Always Have an Out

No matter how simple the flight, there's often a learning experience that you can reflect upon to improve your future flights.  Each time I fly, I venture to fix something from the last flight, find something to learn from, or share something as a learning experience for others.

One of the things on my last flight that came up is always have an out.

In the middle of putting the plane on the ground, I had a moment where I actually thought to myself:

"Make a call now, or end up as the next YouTube pilot failure."

This is a screen capture during that situation.  I had just bounced.  If you were in my situation, looking down the runway, what would you have done?  While I know my exact location on the runway at this moment (thanks to the GPS in my ContourGPS - though this particular frame is from the GoPro), I'm not going to tell you because the only information I had for my decision is what you see right now.  As you can see, there's still a reasonable amount of runway left, and I didn't bounce too high.

What's the call?

I pressed on.  Why?  I know my ground roll is normally about 500-600' and I clearly had that and more left, despite being slightly off the ground.  I delayed my call, and that's when the line above popped up.  It was only when the plane didn't settle in the following few seconds that I decided to go around.

00:27 - [Bounce] Split second decision: land, there's still room
00:28 - [Bounce, bounce]
00:30 - Make a call now, or end up as the next YouTube pilot failure...go around.

[Video was here until Contour closed down for a bit, and it got lost.]
If you watch the video, you can see the plane actually settles right as I applied full power.  If you pause it right at that point, you can see a strip of asphalt off to the right of the runway.  That strip of asphalt is about 720' from the end of the runway, so I could've still stopped by my own and the official Cessna ground roll numbers had I not decided to go around.  Would that have been smart, though?  My argument would be no.  If I really had to get on the ground, sure, but why cut it so close when I could always go around?

Always remember your other options.  In my case there was no emergency, so there was no harm in going around provided I made that call with enough room to get back up off the ground.



I wasn't out of the woods after that call, though.  Literally.

After I lift off, you can see some rather imposing trees approaching quickly.  From having flown in before, I knew there was an opening to the right.  As I got closer, through both a call by Phil and my own constant search for an out, I turned right to give myself more room between myself and the trees.  I would assert that I would've cleared them without the turn, but the turn would have only given me more clearance in my direct flight path, so I took it.

We've been taught to look for outs at all times, but a lot of the time our margins of error are rather high in normal operations.  As I joked with another pilot after finally putting the plane on the ground, landing is a lot different on a 5500' runway compared to 2000'.  I can float for ages on a 5500' runway like and still land safely, but most instructors tell you early on that if you don't like the landing picture, go around, no matter how long the runway.  We're also taught as pilots to always keep an eye out for landing fields, especially when flying single engine and lower to the ground.  When you get into instrument flight, you start dealing with alternate airports, and with longer flights you may also get into intermediate, or en route, alternates.  You're always taught to have an out, but do you always have one in mind?

Looking for an out is something pilots are taught from the very beginning, but I don't think it's ever placed in generic terms.  We're taught to have specific outs in mind - alternate airports, go arounds, open fields, and so on - but it's not often that you hear an instructor explain the merits of always having a backup plan in general.  For some pilots, it's just a natural part of aeronautical decision making, but for others it's not necessarily so.  Some pilots need things spelled out, simply as a part of the way they learn.

The next time you fly, or even the next time you're driving, think ahead of your situation.  If [something] happens, you will [react in some way].  It sounds somewhat obvious, but think of the last time someone stomped on the brakes in front of you, and you had little time to react.  For a split second there, you almost thought you were going into the back of that person's car.  If there was a shoulder to your right, could you have used that?  Probably, and that would be a nice resource.  Without thinking of that ahead of time, though, the only reaction in your mind was stopping behind the car in front of you.  That thinking ahead gives your mind the opportunity to calculate everything ahead of time so that you're able to make quick decisions.

Always have an out.  Always remember that you have an out.  Always take that out when you doubt that your current course can continue safely.