the dreaded base to final turn

[RobertE]

The DPE at my home airport destroyed his Debonair yesterday in a landing accident.  15,000 hours without so much as a scratch to his aircraft, now history.  He says he grossly overshot the base to final turn, overcorrected, then hit the ground.  As described, it sounds like in a left hand pattern he went about 75 yards wide right, then overcorrected to 30 yards wide left, then hit the ground 10 yards to the left.  He says the first time he had any idea he was in trouble was when he hit the ground.  Up until that moment, all seemed fine.

 

Coincidentally, I received a tickler this morning from the Air Safety Foundation promoting a base to final landing accidents video to watch, which I did.  It had all the usual warnings about the tendency to fix the overshoot via stepping on the rudder when the ailerons aren't getting you back in line fast enough, which produces a cross control, which produces a spin if accompanied by to much pulling on the yoke to slow you down, but it didn't address the really fundamental, threshold question - which is what I'm posing here.  Is there any possibility at all of a bad outcome if one keeps the ball centered and doesn't induce excessive Gs relative to airspeed in the course of correcting the overshoot error?  I think the answer is no but that is such a simple concept that, if true, I don't know why it isn't routinely expressed.  Just correct your overshoot error with a centered ball and Gs that give you the same sort of margin of error as you have elsewhere in the pattern.  But am I missing something?

 

I've got a friend who flies King Airs and Citations for a living whose rule is to go around if every he overshoots that turn.  He's a better pilot than I but this makes no sense to me.

 

Am I an accident waiting to happen?

[Marauder]

To answer your question simply, yes (to your missing something question). Even in a coordinated turn, you could enter a stall if you are too aggressive on the bank. I follow the same rule as your friend. It is tempting to aggressively bank, but if I am that far off the centerline, it becomes an upwind for me.

[Danb]

Chris is correct..any thought of a problem GO ArOUND. A debonair is one of the easiest planes to land...his outcome provides the easy answer...practice your go around techniques and slow flying at 5000ft and the your approach to final which is the most critical part of our flying....Bob you have asked good questions over the yr. that is a good thing and will make you a better pilot...just try not to exceed your own limits..

[M016576]

Go arounds are free. Trying to "fix" a poor start / pattern can be very expensive.

[201er]

Do you know at what altitude these maneuvers were performed? I am really glad he's ok!

[bd32322]

AOA indicators

I need to install one

[M20F]

The main issue imho isn't over shooting the turn but keeping the base way to tight. I shoot for about 400' AGL on final on the glide slope which will get you in on engine failure and give you some room to maneuver if you do over shoot a bit. I see people all the time turning base almost over the numbers, run a nice pattern and avoid the situation where you have to crank it around is my take. Fly safe!

[jlunseth]

Well, I am not a big fan of using the go around as a routine "out" because of a blown base to final.  One, at my home base we most often are landing on parallel runways and if you just blow through the turn you are likely to meet someone coming the other way.  Even at a single runway nontowered airport it is not a particularly safe maneuver because there may be someone coming into the pattern from behind you as you enter the upwind, or someone doing a crosswind pattern entry.  I do tighten my turn and keep the ball centered.  I don't like to go over 30 degrees of bank, but so long as I have kept my airspeed up - at least 85 knots for this turn - I am above stall speed in a 45 degree, no flap turn (and I should have at least one notch of flaps during the turn anyway), and I would rather do that than enter a go around unable to see the incomer.  I will not ever go over 45 however.

 

The real problem IMHO is the constant drum beat to fly tight patterns, and I have seen the Air Safety Institute doing it.  There is no need to fly a 747 pattern.  But in a Mooney, .75 miles is about right and a 1 mile pattern is better from the standpoint of safe turns.  I did the math on it and wrote a post a couple of years ago.  It is pretty basic math.  Since then I did my commercial and worked quite alot on power off 180 landings.  .75 was the sweet spot where I could routinely make the runway if I cut power abeam the runway on the downwind.  There was a little room for deviation on both sides of that number, but too close and the turn to the runway was too tight and I would lose too much altitude trying to make that turn.  Much further away and I did not have the glide to make the runway.  The thing is, the descent is the least likely place to lose power of all the flight regimes because the plane's forward movement is helping the prop.  The power off 180's are useful in order to understand the glide capability of the aircraft.  But flying the pattern with the runway tucked under your left armpit because you "might lose power in the pattern" is just plain dumb, unsafe, and kills pilots unless they are flying an aircraft with alot less airspeed than ours have - and need to avoid a stall. 

[Cruiser]

^^^^^^^ what John said ^^^^^^

 

Give yourself the room you need to make stabilized approaches, and the time you need for little corrections.

