How low for a go around in A300?

[Gonzo]

I recently had reason to instruct an A300 to go around because the previous landing a/c had rolled past the high speed turn off but had slowed right down. To his credit, he did then accelerate to expedite, but as soon as I knew it wasn't going to work, I told the A300 to go around, while he was passing through 200ft, which is perhaps 2/3 of a mile. However, he continued down to land, and when he touched down, the previous lander was still on the runway, albeit 2800m down the runway. Is this too low to go around in an A300? I have sent a/c around from lower altitudes before. Even if he was past a 'point of no return' and would have resulted in a touch and go, surely this is much preferable to landing without clearance, even though the pilot thought he knew the reason for the go around. Maybe the Fire services were about to cross in an emergency? Maybe I had seen some FOD?

Comments?

Gonzo

[HPSOV]

Its possible to go round right until the point the wheels touch the ground and spoilers come out. And yes, it would be better to do a touch and go than to land without a clearance. If ATC tells you to go-round you dont question it, you get the hell out of there!
All I can think is that the pilot saw the reason that he was being sent round and thought that it was safe to land.

[Gonzo]

HPSOV,

Thanks for the reply; after the event I was given a bit of (less than good-natured) stick; that I should have known that an A300 could not go around from that height, and if I didn't know such basic facts about a/c then I shouldn't be in ATC. I just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything obvious!

Gonzo

[pied piper]

I am still confused, If ATC instructs a goaround why did the A/C not comply?

[HF8903]

The A300 is a beautiful looking plane but the technology is quite old...that pilot definatly did comply with the G/A....any sane pilot would...the problem is that at the medium power setting those CF6's would take a few seconds to spool up to counter that dirty configuration. I dont know much more about the airbus but i believe this is the reason the decision heights are so high.
with all that inertia it would be impossible for the aircraft to react immediatly.
cheers

[HPSOV]

I've never flown an airbus, but I cant see why it would have any more problems with a go-round than another "old" aircraft such as a 747 classic. All aircraft need time to spool-up, and all aircraft have huge amounts of inertia.
From the peformance manual of a 767 with CF6 engines are the following altitude losses expected during an automatic go-round. I would expect that the loss would be greater during a manual go-round due to us dumb pilots.

Altitude ft/Loss ft
50/39
40/29
30/23
20/15
10/9
5/5
So even if you initiated a go-round at 10ft you would not touch the ground.
Does anyone who flies the A300 have their figures?

As far as I'm concerned if the tower tells you to go-round you do it, a quick touch of the ground during a go-round is better than a quick touch of another aircraft on your runway!

[Gonzo]

Thanks guys, all good info.

Obviously there is going to be an amount of initial height loss, but is it so much more pronounced in an A300? If so then why? Trawling through my memory I can recall sending 747-100s, Ilyushin 86s and 62s, and even a 727 around in the past year or so, and I thought they all got going up pretty quickly. I have to say that I can't recall ever sending an A300 around.
Gonzo

[pied piper]

<A HREF="http://www.airdisaster.com/download/ups8.html" TARGET="_blank">http://www.airdisaster.com/download/ups8.html</A>

pretty late G/A :-)

[GROUNDSTAR]

HF8903
Thank you for your input! Sorry to ruin your argument but our minimum DH for a CAT 3B approach is in fact 15'. I have only ever done a go around from 15' in the sim and yes the aircraft does touch the runway very briefly. Like any twin engine jet of that size, the A300 has a very high power to weight ratio. It has to in case of engine failure, so a go around from 100' is really not a problem. The biggest problem during a two engine go around is in pressing the Go Levers which gives an enormous surge of power as the autothrust will deliver TOGA pwr, rather than an intermediate setting. It is very easy then to climb straight through your cleared level by mistake, as it all starts happening rather fast. Several a/c have been lost at this stage through a combination of the autopilot's inability to prvent the a/c from overpitching and the crew's lack of awareness. As to why the a/c in question did not go around when instructed, I'm sure that only the crew know that. I hope it wasn't one of ours!