Touch and Go

[drummer_tom]

Hi guys,

So what is the point of this "Touch and Go" Malarky. I mean, when or why would you want to ust touch down on the runway, retract flaps and take off again in the space of two minutes??


Ta

[EGNX]

Circuit practise!  ;)
Its a lot quicker than having to taxi off the active and then queue up again for take-off!  :P

[Brett_Henderson]

And it's good practice for aircraft handling..  Pulling off a crosswind landing, maintaining centerline, and then taking off again, is a good confidence builder..

[Hagar]

We used to call them Circuits & Bumps. Good practice when training. As EGNX stated it saves a lot of time otherwise spent taxying & queuing up to take off again after a full landing. Depending on where you are in the world it might also work out cheaper. We're not all as lucky as private pilots in the US where landing fees are generally unknown, even on large airports. Charges in the UK can vary a lot depending on the airfield.  For example; at Shoreham the Landing fee is

[C]

[quote]Touch & Go is

[beaky]

They save time (which equals money), but as far as what they're practice for... well, I think t&gs are practice for t&gs. For those times when you've touched down but have to abort due to an obstruction or just having landed long. Or those times when the wind is devilish, and you just don't feel good about the rollout.
But not for full-stops.
There's a lot that goes on as you roll out, stop, exit, clean up the plane, and taxi. It's not really a waste of time; taxiing is very hard to do consistently well.
Some folks seem to believe t&gs  are adequate practice for full-stops, but I disagree... especially with tailwheel aircraft.  :o
T&Gs can be a copout in the name of money... what's your safety and reputation worth, in terms of money? Mine has no price tag. I Usually do full-stops, even if I'm doing nothing but an hour of pattern work.

But the nice thing about most little taildraggers is that you can do three or so touch-n-gos on a good-sized runway and still do a full-stop at the end... now that's a good workout.
While doing my tailwheel add-on out at Brown, the words "cleared for the option" from Tower meant it was "fun time"!!

For learning to understand ground-effect flight and dealing with drift, etc., I think the "dirty low pass" is a better idea... I got to do a few of those during my training, playing with rudder & aileron a bit while holding the plane just "out of flare" with power. It's an excellent exercise.
But I did plenty of t&gs at  KTEB and KMMU to learn more about Class D ops without paying the landing fees... as long as a student also gets plenty of practice stopping, exiting and taxiing at a little nontowered airport, he or she will get a well-rounded education.

[Hagar]

Some folks seem to believe t&gs  are adequate practice for full-stops, but I disagree... especially with tailwheel aircraft.  :o

I know I'm out of date but back in the early 60s our Tiger Moths could be seen doing circuits & bumps all day & every day. This was before nosewheel trainers became popular & all training was done on taildraggers. Like most training at the time this was on a grass airfield. There was no hard runway & take off & landing were directly into wind. The average lesson was of 30 minutes duration so there was no time to spare messing around on the ground. If you did a proper 3-pointer the aircraft would come to a stop before opening the throttle, raising the tail & off again for another go. The same methods were used by the RAF both during & for several years after WWII.

[beaky]

Some folks seem to believe t&gs  are adequate practice for full-stops, but I disagree... especially with tailwheel aircraft.  :o

I know I'm out of date but back in the early 60s our Tiger Moths could be seen doing circuits & bumps all day & every day. This was before nosewheel trainers became popular & all training was done on taildraggers. Like most training at the time this was on a grass airfield. There was no hard runway & take off & landing were directly into wind. The average lesson was of 30 minutes duration so there was no time to spare messing around on the ground. If you did a proper 3-pointer the aircraft would come to a stop before opening the throttle, raising the tail & off again for another go. The same methods were used by the RAF both during & for several years after WWII.

Aha... point well-taken, sir... but that is a "stop-and-go", a very different animal from what many of today's students call a "touch-and-go"... which usually means getting airborne again with plenty of speed to spare. Most of my primary instructors were very keen on goosing it ASAP in those 172s and 150s and getting going again, and I honestly never saw much point to it other than saving time.
It was like a go-around after crossing the threshold, only with the added distraction of trying to touch down properly.

I'd imagine these Moths you speak of had tail skids... I'll bet they slowed down very quickly once the tail hit the turf.

