Power too abruptly on go around?

[Alan Maurer]

HELLO, Good to remember that when a go around is necessary , the airplane is trimmed for a landing. Adding power promptly but not jamming  the throttle will work out

or the nose up trim  is very abrupt. Just adding power will keep  the airplane flying without scaring you and causing  the plane to stall. Flaps can then be retracted to the take off position. And lots or right rudder! A good idea is to practice a few with an instructor. 

Alan

N913ND

[885EW]

Thanks all for the feedback and guidance. Much appreciated! 

[Pinecone]

On 4/18/2025 at 7:04 AM, skykrawler said:

The Conti  TIO-360 MP continuous limit is like 39.

-MB (252) is 36/2700

-SB (Encore) is 39/2600

[hazek]

On 4/19/2025 at 2:04 AM, donkaye, MCFI said:

On final I think the airplane should be trimmed for "hands off".  Depending on the CG very little back pressure is needed in the flare.  If a go around is needed, and full power is added, raising the gear first while trimming down will prevent a departure stall possibility that could occur if the flaps are raised first without aggressively trimming down.

This is not me doubting you, just want to point out that the Bravo POH does state the order as flaps APP, gear up, flaps UP. Any chance you might have an idea why the factory would state that order in stead of yours?

Edited April 21 by hazek

[donkaye, MCFI]

8 hours ago, hazek said:

This is not me doubting you, just want to point out that the Bravo POH does state the order as flaps APP, gear up, flaps UP. Any chance you might have an idea why the factory would state that order in stead of yours?

If you want to have more of a possibility for an accident on go around, then do it the way the POH states.  In the POH of the Acclaim Type S Pages 3-23 and 4-17 it states the procedure the way I recommend it.  The Type S was certified long after the Bravo.  Mooney should have update the Bravo POH in my opinion, but didn't.  Bringing the gear up first while trimming down leads to a much safer go around.

 

[Mufflerbearing]

18 minutes ago, donkaye, MCFI said:

If you want to have more of a possibility for an accident on go around, then do it the way the POH states.  In the POH of the Acclaim Type S Pages 3-23 and 4-17 it states the procedure the way I recommend it.  The Type S was certified long after the Bravo.  Mooney should have update the Bravo POH in my opinion, but didn't.  Bring the gear up first while trimming down leads to much safer go around.

This is the biggest single thing I have learned in the last 6 months of aviation.  

[hazek]

1 hour ago, donkaye, MCFI said:

Bringing the gear up first while trimming down leads to a much safer go around.

Thanks for sharing that. I will change my procedure.

[dkkim73]

5 hours ago, donkaye, MCFI said:

 In the POH of the Acclaim Type S Pages 3-23 and 4-17 it states the procedure the way I recommend it.  The Type S was certified long after the Bravo.  Mooney should have update the Bravo POH in my opinion, but didn't.  Bringing the gear up first while trimming down leads to a much safer go around.

@donkaye, MCFI

Don, how much do you think are the relative contributions of:

- reducing drag from gear

- giving the plane time to accelerate and bank energy

- giving the pilot time to trim while the gear is cycling up

- delaying the final 10 degrees of flap retraction?

I've been impressed by the amount of trim change required due to flaps (esp 10->33 degrees) and the amount required to reduce control forces in the flare (a good idea as an application of Weber's Law). Do I feel that moving the trimming further up in the sequence is a big plus. But I figure you've analyzed this quite a bit.

NB: my reference point is the Type S Acclaim.

Thanks,

David

 

[A64Pilot]

There are two types of go-around, those that you had an idea was coming like being long on landing and then there are the sudden unplanned ones, like suddenly there is something on the runway or you bounce a landing and feel one more bounce might be a prop strike.

For those that suddenly happen, you’re not going to do anything with electric flaps etc, you’re pushing throttle and establishing a climb, then once safely airborne get gear and flaps.

I’d recommend for those that trim to zero stick force on final to one day for practice to quickly add full throttle and see how much pitch up there is, better to practice something ahead of having to do it for real, just so you don’t get surprised.

