Flight Training - September 2012 - 41

CHECKRIDE

By Bob Schmelzer

TRY IT AGAIN

GOING AROUND

hether initiated by you, the designated pilot examiner (DPE), the control tower, or some other outside influence, you can count on demonstrating your go-around skills at some point during your checkride. No big deal—because by the time any private pilot applicant is ready for a checkride, he will have had plenty of opportunities to practice the essentials of a goaround maneuver. But even though it is one of the first-learned skills during the early phases of takeoff and landing practice, and considering how often it subsequently is practiced during training, the maneuver frequently causes problems during a checkride.
Why? For one reason: the startle effect. Following a beautifully flown approach where the need for a go-around is not anticipated, the applicant can react badly when the DPE suddenly announces, “Go around!” The result can be a deer-in-theheadlights reaction in which the applicant produces delayed, confused, or inappropriate responses. To combat this effect, be on the alert during each approach you make for a possible go-around. There are many reasons why an immediate go-around could suddenly become necessary—not just for faulty approaches—so you must be ready to go into action at all times during every approach you make, checkride or not. Problems can also arise when the applicant fails to appropriately initiate a go-around that is clearly called for. An applicant’s mental stress during a botched landing attempt can sometimes delay or even prevent effective corrective action in the form of a proper go-around. Applicants might become overly distracted by thoughts of how they’ve now blown the checkride, inhibiting their initiation of the more appropriate new maneuver: a go-around! In these cases, a well-flown, applicant-initiated go-around is exactly what the DPE is hoping to witness, rather than a landing-at-all-costs mentality that demonstrates both poor flying and dangerous decision-making skills. Ironically, excessive attempts to salvage an ugly approach or landing that lead to a DPE-commanded go-around more often

produce the least-desired result—the dreaded failure notice. Your hand is (or should be) on the throttle during all final approaches. This permits an immediate power increase the moment a go-around is required, and with no delay caused by having to first make a connection between the throttle and your hand. Yet, in spite of how obvious this requirement is, it is not uncommon to observe an applicant move his or her hand away from the throttle to select either carburetor heat—Cold, or flaps—Up, before relocating the throttle to finally, advance power! But as much as DPEs frown at this inelegant technique, an even bigger blun-

der during a go-around would be allowing the pitch attitude to rise, unchecked, toward a stall attitude when power is added. To prevent an elevator trim stall, immediate examiner intervention would be required, resulting in both a powerful lesson learned and a busted checkride. As a means of strengthening the necessary muscle-memory skills needed to consistently perform effective go-arounds, realize that the initial steps taken for go-arounds are essentially the same as for the stall recovery maneuver. So, in terms of immediate actions, every time you practice stall recoveries, you are in effect practicing go-arounds as well. You can therefore link go-arounds and stall recoveries together as correlative-learning extensions of each other. With that thought in mind, immediately upon recognizing the need for a go-around (or a stall recovery), advance power to full throttle while simultaneously adjusting pitch attitude to achieve and maintain a safe airspeed—and while adding right rudder for proper coordination, “rough trimming” as necessary to reduce any adverse elevator control pressure; carburetor heat—cold (if applicable); retract flaps incrementally while first accelerating to, and then climbing at VX until all obstructions are safely cleared before accelerating to VY. And finally, during go-arounds, consider positioning the aircraft to the upwind-leg side of the runway to avoid a potential collision hazard with any aircraft that’s just lifting off. Continue practicing until these steps can be instinctively completed, every time—in this order—without delay, confusion, or indecision if you want to see that big smile on the face of your DPE come checkride day.
Bob Schmelzer is a Chicago-area designated pilot examiner, a United Airlines captain, and Boeing 777 line check airman. He has been an active flight instructor since 1972.

SEPTEMBER 2012 FLIGHT TRAINING

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