching a particular control may invoke a "muscle memory" of how to operate it without consciously recognizing which control you are touching. As a result gear selectors get operated when inadvertently grabbed even if the motions required for it are significantly different than the flap control.
 
jesse said:
Students will do the damnest thing. I had one make a really really nasty landing and I had to help them save it as were were headed off the runway and ready to come down on teh nosewheel. They completely retracted the flaps during my recovery attempt which made things even worse. It wasn't pretty.
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You guys don't get paid enough. :D

Would have loved to have had a lawn chair and a soda sittin' next to the runway to watch that one though! :popcorn:
 
denverpilot said:
You guys don't get paid enough. :D

Would have loved to have had a lawn chair and a soda sittin' next to the runway to watch that one though! :popcorn:
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I had a B25 and an airliner both watch it. The tower then told the B25 to use a different runway as the winds had picked up. They must have thought the winds are what did it...little did they know. The B25 knew better and told them they can handle the wind.
 
Fearless Tower said:
Sadly, that sort of bone-headed thing isn't limited to students - witness the FO on COLGAN 3407 that retracted the flaps while the Captain was pulling the yoke into his gut.
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Being in that situation, I don't think that was boneheaded. They had just extended the flaps and then all hell broke loose. When the poop hits the prop when you do something, conventional wisdom would have you undo that same thing as the first attempt to solve it. IIRC, she also verbalized what she was doing and the captain agreed.

I think they just thought it was tailplane icing... Their actions would seem to indicate that's what they were trying to recover from. In reality, it was a simple stall. :dunno:
 
Henning said:
You can also confirm by touching. Gear will have a vertical wheel, flaps will have a horizontal blade "flap".
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There are plenty of aircraft types where this is not the case, though. One of the most bass-ackwards is the Swift, whose flap and gear handles both rotate clockwise/counterclockwise on the panel instead of going up and down, and the gear switch is flat while the flap dial is round. Oh, and they're right next to each other:

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The flap handle is the silver thing that's behind the stick, lower left part of the grip - The silver dial. The gear selector is the red handle just to the left of that.
 

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flyingcheesehead said:
I think they just thought it was tailplane icing... Their actions would seem to indicate that's what they were trying to recover from. In reality, it was a simple stall. :dunno:
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When the accident first happened, alot of us WANTED to believe that it was a matter of the crew 'thinking' that they had tailplane icing. Then the Captain's performance record and the CVR came out which pretty much indicated that they were a flight crew that was complacent, completely behind the airplane and pretty much just along for the ride.

The NTSB did look into the possibility that they thought it was tailplane icing and pretty much dismissed it.
 
Fearless Tower said:
When the accident first happened, alot of us WANTED to believe that it was a matter of the crew 'thinking' that they had tailplane icing. Then the Captain's performance record and the CVR came out which pretty much indicated that they were a flight crew that was complacent, completely behind the airplane and pretty much just along for the ride.

The NTSB did look into the possibility that they thought it was tailplane icing and pretty much dismissed it.
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How? I did read the CVR a while back, and I don't recall there being anything said once the event started, and there's not really any other way we can know what they were thinking. :dunno: But, fairly close beforehand, they had been talking about icing, so they obviously had that on the mind... And what they did would have been the correct reaction to tailplane icing.
 
Fearless Tower said:
The NTSB did look into the possibility that they thought it was tailplane icing and pretty much dismissed it.
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And yet the FAA added a number of tailplane icing questions, as yet unpublished, to the Instrument Written question pool. ;)
 
flyingcheesehead said:
How? I did read the CVR a while back, and I don't recall there being anything said once the event started, and there's not really any other way we can know what they were thinking. :dunno: But, fairly close beforehand, they had been talking about icing, so they obviously had that on the mind... And what they did would have been the correct reaction to tailplane icing.
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Go back and reread the whole CVR. One of the biggest reasons for Congress getting up in 121 business was the lack of professionalism in that cockpit including gross violation of sterile cockpit procedures.
 
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