My lowly 201 has plenty of power to climb at full flap and gear down even on a hot day, but I’m pretty much at sea level, for those in real mountains your milage may differ.

My trim on takeoff requires a little pull to break ground, then once I’ve established positive rate I get gear first, then flaps. I get gear from my belief that the lower doors are pulling down on the gear and the faster you go the harder the actuator has to work to retract the gear, anyway as soon as I get gear I’m pushing trim down, but even then it takes considerable down pressure to continue accelerating when I raise the flaps.

My landing trim is identical to what my T/O trim is, I don’t touch trim for takeoff.

Now I assume most of you guys approach speed and landing is faster than mine as I’m often landing on 2000 ft or so grass, and land in a full stall, so maybe that’s why your trim isn’t excessive nose high on landing, where if I trimmed to zero stick force mine would be.

Edited April 21 by A64Pilot

[dkkim73]

5 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

My landing trim is identical to what my T/O trim is, I don’t touch trim for takeoff.

 

Wow. My low-yoke-force circa 75kt short final with 33-degree flap landing trim setting is up... way, way up. Many seconds of electric trim away from the takeoff setting. Overcoming it is a doable force on a hard go-around but surprising if not practiced, as you note. 

It might be a nose-heavy long body thing, I think. 

 

[A64Pilot]

9 hours ago, dkkim73 said:

Wow. My low-yoke-force circa 75kt short final with 33-degree flap landing trim setting is up... way, way up. Many seconds of electric trim away from the takeoff setting. Overcoming it is a doable force on a hard go-around but surprising if not practiced, as you note. 

It might be a nose-heavy long body thing, I think. 

 

Most four or more passenger airplanes are usually flown nose heavy, because they are usually flown with the back seats empty, another indicator is most aircraft that require ballast to get within CG, are ballasted with the min amount so they are towards the end of the CG range, extra ballast to put the airplane further away of course adds weight to the airplane and is usually avoided.

Try this for fun if you will, run the CG of course and do not overload the baggage compt, but put a case or two of water in the baggage compt and see how she flies that way, even my 201 is slightly faster and in my opinion better handling with some weight in the back. Of course weight will reduce performance as in climb and take off distance slightly, not enough in my 201 for me to notice though. I just like the way it flies with the CG further aft than it is with just us in the front seats, take the water out of course when the backseats have pax.

My Maule was what got me being concerned with nose up trim on go around, Ray Maule taught to trim full nose up on approach as that automatically slows a Maule way down and show cases it’s short field ability, if people trimmed “normally” then they flew Cessna approach speeds and the landing distance was similar to a Cessna.

Well one day I did an aggressive go around with my IO-540 Maule and the pitch up was so hard it took both hands to push the nose down and prevent a stall, so hard I was afraid of something in the elevator controls breaking. 

My C-210 being a six seat aircraft was the one that was really nose heavy with just two in the front seats though. Nice stable aircraft but in the flare it wasn’t for little petite pilots, it took some arm strength.

[donkaye, MCFI]

On 4/21/2025 at 12:38 PM, dkkim73 said:

 

 

Don, how much do you think are the relative contributions of:

- reducing drag from gear

Let's put it this way:  Flying gear down with the Bravo causes it to fly like a 172

- giving the plane time to accelerate and bank energy

Altitude has been shown to be more important than airspeed for safety.

- giving the pilot time to trim while the gear is cycling up

The electric trim works much slower than the gear (I assumed designed that way for possible trim runway situations).   "Casual Urgency" (as my mentor instructor called it) with the manual trim wheel is often more effective and timely than the electric trim.

- delaying the final 10 degrees of flap retraction?