But my mention of taildraggers was to drive home the point that "the landing ain't over until it's tied down"... a sound philosophy even when handling a big trike.
 A little taildragger with a tailwheel can keep you working quite a bit stopping, exiting and taxiing... and parking. I think it's good to practice that often, early on.

[Hagar]

Aha... point well-taken, sir... but that is a "stop-and-go", a very different animal from what many of today's students call a "touch-and-go"... which usually means getting airborne again with plenty of speed to spare. Most of my primary instructors were very keen on goosing it ASAP in those 172s and 150s and getting going again, and I honestly never saw much point to it other than saving time.
It was like a go-around after crossing the threshold, only with the added distraction of trying to touch down properly.

I'd imagine these Moths you speak of had tail skids... I'll bet they slowed down very quickly once the tail hit the turf.

But my mention of taildraggers was to drive home the point that "the landing ain't over until it's tied down"... a sound philosophy even when handling a big trike.
 A little taildragger with a tailwheel can keep you working quite a bit stopping, exiting and taxiing... and parking. I think it's good to practice that often, early on.

Hence the expression Circuits & Bumps. These could also be done using a wheelie landing without dropping the tail but our CFI (Chief Flying Instructor) insisted on 3-pointers. If this is done correctly on a grass runway the aircraft will come to stop almost as soon as it touches the ground whether it has a skid or tailwheel.

Times have changed & I often hanker for the old days when things seemed much more straightforward. I know I'm old-fashioned but I never liked the idea of nosewheel trainers. If you learn how to fly a taildragger properly from the start I guarantee you will be able to fly almost anything.

I spend a lot of time hanging around airfields & still see those little Piper & Cessna trainers doing circuits & bumps so they must be of some use.

[eno]

Here's an interesting article on the merits, or not, of T&Gs.

Touch n Go's

[Brett_Henderson]

Odd that just about every reason listed for not practicing T&Gs, are the reasons FOR practicing T&Gs.  Increasing the pilot's workload is the whole point to practicing and staying sharp.

A handful of T&Gs in a crosswind is a great way to hone your airplane handling skills...  IMHO

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Tailwheel aircraft are so over-rated.  All you gotta do is keep the RPM up enough so the tail doesn't have to touch the ground and that solves your whole ground loop problem.

Brake pads?  They're cheap, right?

Back to reality now... TG's are great practice for about a bilion reasons!  It gets you working the full range of movement with the aircraft, climbs, descents, turns, cruise, configuring the aircraft for the next phase of flight, communicating, and just flying the airplane.  You can think of it as a really compress full-length flight.  

As for the full stop part (not referring to tail draggers of course) a lot of people really need to practice how to properly land an airplane.  Just sit at your local airport and count how many people have the nose wheel touch down first, all three, or bounce their way down the runway.  It's  a very special occasion when someone has a proper gentle nose-high touchdown on the threashold.

[machineman9]

I would imagine its just a very quick method of doing landing and take off practise.

If you do a full landing then you will have to taxi all around again, but if you T&G you can do all the landing type things and take off type things. Yeh you arent getting the full landing practise, but all it is is to slow down a bit and go off the runway. You may aswell save time by just continuing straight away.

[beaky]

Tailwheel aircraft are so over-rated.  All you gotta do is keep the RPM up enough so the tail doesn't have to touch the ground and that solves your whole ground loop problem.

Sure, a touch-and-go on the mains is easy... in fact, touching down and lifting off immediately is the usual result (for me anyway)...

But a 3-point t&g is a little trickier. You can't really carry power into a 3-pointer (ideally the wing should be stalled), but if you are quick with the throttle and keep your feet awake, a go-around from a 3-point landing is not too bad (depending on what the wind is up to).

All in all, it's not harder, really-just a little different. For a 3-pointer, in fact, the flare is the same as with a nosewheel.
But  t&gs in a taildragger won't teach you the most important parts of landing a taildragger: rolling out, exiting the runway, and taxiing.

And although I agree that t&gs are very useful, even with trikes they don't teach you everything you need to know about landing.

I guess in the end the average student gets plenty of full-stops and t&gs... but I remember more than once asking the instructor to let me do a few full-stops because I could see that there was a lot more to it than flaring and touching down, and didn't feel I had it down yet.

[Boss_BlueAngels]

Oh no, Sean, I meant taxiing and everything on the mains!  It's all just a matter of RPM and brake pads.