[wishboneash]

I too don't have too many options at my home airport because of parallel runways. Keeping the speed up and increasing the bank is the only way to avoid a potential head on with another plane heading to the parallel runway. Not getting into this situation is the best measure in the first place but due to winds it could throw one off and one has to be prepared to deal with it. I have an AoA indicator and so far I have never seen it go off except on the flare.

[John Pleisse]

Best advice I ever got from a CFI re: pattern work. Use a full 30 degree bank, no more, no less. Carve out a tidy pattern this way. A good pattern starts on decent, not abeam.

[M20S Driver]

The DPE at my home airport destroyed his Debonair yesterday in a landing accident.  15,000 hours without so much as a scratch to his aircraft, now history.  He says he grossly overshot the base to final turn, overcorrected, then hit the ground.  As described, it sounds like in a left hand pattern he went about 75 yards wide right, then overcorrected to 30 yards wide left, then hit the ground 10 yards to the left.  He says the first time he had any idea he was in trouble was when he hit the ground.  Up until that moment, all seemed fine.

 

Coincidentally, I received a tickler this morning from the Air Safety Foundation promoting a base to final landing accidents video to watch, which I did.  It had all the usual warnings about the tendency to fix the overshoot via stepping on the rudder when the ailerons aren't getting you back in line fast enough, which produces a cross control, which produces a spin if accompanied by to much pulling on the yoke to slow you down, but it didn't address the really fundamental, threshold question - which is what I'm posing here.  Is there any possibility at all of a bad outcome if one keeps the ball centered and doesn't induce excessive Gs relative to airspeed in the course of correcting the overshoot error?  I think the answer is no but that is such a simple concept that, if true, I don't know why it isn't routinely expressed.  Just correct your overshoot error with a centered ball and Gs that give you the same sort of margin of error as you have elsewhere in the pattern.  But am I missing something?

 

I've got a friend who flies King Airs and Citations for a living whose rule is to go around if every he overshoots that turn.  He's a better pilot than I but this makes no sense to me.

 

Am I an accident waiting to happen?

 

No, as long as you are high and fast enough with minimal G-forces and landing on a long runway.  I would add a little power.

I would still go around if it is windy with gusts or a good cross-wind.

[carusoam]

Review how stall speed is greatly effected by bank angle in the landing configuration in your POH...

Keeps me wanting to stay with the 30° bank angle as stated above...

In this case, the pilot accidentally messed the traffic pattern... It isn't much more to mess up a 45° Bank and turn it into a 60° or something similar...

Judging proper bank angle while looking out the window and descending is a bit challenging for accuracy.

Our wing design has one drawback. Base to final stalls are not known to end well.

Pay attention, Keep the ball centered,

-a-

[M20F]

Really don't understand the fear of banking beyond 30 degrees base to final either, the nose should be pointed down at this point. Banking and yanking is a problem, but with down pitch you aren't going to stall if you keep the wings unloaded.

[aviatoreb]

Well, I am not a big fan of using the go around as a routine "out" because of a blown base to final.  One, at my home base we most often are landing on parallel runways and if you just blow through the turn you are likely to meet someone coming the other way.  Even at a single runway nontowered airport it is not a particularly safe maneuver because there may be someone coming into the pattern from behind you as you enter the upwind, or someone doing a crosswind pattern entry.  I do tighten my turn and keep the ball centered.  I don't like to go over 30 degrees of bank, but so long as I have kept my airspeed up - at least 85 knots for this turn - I am above stall speed in a 45 degree, no flap turn (and I should have at least one notch of flaps during the turn anyway), and I would rather do that than enter a go around unable to see the incomer.  I will not ever go over 45 however.

 

The real problem IMHO is the constant drum beat to fly tight patterns, and I have seen the Air Safety Institute doing it.  There is no need to fly a 747 pattern.  But in a Mooney, .75 miles is about right and a 1 mile pattern is better from the standpoint of safe turns.  I did the math on it and wrote a post a couple of years ago.  It is pretty basic math.  Since then I did my commercial and worked quite alot on power off 180 landings.  .75 was the sweet spot where I could routinely make the runway if I cut power abeam the runway on the downwind.  There was a little room for deviation on both sides of that number, but too close and the turn to the runway was too tight and I would lose too much altitude trying to make that turn.  Much further away and I did not have the glide to make the runway.  The thing is, the descent is the least likely place to lose power of all the flight regimes because the plane's forward movement is helping the prop.  The power off 180's are useful in order to understand the glide capability of the aircraft.  But flying the pattern with the runway tucked under your left armpit because you "might lose power in the pattern" is just plain dumb, unsafe, and kills pilots unless they are flying an aircraft with alot less airspeed than ours have - and need to avoid a stall. 

