Would you go around? (Poll)

[kortopates]

I don't know, what could possible go wrong trying to power up and lift off after the prop has been digging holes into the runway?

Pretty much no body gets hurt in a gear up landing, but a great many have died trying to go around after a prop strike, here is an article that discusses a few:

https://www.planeandpilotmag.com/article/go-around-didnt-go-well/

[Hank]

Once my prop touches the runway, my flying is done. Maybe forever . . . .

[201er]

2 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

I’d go around just like he did.

What am I saving? Very likely the aircraft, odds are very good the insured value, if even fully insured of a 1963 Mooney could well be less than the cost to repair. Gear it up and I think it’s going to the scrap yard and one less Mooney in the world.

That’s awfully nice of you trying to save the insurance money but how do you know the front of the plane doesn’t look like this?

[MikeOH]

22 minutes ago, 201er said:

That’s awfully nice of you trying to save the insurance money but how do you know the front of the plane doesn’t look like this?

Heck, that's just the new 'scimitar' prop

[A64Pilot]

1 hour ago, 201er said:

That’s awfully nice of you trying to save the insurance money but how do you know the front of the plane doesn’t look like this?

It wouldn’t fly if it did. You didn’t read my post apparently, it’s not so much save the insurance company, it’s save the airplane. That engine stopped running when the prop quit turning.

 

[Bartman]

I made these decisions a long time ago.  If there was a lot of runway left, I MIGHT consider adding enough power and level off just to put the gear down, but I would not go around.  If not enough runway, slide it in.

I also have a plan for complete gear failure, including the manual crank.  A few years ago, there were threads about trying to stop the prop, and I think those discussions were about achieving the best glide range.  Some members tried it and reported that it is not as easy as it sounds.  I won't try to slow the airplane to stop the prop at altitude.  Not worth the effort and stress.  The prop might stop in the flare, but mine always stops with the blade in front of my face on the pilot side at 10 o'clock.  The other blade is going to take the damage.  If that happens, I won't waste my time trying to bump the starter.

GUMPS out loud 3 times before landing.

[Bartman]

I watched the video from the original post. What's up with that extreme nose angle?  There appears to be no rudder input, and it's got to be complete weathervane into the wind and at least 30 degrees left of center.

[Hank]

18 hours ago, A64Pilot said:

I’d go around just like he did.

What am I saving? Very likely the aircraft, odds are very good the insured value, if even fully insured of a 1963 Mooney could well be less than the cost to repair. Gear it up and I think it’s going to the scrap yard and one less Mooney in the world.

Remember if your insured for say 100K, they won’t pay 100K to fix it, they will pay 100 minus the salvage value, which I’m unsure what that is but have heard 20%, but that’s hear say so it may be not even close. I think it unlikely a 63 model would be insured that high but don’t have any idea what the average 63 sells for.

If it wasn’t fully insured, I could fix that aircraft for the cost of a used serviceable prop, and whatever the gear on the back of the crank cost, I think that’s the one anyway. I bet there are some around from people “upgrading” to a three blade.

I’ve inspected several engines after a prop strike, yet to condemn one and can’t really imagine if still running that it won’t stay that way. Is there a risk? Sure, but I’d take it as I think it pretty small.

Quoting from the Plane & Pilot article above:

We do know for a fact that performance can be really bad when you have a damaged prop. A survivor of a prop strike accident told us so. A Cessna 172RG was on an instructional flight out of the Washington Memorial Airport in Marthasville, Missouri, on April 23, 2002. The private pilot was killed, and the instructor received serious injuries. During a touch-and-go, as the plane was in ground effect, the nose suddenly pitched down, and the prop hit the runway. The airplane started vibrating badly, and the flying pilot turned the plane over to the instructor, who was unable to control it. The instructor told investigators that the airplane made a sharp turn to the left and went nose down into the ground.

On May 19, 2016, the propeller of a Beech D35 that was landing struck Runway 10 at the Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge Airport in Sevierville, Tennessee. A witness said the landing gear had been up and, after the propeller blades struck the runway numerous times, the airplane skidded along until the engine speed increased and the airplane lifted off. The witness said the airplane appeared to be very unstable in ground effect, its performance dramatically deteriorated. It was observed to pitch up, roll to the left, and crash to the ground. The pilot, who was the only occupant, was killed.

********

Please don't try to "save" an already damaged airplane. Ride the slide and live to tell the tale, even if you don't fly again afterwards. 

 

How damaged is the propeller? What was damaged in the engine? Did your flaps drag down the runway, more on one wing than the other? How much power will the engine produce? What is your new propeller efficiency? You don't know. Maybe your controllable pitch propeller won't fully adjust, because the impact changed it's angle; maybe a tip broke off of one blade; maybe the crank shaft is cracked, and going for full power may break it. 