As my mentor instructor, who was an aeronautical engineer, used  to say, "You get ⅔ as much lift as drag with approach flaps; and you get ⅔ as much drag as lift with full flaps".  On takeoff, If a turn will be required, I keep approach flaps in until turn completion.  If in the pattern, I have students keep approach flaps in throughout crosswind and downwind until the 3° slope with the aim point.  Climb from takeoff in the pattern is no greater than 95 knots and at 100 feet from pattern altitude the gear comes down first  then power is reduced to that which gives 90 knots on downwind  with gear and approach flaps.  The procedure then for the Bravo (and the Acclaim) is to reduce power to a nominal 15" while turning base and simultaneously adding full flaps.  It is necessary to hold the pitch such that the nose of the plane does not go below 3° while trimming the plane for hands off.  The drag of the flaps will decrease the speed to 80 knots if the nose is not permitted to go below the 3° point.  On final reduce to final approach speed while maintaining the 3° slope and trim for hands off.  Maintain the slope until the flare point and reduce power to idle at the same rate as the flare rate.

I have found that most students require at least 30 landings of all types before they are somewhat competent.  Therefore, early in the training, on adequate length runways and to more efficiently do the training, I will do touch and goes.  One of the big benefits of that is that every landing is a go around.  On takeoff from a touch and go the student does not mess with the flaps.  It's full power, right rudder, and go.  There is no major pitch up.  At 50 feet and with the student trimming down, the gear is retracted.  When there is forward pressure on the yoke the flaps are retracted to the takeoff position.  Using this procedure there is no nose up tendency and the student is fully prepared and confident for any type of go around.

I've been impressed by the amount of trim change required due to flaps (esp 10->33 degrees) and the amount required to reduce control forces in the flare (a good idea as an application of Weber's Law). Do I feel that moving the trimming further up in the sequence is a big plus. But I figure you've analyzed this quite a bit.

I find I reduce power and flare without much thought given to trimming.  The yoke should be brought back in one smooth continuous motion and electric trimming detracts from the continuity of that motion.

NB: my reference point is the Type S Acclaim.

Thanks,

David

[aviatoreb]

I've seen cockpit video of Bob Hoover doing some of his amazing maneuvers and I was surprised to see sometimes very fast power changes - like from full power to zero, and then after a bit from zero back to full power at what looked like as fast as he could move the lever.

[donkaye, MCFI]

5 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

I've seen cockpit video of Bob Hoover doing some of his amazing maneuvers and I was surprised to see sometimes very fast power changes - like from full power to zero, and then after a bit from zero back to full power at what looked like as fast as he could move the lever.

Flying aerobatics is entirely different than normal GA flying.  Were his  engines turbocharged?  It is entirely inappropriate to jam the throttle from idle to full forward with turbocharged engines.

[EricJ]

18 minutes ago, aviatoreb said:

I've seen cockpit video of Bob Hoover doing some of his amazing maneuvers and I was surprised to see sometimes very fast power changes - like from full power to zero, and then after a bit from zero back to full power at what looked like as fast as he could move the lever.

I recall seeing something with him describing that you can pull power off as fast as you want, and describing the conditions in which you can increase power quickly (which I forget now).    This was all done while he worked for North American and was sorted out in consultation with engineering and the engine manufacturers.   It was done pretty carefully.

 

[varlajo]

55 minutes ago, EricJ said:

I recall seeing something with him describing that you can pull power off as fast as you want

This sounds about right. According to St. Busch, there is no such thing as shock cooling.. 

[Jeff Uphoff]

On 4/21/2025 at 10:33 PM, dkkim73 said:

Wow. My low-yoke-force circa 75kt short final with 33-degree flap landing trim setting is up... way, way up. Many seconds of electric trim away from the takeoff setting. Overcoming it is a doable force on a hard go-around but surprising if not practiced, as you note. 

It might be a nose-heavy long body thing, I think. 

 

Identical match to my Ovation. With full flaps, I’m typically trimmed up to nearly the top of the indicator.

—Up.

[A64Pilot]

11 hours ago, varlajo said:

This sounds about right. According to St. Busch, there is no such thing as shock cooling.. 

A few comments have been tossed around as facts that aren’t.

Shock cooling IS a thing, but for most GA aircraft it’s harder to get into than was tossed around thirty or so years ago. It is primarily a consideration of the big high power radials of times past and in GA aircraft you can get into it if your climbing hard and hot, then for whatever reason decide you need to get down now, ( think parachute club etc. )which obviously isn’t a normal operation, but there are some.

