My worst flying experience needing a decision
I thank Chuck for starting an interesting thread. I'm not able to understand and comment on the technicalities of his situation but I like the wider decision making scenario's that he's adressing that we as all pilots are called into making very rarely in critical situations where making the wrong decision can kill us and our passengers.
I'd like to share the worst experience I have had from which I learnt a lot.
A couple of years ago I popped down to Bembridge from Elstree in my shared 172 for a boating festival. Only problem was there was no wind and it was unbearably hot. The following morning we decided to return to Elstree. The outside air temperature at 3000ft was 34 degrees C. My passenger who was a non-pilot said "what a great day for a flight", needless to say we bumped back to Elstree in unpleasant turbulence and haze !
Coming into land I knew she would want to float because of the heat, had 30 degrees of flap and came in (08 runway), a bit of sink near the trees by the lake, needed a bit of power and we floated, and floated, and floated. Half-way down I threw it away and attempted to climb away. Except nothing happened, I even looked at the throttle as I wasn't sure I'd fully advanced it, except I had. I was inching the flaps up as the stall warner was going off 30 feet above the runway and was forced to lower the nose. The trees at the other end were fast approaching. Put too much flap up too quickly we would drop like a stone, not enough and we wouldn't climb. Decision time.
Options a) cut power and hope to keep the wings level when we hit something hopefully slowly, b) keep the nose down while trying to get the flaps carefully up and at the last moment climb above the trees.
I don't know whether I made a deliberate choice but I went for b), we did I think brush the leaves but I'm here to tell the story. Second time round came in much lower to drag myself in, chopped power much earlier and made a good landing.
Sadly another pilot that day damaged their plane while landing, and the airfield was closed for a few hours at the hottest part of the day due to the excessive heat and the relatively short runway for understandable safety reasons.
This shook me up as anyone can imagine and I tried to analyse what went wrong, at an airfield I know like the back of my hand:
1. Flying in unusually very hot conditions.
2. Not making a decision to go round early enough.
3.Totally underestimating the dreadful climb performance of a 172 with 30 degree flaps from a very late go around on such a hot day.
Now as part of my pre-landing checks I always glance at the temp guage, and pay more attention to temperature in weather reports. In the UK, most pilots don't consider the effect of temperature on take off and landing distance as it very rarely causes problems.
I agree totally with Chuck that a moment considering the options when the dice are rolling against you can contribute to a safer outcome rather than an instinctive action.
LF