CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 8 Issue 1 - 28

SAFETY SPOTLIGHT
THEIR CHIEF BENEFIT, OF COURSE, LIES IN ALLOWING STUDENTS TO COMPLETE MORE TAKEOFFS
AND LANDINGS IN LESS TIME, SAVING THEM BOTH AIRCRAFT RENTAL AND INSTRUCTIONAL FEES.
contain the phrase "touch-and-go" returned
713 ﬁxed-wing accidents over a 10-year period,
or an average of six per month. While that's a
small fraction of the total number of operations
during that period, bending 700 fewer airplanes
per decade still seems like a worthwhile goal.
Nearly one-third of these (227) involved runway
excursions, and 16 percent (113) were lowaltitude stalls. A further 16 percent (114) involved
inopportune losses of engine power, nearly half
of them due to fuel mismanagement. And only
ﬁve percent took place in twins, supporting the
suggestion that touch-and-goes are not a common
exercise among multiengine pilots.
Their chief beneﬁt, of course, lies in allowing
students to complete more takeoffs and landings
in less time, saving them both aircraft rental and
instructional fees. (Cynics might even suggest
that requiring full stops on every pass could
be motivated less by safety than the appeal of

cashing in a few low-risk extra tenths on the
Hobbs meter while the airplane putters back to the
threshold.) It's also been pointed out that on some
longer runways, such as at ex-military airﬁelds,
the distance between adjacent exits may be so
impractically long that most of a pattern session
would be chewed up taxiing-though it's hard to
see why stop-and-goes, pausing to catch the breath
and double-check aircraft conﬁguration before
each takeoff, wouldn't work at least as well.
In evaluating whether saving time justiﬁes
increasing the workload on a student who may
already be near saturation, it helps to remember
that there doesn't have to be just one answer.
Differences in both aptitude and experience
mean that the risk-beneﬁt ratio necessarily
varies between individuals. While you might be
completely comfortable allowing a particularly
sharp student to do touch-and-goes on her ﬁrst
solo, others might be better served by a more

deliberate routine providing time to reset, debrief,
and refocus between landing attempts.
Since it's not a required maneuver for any
rating, there's no point pressuring someone who
can't manage it or simply prefers not to hurry.
An inability to master touch-and-goes isn't
necessarily a sign of incompetence and shouldn't
be treated as such. It's possible to become an
acceptably safe and capable sport or private pilot
without ever attempting one...and a student who
repeatedly falls behind the airplane shouldn't
be allowed to let the desire to save a few bucks
outweigh investing the time needed to develop
mastery of the aircraft.
David Jack Kenny is the Air Safety
Institute's statistician. He is a
ﬁxed-wing ATP with commercial pilot
privileges for helicopters and the
owner of a Piper Arrow.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CFI-to-CFI Newsletter - Volume 8 Issue 1