Adding an airplane rating to private pilot glider

wrote:

I have to say that I don't get this whole Go Around thing. Other than
in my initial lessons with the power instructor I have never been in a
pattern that I had to do a go around for. If you enter the pattern at
the correct height and speed, you should have no reason to do a go
around.


Doug,

Stick with it, you'll find a reason in just a few more hours: there are
dozens of them. Don't ever think you've seen it all in aviation.


Jack

On Apr 7, 6:53*pm, J a c k wrote:
Doug,
Stick with it, you'll find a reason in just a few more hours: there are
dozens of them. Don't ever think you've seen it all in aviation.
Jack

Jack,
Of course I haven't seen it all. I'm sure I'll be presented with a
good reason to do a go around. Hopefully though it won't be because I
didn't fly the pattern properly.

Doug

wrote:


I'm sure I'll be presented with a good reason to do a go around.
Hopefully though it won't be because I didn't fly the pattern
properly.


It probably won't be your fault, but some day it may be. The mark of a
mature aviator is that he also goes around without reluctance when it IS
his fault, instead of trying to fake it. We all make mistakes.

If you are relatively new to the game I can understand that you're still
building your self-confidence. Then the other side of the cycle is where
you moderate your self-confidence in an effort to stay alive long enough
to get to the point where you are so old that you are on the building-up
side again. It's always something.


Jack

If you enter the pattern at
the correct height and speed, you should have no reason to do a go
around.

I wonder out loud if teaching power pilots they have that option
creates more problems than if they were taught to land the plane the
first time around like "We" are.

Remember, a glider can touchdown to stop in 250 feet or less.
An airplane is often 1000 feet or more.

Think: What-if a glider is stopped on the runway...
I certainly want the power pilot to go around and miss me!
Or an animal, or another aircraft or a car, or...
The power pilot just botches the cross-wind, or starts
a PIO.

I still assert that (generally) glider pilots who transition to
power are better than power-only pilots. :-)

Best regards,

Jer/ "Flight instruction and mountain flying are my vocations!"
--
Jer/ (Slash) Eberhard, Mountain Flying Aviation, LTD, Ft Collins, CO
CELL 970 231-6325 EMAIL jer'at'frii.com http://users.frii.net/jer/
C-206, CFII Airplane&Glider, FAA-DEN Aviation Safety Counselor
CAP-CO Mission&Aircraft CheckPilot BM218 HAM N0FZD 263 Young Eagles!

On Apr 7, 3:24 pm, "
wrote:
I wonder out loud if teaching power pilots they have that option
creates more problems than if they were taught to land the plane the
first time around like "We" are.

You don't want to force a landing when you're not comfortable with
it. As a power pilot (who is looking into but doesn't yet have a
glider rating), most of my go arounds were early in my student pilot
phase. Sometimes after turning final I'd realize that I was just too
high (too low can almost always be patched up - just give it a lil
more power to maintain altitude coming in), and I wasn't yet
comfortable with doing a slip to fix it.

So, when you're 1/3 of the way down the runway and still 300 feet up,
it's just safer to just go around and try the setup again. For me (and
I'd guess most people), they get far less frequent over time.

Particularly troublesome for me as a student pilot was that different
power levels are required for simulated normal, short, and soft field
landings. Given the different power levels they all required that I
turn base at different distances past the numbers. It can take some
time to get used to that.

Mike