 

Saying what you said about not being too close for your own good in the pattern for a faster airplane, this reminds me of an article I read by John King not long ago where he was claiming a lot of people have problems flying their base to final roll out point properly because they are flying their patterns too fast.  The way he said it is speed is dangerous in the pattern as people fly it since they feel padding their patterns with a bit of speed is good but then they blow past base to final turn and feel the desire to over correct and the rest from there is history.

[aviatoreb]

So your DPE did not spin though I take it?  Thank goodness.

 

Even a DPE is not immune to errors - the only person I ever knew personally who got killed in an airplane is the DPE who signed off my PPL - just two weeks after I got my PPL.  He was a 14,000hr pilot, and loved by all.  Great guy.  It was a scud running in the mountains incident and it was so surprising it ended up as one of those featured accident in flying magazine.

 

Reading these base to final incidents always gives me the shivers.  Mea Culpa.  When I was about 30 hrs pilot - before my PPL and during my big cross country - I flew to the Syracuse airport.  I was of course intimidated by tower at that time - all by myself and a real newbie.  I was cleared to land runway 10.  I acknowledged.  On final - tower politely asked me what I was doing.... I was lined up for runway 15.  They corrected me - so I said "no problem" and I yanked it around pretty tight - and yes slow - probably cross controlled - can't remember.  I have played this one in my head many times since after I learned how dangerous it really was later on - I yanked it around and managed to line up for runway 10 and land without incident.  Luckily I was in an extemenly forgiving trainer called the Alarus CH200, and luckily I did know a little bit about not getting too slow - but still - I am only here today by good luck I figure.  That story was the number one worst thing I have done in airplane - knock on wood - and I didn't even appreciate what had happened until sometime later as I have continued to educate myself after my PPL.

[FlyDave]

Robert,

 

It sounds like your DPE friend in the Debonair lost his situational awareness. I'm sure there will be responses to this comment but I just don't see how, in VMC, you could not know where you are in relation to the ground and your bank angle - not to mention airspeed - until you hit the ground.

I usually fly a 3/4 - 1 mile pattern and on this short a final a small correction is fine. But I don't want to be "yanking and banking" close to the ground. And I really like the saying "Go-arounds are free"!

 

Dave

[ryoder]

I fly at 3/4 mile patterns but hold on to my altitude until I am on base. This way I turn final with at least three white lights and sometimes four on the PAPI. I keep my speed nice and low at 80 mph on base and if I overshoot a little I have plenty of time to correct with very light bank angles. I come in super steep with full flaps and power at idle so that I can make the runway at any point in the pattern. My cfi taught me to descend after I am abeam the numbers and I don't do that anymore. I think losing altitude while flying away from the runway is a bad idea.

[Bob_Belville]

I agree that relaxing back pressure as you bank is going to make it very difficult to accidentally get into a stall/spin. With experience you should be able to get to the runway from almost any position in our little Mooneys. 

 

Jump ahead to about 12:00 on this video in which we were asked to reverse course at once from a close in down wind. You'll see I arrest the bank angle with the ailerons even though it looks like crossed controls. You can see ASI but I was doing at least 75 k, looks like bank angle got to 45 or so. (65k is my reference for full flaps, over the numbers.) As bonus coverage you can see a bounce recovery caused by touching down a little fast. :-)

 

[Danb]

As Erik mentioned a 14000 hrDPE and Bob mentioned a 15000 hr DPE along with many of the other comments should really drive us no matter our level of experience that lives depend on our continual focus and attention to detail. Once we start feeling we know it all or fail to strive to learn and be the best we can be maybe we should consider if we should be up there. Never having had to go around is most likely a sign of that attention not being out of line, but we should still have the knowledge and ability to do just that, recently Ibwas landing at Ocean City and on very short final a couple of deer ran on the runway, not my fault but had to go around, it's worth the practice. Yesterday a member questioned whether the Mooney specific PPP was worthwhile this thread answers that question.,safe flying and all have a great and safe New Year and all year....

[carusoam]

Jim,

I agree, nose down makes things better.

But , I don't have a table handy that says how much better at 10° nose down, 20° or 30°...

I'll have to look that up later to see if I have one...?

Best regards,

-a-

[GeorgePerry]

The DPE at my home airport destroyed his Debonair yesterday in a landing accident.  15,000 hours without so much as a scratch to his aircraft, now history.  He says he grossly overshot the base to final turn, overcorrected, then hit the ground.  As described, it sounds like in a left hand pattern he went about 75 yards wide right, then overcorrected to 30 yards wide left, then hit the ground 10 yards to the left.  He says the first time he had any idea he was in trouble was when he hit the ground.  Up until that moment, all seemed fine.

