Aero-Tips!
A good pilot is always learning -- how many times have you heard
this old standard throughout your flying career? There is no truer
statement in all of flying (well, with the possible exception of
"there are no old, bold pilots.")
Aero-News has called upon the expertise of Thomas P. Turner,
master CFI and all-around-good-guy, to bring our readers -- and us
-- daily tips to improve our skills as aviators. Some of them, you
may have heard before... but for each of us, there will also be
something we might never have considered before, or something that
didn't "stick" the way it should have the first time we memorized
it for the practical test.
Look for our daily Aero-Tips segments, coming each day to you
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Aero-Tips 09.27.06
I took my initial pilot training through solo in a US Air Force
T-41A, a pretty much off-the-shelf 1965 Cessna 172 in Stars and
Bars paint. Because I was in the Air Force's Flight Screen
Program at Officer Training School ("FSPOT", pronounced "Fishpot")
some of the procedures were a little different than perhaps you'd
see in civilian flying schools. One procedure we Fishpots were
taught was that, during a go-around or any time on an upwind leg we
should not fly directly over the runway, but displaced slightly to
the right. This was to prevent a conflict with another airplane
that might be climbing off the runway -- perhaps what instigated
our go-around in the first place.
Somewhere along the way as I completed civilian certificates and
ratings, and spent some time in three separate Part 141 programs in
the process, I got the "displaced upwind" trained out of me. By a
few years later when, out of the Air Force and instructing at a
small FBO in Missouri, I began to pass along what I was learning
about flying, I did what just about everybody does on a go-around
or the upwind leg -- I flew right over the runway. As a result the
pilots I trained ended up doing the same.
Back to basics
Darned if, when reading through the Airplane Flying Handbook much
later I didn't come across this passage, beginning on page 7-3:
The upwind leg is also the transitional part of the traffic
pattern when on the final approach and a go-around is initiated and
a climb attitude established. When a safe altitude is attained, the
pilot should commence a shallow bank turn to the upwind side of the
airport. This will allow better visibility of the runway for
departing traffic.
My FSPOT training was to move to the right of directly above the
runway, to keep any climbing traffic visible out the left (my) side
of the T-41. The Airplane Flying Handbook modifies this
recommendation a bit, calling for displacement to the upwind side
-- an assumption, perhaps, that a climbing airplane might not
remain precisely on centerline, but might blow downwind if the
pilot is inattentive (or on an assigned "runway heading" for
departure). Either way, the "displaced upwind to the upwind" seems
the right thing to do -- so long as you don't displace so far to
one side that you conflict with opposite-direction traffic on the
downwind.
Aero-tip of the day: On an upwind leg and/or
during a go-around, maneuver to keep any departing traffic in
sight.