I felt the need to post an experience here that occurred earlier last week. Naturally, there will be no names (no Law Suits!!) as it is the situation I wish to highlight and not the persons or organisations.
I am a FISO at an airfield in the SE of England, and was greeted with a student inbound on a QXC. He had been sensible and telephoned before hand to acquire PPR and all the relevant aerodrome information.
When the student called up inbound, airfield and traffic information were passed and he opted to join overhead. However, maybe due to pressure or such like, the student joined overhead at circuit height. Luckily there were no other aircraft affected and the student carried on around the circuit.
Once on final, it was noticeable that the aircraft was too high on approach. The student continued the approach, overflying the threshold at around 200ft AAL and touching down in the last third of the runway at a higher than usual speed.
After parking up and coming to the tower to have the relevant forms signed, I asked the pilot about his decision to continue the approach and land. His response (and the point of this thread) was quite worrying. The student felt that if he went around, he would fail his QXC.
After having a chat about this, and airmanship, the student realised his mistake and that he should have gone around.
Moral of the story - You won't be failed if you go around!!! You are more likely to get an "Excellent" for Airmanship and Landing if you realise a mistake (happens to all of us!) and give it another go.
Don't be the one to wreck your flying before you've passed the course! ;-)
Joined on 13/12/2004
In a world of magnets and miracles.
Posts 61
Re: QXC's & Go-Arounds
Sound advise indeed, I well remember my QXC first leg into Goodwood. I'm not sure if the 1200 ft circuit height had me a little spooked as I was used to 1000 ft but my approach was way too fast and as a result I bounced on landing. I felt the nose dropping rapidly after the bounce so applied full power and went around. Second time the approach and landing were fine. I rather sheepishly ventured up to the tower with my form and apologised profusly for the terrible first attempt. The FISO asked what I thought had gone wrong and I explained I was too fast on approach. I was very pleasantly surprised to hear him say he was going to mark my form with "good airmanship" as I'd taken the correct action. You can't imagine how pleased I was. The point is we all make mistakes from time to time and the test of any good pilot is how he deals with mistakes.
25/08/2010, 10:03 AM