 

Coincidentally, I received a tickler this morning from the Air Safety Foundation promoting a base to final landing accidents video to watch, which I did.  It had all the usual warnings about the tendency to fix the overshoot via stepping on the rudder when the ailerons aren't getting you back in line fast enough, which produces a cross control, which produces a spin if accompanied by to much pulling on the yoke to slow you down, but it didn't address the really fundamental, threshold question - which is what I'm posing here.  Is there any possibility at all of a bad outcome if one keeps the ball centered and doesn't induce excessive Gs relative to airspeed in the course of correcting the overshoot error?  I think the answer is no but that is such a simple concept that, if true, I don't know why it isn't routinely expressed.  Just correct your overshoot error with a centered ball and Gs that give you the same sort of margin of error as you have elsewhere in the pattern.  But am I missing something?

 

I've got a friend who flies King Airs and Citations for a living whose rule is to go around if every he overshoots that turn.  He's a better pilot than I but this makes no sense to me.

 

Am I an accident waiting to happen?

 

No, You're not an accident waiting to happen…

 

The turn to final with a gross overshoot is an issue but with proper training and technique can be completely mitigated as a threat.  When talking about low altitude pattern maneuvering and energy management, the best method to avoid loss of control is prevention and recognition.  Prevention begins with flying a disciplined pattern.  Do your best to fly the Same airspeeds, make configuration changes at the same place in the pattern, and use the same sight picture every time to build routine and habit patterns.  The more things look the same and are repeatable the easier deviations from the "norm" are to detect and remedy.  Recognition begins with understanding energy management.  If you're flying disciplined target airspeeds and not "wrapping" up a turn, the plane will fly just fine.  Start seeing lower than normal airspeed and higher than normal angle of bank, and alarm bells should be sounding.  The next component of recognition is understand what the plane "feels" like at the onset of a stall.  Make a point to climb to a safe altitude and practice approach configured stalls at least 2 times every year.  If you know what it feels like, you won't be surprised when it matters. 

 

Lastly there's an old CFI wise tale that I disagree with.  Lots of instructors will say that you should always fly close enough to the runway to "glide" if the engine quits.   This is a strategy for a low probability occurrence and "in-balance" is bad advice because it creates another situation with much more risk; Being too tight and trying to "save" it by wrapping up a turn to avoid an overshoot.  It's better to be a bit wide than a bit close.  Proper abeam distance and maneuvering distance should account for the arc of the turn with a margin of safety.  My personal rule of thumb is no more than 25-30 Deg angle of bank in the pattern.  If I need to bank steeper than that to align with the runway, then I'm done.  Wings level and go around.

[Danb]

Bob awesome job, I forgot how hot it got on that approach procedure...it's been a few yrs, very instructional video...

[Hank]

I've been doing occasion go-arounds from need ever since my solo. I'm not proud, and they are better than free, you get another 0.1-0.2 in your logbook. [irrelevant side note:  2 more entries, and my Logbook becomes "#1"    ] I fly ~½ mile patterns, same as I learned as a student, and I ignore the PC disconnect button, as the force helps remind me not to overbank.

 

Sometimes I blow through final, but as taught from Day 1, I do not change my bank angle at all, I just hold the bank and fly back to the runway and level out on course. I also try hard to level out on final with the VASI / PAPI correct, especially since my wife now knows what those red and white lights mean.

 

Same thing every time, same speeds, same flaps, drop gear same place. Normal landing, simulated engine out, all same same, no changee nuttin. Always aim to improve, and recognize when the wind is blowing your downwind closer to the runway.

 

If I find myself over the taxiway, that's too far to fly back--power up, go around and try again. So far, it's never taken more than two tries to land, except my Student Long XC landing into the sun on 26 and I couldn't see the stinking runway--that took three tries.

[M20F]

Jim,

I agree, nose down makes things better.

But , I don't have a table handy that says how much better at 10° nose down, 20° or 30°...

I'll have to look that up later to see if I have one...?

Best regards,

-a-

Nose up or nose down isn't the driving factor it is g-loading that impacts stall speed for the most part. You build that by pulling back on the yoke in the turn to hold altitude or minimize speed increase. You can bank 90 degrees but if you let the nose fall as needed to keep 1g the stall speed isn't going to increase. You put in a 90 degree bank and try to hold altitude it obviously is a very different story. Fly a stabilized and sufficent pattern and don't load up the wings and you will never have a problem. Once you feel those G's coming on though that should be your first and most important indicator that you are headed for a problem.