Back in the day that generation of “experts” were pushing don’t reduce power in excess of 1 “ per min etc to prevent shock cooling, this generation of “experts” say shock cooling is a myth. 1” per min is probably excessively conservative but I guess the argument can be made that it will prevent shock cooling, but shock cooling is possible, but honestly isn’t really a consideration for people who operate their aircraft normally, but to say it’s a myth is a little excessive too.

[hazek]

How to operate an engine is not rocket science. If you drive the material hard, it'll wear and potentially break sooner. The gentler, to a point, you drive it, the longer it will last. One instance of driving it hard likely isn't going to matter if within extreme limits. More instances start to add up. It's not a binary thing but a statistical thing when it wears out or breaks. The harder you drive it the likelier this gets as time goes on.

I mean has no one heard of car engines being driven for 20 years of regular commuting or the same type of engine destroyed in 6 months of hobby track driving? It's the same thing.

Take care of your engine, change settings slowly, watch the temps, and it should take care of you. But do use it however necessary if it's absolutely needed. Like I said, not rocket science.

[1980Mooney]

15 hours ago, donkaye, MCFI said:

Flying aerobatics is entirely different than normal GA flying.  Were his  engines turbocharged?  It is entirely inappropriate to jam the throttle from idle to full forward with turbocharged engines.

The Shrike 500S that he flew in air shows for 20 years had 2 Lycoming IO-540-E1B5, 290 hp engines. 

[Bartman]

My transition instructor insisted I be trimmed hands free with full flaps. He also made me do a couple of go arounds in that configuration.  He was a Mooney owner, and I appreciated what I learned from that lesson. 

[dkkim73]

Still pending a thoughtful response to Don's above (very very helpful). My browser is fighting me a bit in font coloring issues. 

I am thinking to do some practice go-arounds in full (Snoop Draggy Dogg) landing config soon to experiment wth configuration changes. For newcomers, this seems rather model specific. 

On a bright note: got my used copy of the "Al Mooney Story" last week. Love Gordon Baxter's aviation journalism. 

 

[MikeOH]

The two best aviation writers!

Gordon Baxter & Ernest Gann

[Brent]

On 4/16/2025 at 1:30 PM, FlyingScot said:

I have found there is no need to "ram the throttle in" - especially on the 310HP trimmed out for landing. It will pitch up aggressively if you do - what you want is a strong and stabilized positive rate of climb - and that actually doesn't require full power. I have practiced this a lot, training to smoothly (but promptly) apply (mixture, prop, then) power to get a safe rate of climb (and avoid a departure stall in the soup), while eliminating the otherwise intense amount of counterforce (read pushing) needed to overcome nose-up trim until I get the plane cleaned up. The goal after all is not a panic climb, but one that conforms to the expectations of the Missed Approach segment. A safe and judicious rate of climb is what you are looking for, not an aerobatic or isometric workout.

Always good advice.

That's a lesson I learned the hard way one day at Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley and hope to never repeat. Gusty winds near the ground necessitated a go-around, but I shoved the throttle into aggressively, and I suddenly felt like I was looking straight up. I don't know how hard it is on the engine, but I haven't made that mistake again.  

[A64Pilot]

15 hours ago, Brent said:

That's a lesson I learned the hard way one day at Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley and hope to never repeat. Gusty winds near the ground necessitated a go-around, but I shoved the throttle into aggressively, and I suddenly felt like I was looking straight up. I don't know how hard it is on the engine, but I haven't made that mistake again.  

That wasn’t from too rapid an application of throttle, it was from trim setting

it can be managed either by knowing it’s coming and being prepared for excessive force required to push the yoke forward or by not having so much nose up trim to begin with, your choice. I prefer not having so much nose up trim, just in case my hand slips off etc. remember you only have your left hand on the yoke because your right is on the throttle.

While I don’t recommend slamming any flight or engine control, it’s just sloppy technique, it can be done without damage