30+ hours, I had a terrible landing, wasn't even a landing!

[Swass]

I had a similar experience with about the same amount of time you have, the only difference was that it was a severe crosswind gust that came literally two feet from touching the left wing. I had full deflection as soon as I recognized what was going on and it was almost too late.

Talk about crapping yourself. Scared the bejeevers out of me. You did a good job by going around, a fully developed porpoise will likely cause you to prang the nosewheel and or the prop if your not careful.

 

[SkyBoy1981]

....and stated he had dialed in the wrong barametric pressure which led him to believe he was 20feet higher then he actually was..

WTF? Who looks at the altimeter on landing? Radar altimeter maybe..but that doesn't have anything to do with barometric pressure. Am I missing something?

 

[8inMan]

Just a lame excuse I think.

 

[User546]

I wouldn't sweat it. You got out of the situation, and hopefully you learned a good lesson on how to (and not to) handle the situation in the future.

I made a bounced landing on my first solo (second landing!). I was doing touch n go's on a 4,000 ft runway, and when I came in I hit the nose wheel first on the runway, and at that point I felt like I was along for the ride. The aircraft was porpoising on it's own, and no matter what input I gave the controls, it wasn't responding. Then about three quarters of the way down the runway I remember the aircraft starting to veer off towards the side where I anticipated the next bounce would be off the side of the runway in the dirt. So instinctively I gunned the power full throttle, and noticed I was able to get a decent amount of control, so I held off the airplane from hitting as long as I could (probably over the dirt at this time), and eventually the aircraft started climbing back out under control before hitting the dirt.

I'll never forget that moment. It had happened to me one time before while practicing touch n goes with m instructor, but he had taken control of the airplane and hadn't taught me how to solve the problem.

I've done it one other time since, and a quick reaction of full power, and holdin the airplane up in a slight nose high attitude worked beautifully and quickly before it got out of hand.

You're one of us now...

 

[wmuflyguy]

Just a lame excuse I think.

Exactly.

I would maybe buy it, if the Radar Altimeter(RAT) screwed up. Since, people get used to certian cues, and all of a sudden there gone, it can throw you into a tizzy.

Just off of IOE, the RAT decided to go TU. Well since I was new, I wasn;t so great on the landings, when I never heard the altitude call outs, I was slow to start my flare.....then boooooooooooooooooooooingggggggggg.

I learned a valuable lesson that day. Stay in the cockpit after a bad landing.

 

[lsologaistoa]

No big deal man, the good thing is that you learned from it. Someone mentioned earlier try landing with 200 pax in the back and you will know what feeling bad is. Try landing with the general in the back and getting the dirty look. Oh well, he wouldn't be able to land the aircraft any better than me anyway. The worst that can happen now is that you're gonna catch the b.s. from your peers. Good times.

 

[mhcasey]

During my first solo a few weeks back, my landings were all great, with the last two being the best of my life, and hard to beat by anyone's standards I think.

Then I went up yesterday to practice xwind landings, tried to carry some some speed in so me and the 152 wouldn't get blown into the trees, and flew the airplane straight into the ground, luckily with my attitude just high enough to land on all 3 wheels intead of just the nosewheel...a classic example of overconfidence I suppose. I had plenty of runway left though, so I tried to lift the nose wheel again and set it back down to make sure it still existed. Apparently those planes are built pretty tough...

I'm at about 25hrs right now, so I'll start studying my porpoising checklist for when I get to 30 ; )

 

[Alex429595]

Not to rag on the original poster, but why is advice so commonly misspelled?

Any how, back on topic. I would expect 30 hour pilots to have bad landings from time to time. What I wouldn’t expect is for a 30 hour pilot to have enough sense to get out of a bad landing and go around. You did go around and for that you should be commended. Just because you are cleared to land doesn’t mean you have to land. (Oh and be sure to log 4 landings, after all you flew upwind legs on every bounce, even if they where brief.)

Like they said above, this is a good learning experience. Talk with your instructor, identify the cause of the bad landing and vow to never ever do it again until the next time you do it again. You will do it again, everybody does. I’ve been on 737’s that have bounced, I wasn't flying of course they would never let me on one if I didn't buy a ticket! As long as you are flying, you will have bad landings. Always evaluate the events that lead up to the bad landing and learn from it.

So would you also log those 4 as takeoffs? I've never heard of recording a bounce as a takeoff/landing.

 

[Kream926]

Kream926 need not reply.

i am humbled that you had to include that

 

[shamrock]

I have over 30 hours, should I be doing things so dangerous as this? I want to be the best pilot I can be, but these experiences really humble you.

I did much the same thing the first time I took my sister flying after getting my private. At least you went around!

I had just checked out in a 172 after learning to fly in a 152. The two of us flew to Newport RI to pick up a friend and we were then going out to Martha's Vineyard. I got a real bad porpoise going while trying to land in Newport and by the 3rd bounce I was along for the ride, just waiting for nosegear to collapse and the prop to screech to a halt. Amazingly, the plane somehow settled onto the runway and we taxied in.

After an uneventful flight out to the Vineyard I buttoned up the airplane before we grabbed a cab to town. Well, it seems that I closed the doors to the plane a bit too hard and the inside door handles used to secure the door from the inside flipped down, making it impossible to open the doors from the outside. The 152s I learned in didn't have any sort of inside latch so I came to the conclusion that my landing(s) in Newport must have been bad enough to bend the airframe, jamming the door shut. Not wanting to alarm my sister and her friend I kept quiet about my suspicions and spent the rest of the day beating myself up about breaking the airplane and rehearsing my explanation to the flight school about what happened. When we got back to the airport I climbed through the baggage door to open the pax doors and soon figured out the error of my ways. Talk about relieved! I managed to make a decent landing at both Newport and the home base and immediately scheduled a lesson with my instructor to learn how to land a 172, which went without a hitch.

Loooong story short, we've all been there at some point.

 

[kc135ang]

I have around 3500hrs and about 1700 in the tanker and I just pranged one in a couple of days ago. I wouldn't sweat it, but the ego was a little banged up.

 

[tomgoodman]

Excuses and comeback lines

As you gain experience, you will improve in this important area. For example:

--at the last moment, I saw a turtle on the runway and had to hop over it.

--the ground was not where I left it.

--overserviced landing gear struts.

--a dust devil

--airport power failure, knocking their lift generator off line


As a last resort: "Tomorrow I'll make a good landing, but you'll still be ugly."

 

[acaTerry]

Don't sweat it son. You have many more of those bad landings coming up in your career. Good lesson learned and you're a better flyer for recognizing it.

 

[navigator72]

I was making a landing one day and retracted the flaps while on final and actually sunk lower than the runway (it was on a hill). I barely made it to the runway that day.
Bad landings are all part of flying. I have thousands of landings and every so often I get thrown a curve ball and screw up the landing. Learn from it and move on.

 

[wrxpilot]

Hey UA,

When I was a student I accidentally pulled all the flaps on a go around - I was at sea level and it still scared me. Don't even want to think about what would've happened at a high altitude airport. Anyway, a few weeks ago I bounced a landing so bad that I had to do my first (non-practice) go around since I got my license a couple of years ago.

So it seems like what happened to you is perfectly normal. Just learn from it and try again!