The evils of the Touch and Go

[Guest]

Some form of proof would settle the debate over premium increases.  From the many times premiums are discussed here on MS, I'd say you guys are getting a good deal on insurance with many reporting lowered not rising premiums.

Clarence

[Andy95W]

3 hours ago, M20Doc said:

I'd say you guys are getting a good deal on insurance with many reporting lowered not rising premiums.

Sounds pretty convincing to me.

1.) Many people are reporting lower insurance premiums

2.) From our poll, a majority of Mooney owners do touch and goes.

Therefore, doing touch and goes lowers your insurance premiums.  'Nuff said!

[RobertGary1]

8 hours ago, Andy95W said:

Sounds pretty convincing to me.

1.) Many people are reporting lower insurance premiums

2.) From our poll, a majority of Mooney owners do touch and goes.

Therefore, doing touch and goes lowers your insurance premiums.  'Nuff said!

Therefore she's a witch!

 

-Robert

[RobertGary1]

11 hours ago, M20Doc said:

Some form of proof would settle the debate over premium increases.  From the many times premiums are discussed here on MS, I'd say you guys are getting a good deal on insurance with many reporting lowered not rising premiums.

Clarence

Oddly its cheaper than what I pay for any single car at a higher hull value. I had a claim a few years ago after my engine outage. They covered the tie down at the remote field I glided to..

-Robert

[Tommy]

14 hours ago, jetdriven said:

Well when the premium is 10 or 15k a year or more  and you have to have a lot of experience, I'd say they are restricting the IV-P market, and keeping a lot of pilots out. The Cirrus has a terrible loss history until COPA got involved.  Point is the more claims they pay the more we all pay. The less claims and accidents the better.  

No one is disputing that, Byron. 

But to say T&G is part of the problem without providing any higher strength of evidence than your own anecdotal experiences when many others can give you equal number of examples where conscientious pilots who made the efforts honing their landing skills doing T&Gs are the ones we will trust our family with.

When will you ever learn the very basic concept of evidence strength, Byron? 

In the end, you often resort to "I am an airline pilot, I know more than you" approach.

My suggestion to you and @PTK is to go and ask the insurance companies and see if they can provide you guys with some credible data. 

[RobertGary1]

I certainly won't claim to have any useful evidence. My personal experience is that the most gear up accidents I'm personally aware of have been touch n gos. But I can't claim anything beyond anecdotal evidence in this regard. 

I have grabbed students hands and stopped them from pulling the gear up after landing when they thought they were going for flaps. That's why I don't have students touch the flaps until they exit the runway and take a relaxing breath.

-Robert, CFII

Edited September 20, 2017 by RobertGary1

[N201MKTurbo]

All this talk of undue risk is a bit of a straw man. Every time we take the plane out of the hangar we are taking a risk that doesn't need to be taken. Other than a few hijackings nobody ever forced anybody to fly anywhere.

Most professional pilots fly in conditions that they would probably prefer not to fly in, but they do it anyway because that is their job.

When I flew the Mooney every day (20 years). You look forward to things unusual like a touch and go because the normal day to day flying can get very boring.

Edited September 21, 2017 by N201MKTurbo

[RobertGary1]

15 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

All this talk of undue risk is a bit of a straw man. Every time we take the plane out of the hangar we are taking a risk that doesn't need to be taken. Other than a few hijackings nobody ever forced anybody to fly anywhere.

It's all about risk management. Is the risk worth the reward? From my experience doing touch and goes with students in retractable planes is not worth the risk (however low you may feel it is) to save time taxiing back.  But I'm not going to worry about what others do. 

-Robert

Edited September 21, 2017 by RobertGary1

[Mooneymite]

15 hours ago, N201MKTurbo said:

All this talk of undue risk is a bit of a straw man. .....

Most professional pilots fly in conditions that they would probably prefer not to fly in, but they do it anyway because that is their job.

It's more than just because it's their job.  They are TRAINED to do it.  And that's a central issue to doing touch and goes.  __TRAINING__.

When a pilot is properly trained to do a touch and go, the risk is minimal....or at least no higher than doing any landing/takeoff.

I think it is interesting that some of the instructors will not train their students in this skill.  Were I transitioning to a Mooney, I would certainly seek out an instructor who was proficient in touch and goes and could train me to do them safely.  Others may feel differently.  Happily,  the choice is ours.

[RobertGary1]

6 minutes ago, Mooneymite said:

When a pilot is properly trained to do a touch and go, the risk is minimal....or at least no higher than doing any landing/takeoff.

 

The choice is yours. However I'm skeptical about your risk assessment. I know of more gear up accidents resulting from pulling the gear up on a touch and go than just forgetting the gear. We just had a guy here pull the gear up on a touch and go hours after finishing his checkout. Anecdotal? Sure. But I"m sure I"m not the only one. The point is that its clear (at least to me) that there is certainly some increased risk in a touch and go vs a taxi back or stop and go. How you choice to deal with that increased risk is your decision.

 

-Robert

Edited September 21, 2017 by RobertGary1

[Mooneymite]

Just now, RobertGary1 said:

.... The point is that its clear (at least to me) that there is certainly some increased risk in a touch and go vs a taxi back or stop and go. ....-Robert

Show us the statistics, or insurance company guidance.

[salty]

For those that are against doing them, do you include Johnson bar equipped mooney's in your objections or is it only for models with a gear switch?

Edited September 21, 2017 by salty

[RobertGary1]

16 minutes ago, Mooneymite said:

Show us the statistics, or insurance company guidance.

Did you read my post?

-Robert

[N6758N]

All the gear ups I have heard of have been from people being distracted in the pattern or on the approach for some reason, not touch and goes. But I don't have any statistics to back that up either...