 

Land the plane and live.

[hazek]

5 hours ago, Hank said:

Please don't try to "save" an already damaged airplane.

Ok chief I'll try to remember that in that split second when I'm shocked by own stupidity for not extending the gear and startled by the sound and feel of the fuselage dragging along the runway. In that moment I will remember "Hank" from Mooneyforums, thank my lucky stars I saw his post, think better of adding power as a reflex and will not go around.

I mean come on. This poll is silly. You don't know what any of you would do in that split second. And many of you including me would probably try to go around, not for wanting to save the plane but as a pure reflex that is ingrained into us to abort a bad landing. I for one totally understand the pilot in the video and would probably do the same stupid thing.

[kortopates]

Ok chief I'll try to remember that in that split second when I'm shocked by own stupidity for not extending the gear and startled by the sound and feel of the fuselage dragging along the runway. In that moment I will remember "Hank" from Mooneyforums, thank my lucky stars I saw his post, think better of adding power as a reflex and will not go around.

I mean come on. This poll is silly. You don't know what any of you would do in that split second. And many of you including me would probably try to go around, not for wanting to save the plane but as a pure reflex that is ingrained into us to abort a bad landing. I for one totally understand the pilot in the video and would probably do the same stupid thing.

I beg to disagree. A go around is not an automatic reflex and the scraping noise of the prop and belly on the runway are unmistakable. Another reason i wouldn’t attempt a go around is for not having enough runway left. That has also proven to be a killer. I’d rather take my chance with a slower slide into a fence or barrier.
If we’re talking about a prop strike from a bounce on the runway- many won’t realize till after they land. But not the scraping on the runway.
If this discussion changes one pilots mind that wanted to save their aircraft then it was worth it. After all If they have insurance they should be able to buy another aircraft with the same hull value. If they can’t that’s a whole other issue.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[201er]

5 hours ago, hazek said:

Ok chief I'll try to remember that in that split second when I'm shocked by own stupidity for not extending the gear and startled by the sound and feel of the fuselage dragging along the runway. In that moment I will remember "Hank" from Mooneyforums, thank my lucky stars I saw his post, think better of adding power as a reflex and will not go around.

I mean come on. This poll is silly. You don't know what any of you would do in that split second. And many of you including me would probably try to go around, not for wanting to save the plane but as a pure reflex that is ingrained into us to abort a bad landing. I for one totally understand the pilot in the video and would probably do the same stupid thing.

Having this discussion in advance, making your choice, and ground flying how you would handle it might help avoid the "reflex" and go with the most recent/most trained decision. Not for certain, but a much better chance than making the choice in a split moment on the spot when it happens.

[Falcon Man]

A close friend of mine landed his J model last year gear up and did not have enough insurance coverage and it was totaled. He had owned this airplane for 30 plus years. I asked him if he considered going around and he said it didn't occur to him.

A couple of decades ago I, a pilot friend and our instructor watched a Mooney Rocket make a hot approach to land, bounced a couple of times, heard a prop strike and he went around and came back in to land. As the two pilot occupants pulled up to park neither realized the prop strike had occurred until we pointed out the shortened 3 bladed prop.

I second the opinion that conditioning to go around is when there is an unstable approach. Trying to go around in the flare is wrought with casualities and more damage.

[Echo]

I just lost a LOT of respect I had for a fellow Mooney pilot upon reading this thread.  Sad.

[Mooney in Oz]

7 hours ago, hazek said:

In that moment I will remember "Hank" from Mooneyforums, thank my lucky stars I saw his post, think better of adding power as a reflex and will not go around.

Disagreeing is fine, but don’t get personal.

7 hours ago, hazek said:

You don't know what any of you would do in that split second.

I know what I would NOT do.

[IvanP]

56 minutes ago, Falcon Man said:

Trying to go around in the flare is wrought with casualities and more damage.

Not necessarily. Years ago, shortly after I transitioned to Mooney, I almost landed gear up in my E. Interesting chain of events that led to this almost mishap. Got cleared to land at a busy Class D airport with parallel runways, was on short final and heard the controller cleared another plane for takeoff on the same runway and saw the waiting plane moving. Went around, rather rattled, claned up the plane and had to fly large pattern for traffic. Got cleared to land, but in my rattled state of mind I did not put the gear down. Just as I flared few feet above ground, the gear warning horn blaring finally registered in my brain and I realized that the gear was still up. Poured coals on it and went around again for a decent landing. 

Notwithstanding the controller's screw-up, I can only blame myself for this as I failed to regain composure before coming back after the first goaround. Very valuable, and fortunately cheap lesson as no metal got bent and only my ego was bruised.           

