Adding an airplane rating to private pilot glider

On Mon, 7 Apr 2008 14:19:52 -0600, "Bill Daniels"
bildan@comcast-dot-net wrote:
[snip]

Then one day as I was putting down a very long, slow approach waiting for
the corporate jet on the runway to finish his checklist, I started thinking
about go-arounds. It suddenly occured to me that if an airplane were to
taxi onto the runway at the last second, I might revert to glider technique
and land the airplane on the grass between the runway and taxiway. Hmmm....
That might be very hard to explain.

I called the tower and asked for a low pass over the numbers and a go-around
to get some practice with the throttle thingy.


The go-around merits as much training and practice as any other
maneuver. In certain situations -- a Cessna with full flaps, for
instance -- there is a great deal of opportunity to screw it up. And
when you do screw it up, you're likely to be doing so in close
proximity to another airplane that may or may not know you're there...

rj

On Apr 8, 12:27*pm, Ralph Jones wrote:
In certain situations -- a Cessna with full flaps, for
instance -- there is a great deal of opportunity to screw it up. And
when you do screw it up, you're likely to be doing so in close
proximity to another airplane that may or may not know you're there...
rj


Ralph I fly a 1966 150, that year still had 40 degree flaps. I'm
curious what you find more challenging about the Cessna with full
flaps? Perhaps I mis spoke as Hillary would say....it's not that I
don't think the maneuver should be taught, it's that I don't think
enough emphasis is placed on nailing your landing the first time
around.

Doug

On Tue, 8 Apr 2008 10:28:09 -0700 (PDT), "
wrote:

On Apr 8, 12:27*pm, Ralph Jones wrote:
In certain situations -- a Cessna with full flaps, for
instance -- there is a great deal of opportunity to screw it up. And
when you do screw it up, you're likely to be doing so in close
proximity to another airplane that may or may not know you're there...
rj


Ralph I fly a 1966 150, that year still had 40 degree flaps. I'm
curious what you find more challenging about the Cessna with full
flaps? Perhaps I mis spoke as Hillary would say....it's not that I
don't think the maneuver should be taught, it's that I don't think
enough emphasis is placed on nailing your landing the first time
around.

Agreed, the later Cessnas will protect you from some degree of folly
with less flap extension, but you still have to arrest your descent in
an airplane with very little thrust margin. You have to do it quickly,
with a rapid power increase, rapid onset of P-factor, and you may have
to maneuver horizontally at the same time. If you don't know exactly
what the conflict is, you may be descending on top of somebody who
made a straight-in out of sunlit haze...I've seen a few very dicey
situations just like that.

It's not that the go-around is especially hard: just that it's as
important to master as any other maneuver your airplane can do. You
really should be able to land without stalling as you turn final, too,
but in my CFI'ing days I wouldn't have let you get off without
learning to recover from that.

rj

On Apr 8, 3:48*pm, Ralph Jones wrote:
If you don't know exactly
what the conflict is, you may be descending on top of somebody who
made a straight-in out of sunlit haze...I've seen a few very dicey
situations just like that.
rj


OK, now we're getting somewhere! I fully agree with you and it brings
up another pet peeve of mine about power that gliders don't seem to
suffer from. It's called Courtesy. Somehow a glider field can have
gliders all over the place, more than one in pattern, the towplane
taking off with someone in tow etc.... all at the same time and we
somehow manage to get through the day.

On the power side, I've come across more clueless Yoke holders busting
patterns, not using a radio, cutting people off, descending without
looking, overtaking and the list goes on.

So if you have to use a go around to save yourself from the clueless,
that's fine by me!!!

Doug