[Mooneymite]

18 hours ago, RobertGary1 said:

I certainly won't claim to have any useful evidence. My personal experience is that the most gear up accidents I'm personally aware of have been touch n gos. But I can't claim anything beyond anecdotal evidence in this regard. -Robert, CFII

I did.

[RobertGary1]

7 minutes ago, Mooneymite said:

I did.

Well there you go.  Let me know if you have other questions.

Cheers.

-Robert

Edited September 21, 2017 by RobertGary1

[Mooneymite]

1 minute ago, RobertGary1 said:

Well there you go.  Let me know if you have other questions.

Cheers.

-Robert

I guess the point is that without cold, hard statistics, it's just a feeling......

Robert, if you feel TnG's are not as safe as full-stop-taxi-back, I would be the last person on earth to encourage you to do them.  However, "feeling" that they are not as safe, may not be a great basis to instill fear in students about them.  

[RobertGary1]

15 minutes ago, Mooneymite said:

I guess the point is that without cold, hard statistics, it's just a feeling......

Robert, if you feel TnG's are not as safe as full-stop-taxi-back, I would be the last person on earth to encourage you to do them.  However, "feeling" that they are not as safe, may not be a great basis to instill fear in students about them.  

But aren't you doing the same? Making a risk assessment without "cold, hard statistics" that they are not an increased risk? Lacking any safety report either way I can only rely on what I've witnessed, which are a number of pilots picking up the gear on the go and settling on the belly.

 

-Robert 

[Mooneymite]

8 minutes ago, RobertGary1 said:

But aren't you doing the same? 

-Robert 

No.  Not at all.

I am not advocating that people should, or should not perform/practice TnG's.  My problem is with people who instill fear of TnG's without any hard evidence.

I do TnG's and have done so for 48 years, but that is my choice.  I absolutely don't care if you do, or do not.   An instructor who tells his student that he does not do TnG's is well within his rights and responsibilities, but telling his students that they are "unsafe" without substantial data/evidence is not.

The TnG is a maneuver.  It is not (to my knowlege) required on any FAA check/rating ride.  It is optional.  Nor is there any FAR prohibiting TnG's.

[steingar]

5 hours ago, salty said:

For those that are against doing them, do you include Johnson bar equipped mooney's in your objections or is it only for models with a gear switch?

At one point I asked Ron Wattanja, who I feel is probably the foremost expert on GA accidents, whether J-bar Mooneys geared up as often as their electric brethren.  The answer was yes they do.  The one thing I forgot to ask Ron was numbers, i.e. how many J-bar Mooneys vs. electric.  There are more C's flying than all the other makes combined I think, so it is a relevant question.  If the J-bar Mooneys have the same rate of gear up, but there are tons more of them their rate could be quite a bit smaller.  Anyone have the skinny on this issue?

[salty]

38 minutes ago, steingar said:

At one point I asked Ron Wattanja, who I feel is probably the foremost expert on GA accidents, whether J-bar Mooneys geared up as often as their electric brethren.  The answer was yes they do.  The one thing I forgot to ask Ron was numbers, i.e. how many J-bar Mooneys vs. electric.  There are more C's flying than all the other makes combined I think, so it is a relevant question.  If the J-bar Mooneys have the same rate of gear up, but there are tons more of them their rate could be quite a bit smaller.  Anyone have the skinny on this issue?

I'd bet the majority of gear up landings have nothing to do with touch and goes, so I'm not sure this is even relevant. 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, RobertGary1 said:

The choice is yours. However I'm skeptical about your risk assessment. I know of more gear up accidents resulting from pulling the gear up on a touch and go than just forgetting the gear. We just had a guy here pull the gear up on a touch and go hours after finishing his checkout. Anecdotal? Sure. But I"m sure I"m not the only one. The point is that its clear (at least to me) that there is certainly some increased risk in a touch and go vs a taxi back or stop and go. How you choice to deal with that increased risk is your decision.

 

-Robert

His check out could not have been very good if he couldn't tell the difference between the flap control and the gear control.

Most of this appears to be caused by stupid pilot tricks, let's call it what it is.

Clarence

[salty]

23 hours ago, RobertGary1 said:

I certainly won't claim to have any useful evidence. My personal experience is that the most gear up accidents I'm personally aware of have been touch n gos. But I can't claim anything beyond anecdotal evidence in this regard. 

I have grabbed students hands and stopped them from pulling the gear up after landing when they thought they were going for flaps. That's why I don't have students touch the flaps until they exit the runway and take a relaxing breath.

-Robert, CFII

https://m.youtube.com/results?q=gear up landing&sm=1

 

let me know when you find one that was a touch and go......

[RobertGary1]

13 minutes ago, M20Doc said:

His check out could not have been very good if he couldn't tell the difference between the flap control and the gear control.

Most of this appears to be caused by stupid pilot tricks, let's call it what it is.

Clarence

I think we have to be careful with invulnerability though. I'll wait until I can't maintain a medical before I say "that will never be me". The instructor who checked him out has 55,000 hours, most of it instruction   (Fsdo believes he may be the most hours in the district, he also holds 141 DE privileges and a 135 certificate for his business). 

Tower called a jet behind the pilot. Pilot said "ok I'll just make it a touch and go then (had been doing stop and goes, was after dark)". Next transmission was tower "we see some sparks, everything ok"   He had raised the gear on the go and settled back on it  

-Robert 

Edited September 21, 2017 by RobertGary1

[ryoder]

It's not that touch and goes are unsafe.  They just expose the pilot to additional risk.  It should be ok to discuss risk factors.