Edited yesterday at 02:17 AM by IvanP

[dkkim73]

1 hour ago, 201er said:

Having this discussion in advance, making your choice, and ground flying how you would handle it might help avoid the "reflex"

This makes a lot of sense. Just like a pre takeoff brief about immediate engine-out actions. Maybe it's a fiction but maybe it also primes you to have better (or at least decided) reactions. 

[Joshua Blackh4t]

We have a pre-take off brief reminding ouselves not to turn back, how about a pre-landing brief?

"In the unlikely event of the gear not being down I will close the throttle, and mixture, switch off the mags and allow myself to slide to a stop"

 

I think its a great discussion to have and might save a few lives when a new pilot is considering a go round and remembers back to what he/she read in the formative years on a forum.

I would like to think if I brushed it, I could get wheels down and land on the rest of the strip, but not sure. Manual gear is fast, but would be difficult.

As everyone says, have enough insurance that you can buy another similar plane, and then ride it out.

 

[toto]

4 minutes ago, Joshua Blackh4t said:

We have a pre-take off brief reminding ouselves not to turn back, how about a pre-landing brief?

"In the unlikely event of the gear not being down I will close the throttle, and mixture, switch off the mags and allow myself to slide to a stop"

The problem is that by definition you’ve forgotten your pre-landing brief if you’re scraping the prop on the ground with the wheels in the wells. If you would remember to do a pre-landing brief, you wouldn’t need the pre-landing brief

 

[Pinecone]

On 5/10/2025 at 3:27 PM, toto said:

Yeah, but who knows what the condition of the prop might be after you dragged it across the pavement. You might have serious damage that would prevent the prop from making anywhere near full power, but there’s no way to know that until you’re committed to flying.

Or had damage that would lead to one blade coming off.

Also, as I understand, most of the cost of repair of a gear up is the prop replacement and engine teardown.  Going around doesn't save that cost.

[Joshua Blackh4t]

7 hours ago, toto said:

The problem is that by definition you’ve forgotten your pre-landing brief if you’re scraping the prop on the ground with the wheels in the wells. If you would remember to do a pre-landing brief, you wouldn’t need the pre-landing brief

 

Haha, I was being facetious. But never know, if you said that to yourself every landing it might sink in.

[hazek]

14 hours ago, 201er said:

Having this discussion in advance, making your choice, and ground flying how you would handle it might help avoid the "reflex" and go with the most recent/most trained decision. Not for certain, but a much better chance than making the choice in a split moment on the spot when it happens.

Ok, maybe this is true. I mean we can only hope it is. I personally during my training had the same thoughts about a stall spin induced by trying to reflexively pick up the dropped wing in the base to final turn. I still don't know if I thought about this scenario enough not to do it. Unfortunately the human brain is very finicky when it's startled.

11 hours ago, Joshua Blackh4t said:

I think its a great discussion to have and might save a few lives when a new pilot is considering a go round and remembers back to what he/she read in the formative years on a forum.

Discussion sure, but the poll I find silly. I voted I would go around purely because I don't actually know what I would do. That option is missing in the poll.

[A64Pilot]

I guess the guy in the video crashed and died right, must have 

There are limits to everything, I never land beyond the first 1/3 of the runway, usually much less, so I have thousands of feet left. Add power if it’s not smooth and accelerating you’re going to land anyway, if you stall and crash it wasn’t the prop or engine, it was you. Not much can happen to an engine and prop to make the flight controls inoperative.

Of course I hope to never land gear up, but concede it could happen to anyone that’s been studied and proven decades ago.

However if I almost do and by instinct pull up and add power and she’s accelerating, I’m likely not to chop to idle and let it settle onto the runway. I like to think I’d drop gear and land in the last 1/3, but who knows maybe I would go around

Face it, that wasn’t planned, nobody thinks that fast, instinct got him away from the runway and yes he made the decision to continue.

I think it likely that he was one in a hundred anyway, I think it’s very unlikely for my reactions to be so fast that I could pull that off, I bet 99 out of 100 people are sliding down the runway prop stopped wondering what happened

Edited 20 hours ago by A64Pilot

[jetdriven]

With a client with a M20J have a porpoised bad landing, and then she did a go around and it did curl both prop tips, similar to the same kind of damage that occurred here. But when we took the prop off the airplane, it actually flexed the prop blades  in the hub enough to dislodge the snap ring out of it, and the prop blade was loose in the hub. She could’ve been killed. 

[Pinecone]

No, you don't know what you will do.  But by thinking about it, planning your response and briefing it you are loading the response to be what you would like it to be.

Similar to bold face in the military.  React with a specified set of steps without thinking about it.