After flying some IFR circuits at London Southend Airport, it was time to call end to a wonderful evening; but not without error. The previous part of the flight was flown IFR and it was time to make a VFR flight back to Stapleford. If you would like to watch the earlier part of the flight. Click here
During the IMC training, I was taught that at decision height you’d change to landing flap. When I learned to fly in the DA40; nothing was different other than my experience of IFR flying grew as I ventured with a better equipped aircraft. I was always curious as to why airliners are configured at 1000ft as per company SOP but in GA, it was acceptable to configure in the most critical part of the approach (usually the last 200ft).
I prepared for a normal approach and completed my pre-landing checks. On passing 500ft I assumed that my high airspeed would bleed off, and that it was likely down to the windy conditions. That’s problem one. Never assume.
As I approached 20ft, I decided to go-around. I retracted the flaps but I realised that I had actually placed them into the fully up position. This wasn’t normal. The previous two approaches both had low approaches requiring me to retract the flap to take-off before retracting fully at a safe altitude. After a sluggish climb to 1200ft I admitted my mistake to my friend and that I realised I made an inappropriate aircraft configuration which caused a go-around.
This may have something to do with the fact that on the previous two approaches that day, that I didn’t select flaps till the decision height for the ILS approach. I believe I simply just forgot and did not have a reminder such as 200ft/500ft on an IAP. On my future flights, I plan to use a decision height for all approaches weather it be visual or IAP that I must be fully configured or in the case of an instrument approach, configuring for landing so that this never happens again.
So hopefully we can all learn from this mistake. Enjoy the video!
I prefer not to distinguish flap settings between imc/vmc precisely to avoid this and keeping the go around actions the same for all profiles.
It easily leads to either not raising flaps when they’re fully down on a vmc approach go around or raising them fully up like you mentioned.
I’ve done a couple of approaches near minimas and wouldn’t want to be doing configuration changes in the transition IMC / Visual, especially in bad visibility (where you don’t have a good sense of attitude etc).
In these cases, I make sure I configure early (slightly before starting the descent) so as not touch the config. I also try to fly at a speed not too much faster than the speed I’m going to do in the last 200ft – This way the aircraft is pretty much in trim and I can focus on flying that more critical portion.
In the DA40, that generally means doing T/O flap, but that’s normally fine since any runway with an approach is going to be long enough to absorb the slightly extra speed. T/O flap also makes go around safer (This way if I forget to think “flaps”).
I think all my go arounds (IMC / VMC, high, low) the same:
- Power (+Mixture if needed)
- Pitch
- Drag (Gear, Flaps).
In the the case of the DA40NG, in IMC, in the configuration I mentioned, it always means that you only do Power / Pitch, but I still take a second to think that there is no gear and check that there is only one light on the flap).
I try to always think about actions (“What will I do in case of GA”) around 1500 ft, I look at the gear and flaps as a reminder (and for instance decide if I’m going to raise flaps or not)
There are cases where I use very different different configs, but that’s when visual, for instance on an approach for circle to land (in VMC), I’ll tend to fly clean and closer to the green arc, and if no one in the circuit, go for a tight glide approach once established on (a very tight) downwind – but then that’s when conditions are easy and I do it for efficiency / fun.
pilotrobbie wrote:
On my future flights, I plan to use a decision height for all approaches weather it be visual or IAP that I must be fully configured or in the case of an instrument approach, configuring for landing so that this never happens again.
I was trained on my MEIR to be fully configured for landing at the glide slope intercept point so that the approach is stable and no changes are necessary. In my aircraft this then means just a reduction in power to a known MP setting at glide slope intercept to maintain the glide slope. However, in practice you will find that at larger airports they often want you to maintain max speed to 4 DME on the approach which means you cannot be fully configured for landing. Of course you can still say no but will may be broken off the approach early due to the faster aircraft behind you.
In my MEIR training we kept gear up until GS intercept. The drag from the gear will be sufficient to get the plane into a 500 fpm descend at same power settings.
Tried this in an Aztec as well. Works every time.
Snoopy wrote:
I prefer not to distinguish flap settings between imc/vmc precisely to avoid this and keeping the go around actions the same for all profiles.
It easily leads to either not raising flaps when they’re fully down on a vmc approach go around or raising them fully up like you mentioned.
I guess so, but at what heights do you do for the following?Noe wrote:
In the DA40, that generally means doing T/O flap, but that’s normally fine since any runway with an approach is going to be long enough to absorb the slightly extra speed. T/O flap also makes go around safer (This way if I forget to think “flaps”).
I guess it means if it’s also gusty (i.e Frontal weather) and you are flying into an airport that has an IAP (generally speaking; longer than an airfield runway) – t/o flaps means you have a more realistic chance of a successful landing.
Noe wrote:
In the the case of the DA40NG, in IMC, in the configuration I mentioned, it always means that you only do Power / Pitch, but I still take a second to think that there is no gear and check that there is only one light on the flap).
I try to always think about actions (“What will I do in case of GA”) around 1500 ft, I look at the gear and flaps as a reminder (and for instance decide if I’m going to raise flaps or not)
So you never land in IMC with flaps full? Just t/o flaps. What sort of speeds do you use in reference to the Flight Manual?
pilotrobbie wrote:
So you never land in IMC with flaps full?
I can find many reasons for me to not do that in IMC: rate of decent is a bit spark on full flaps for IMC, the trim is way off, sitting behind the drag curve with inverted power/stick controls in IMC, all these makes flying/go-around in IMC very exciting with you all the time pushing hard on the yoke forward to be able to descend, fly level and even to climb?
Besides,
- No point putting lot of power against full flaps, it is just not “fuel efficient” (same apply to side slipping, air-brakes…)
- Runways with instruments are very long: even 120kts and zero flaps does it (no need for soft/short field landings…)
I don’t think the POHs for GA aircraft are that prescriptive on flaps and approach speeds, unless when supporting their graph data or flight conditions, most POH/training manuals will prescribe something like Va = 1.3*VS0 but some aircraft will bite if you go away from their “exact numbers”….
pilotrobbie wrote:
So you never land in IMC with flaps full? Just t/o flaps. What sort of speeds do you use in reference to the Flight Manual?
I don’t really use “Never”, but normally I preplan and with a long runway I find the benefit of less configuration changes (in the visual segment, or in the go around) outweight the slighly longer distance (on what is likely going to be a very long runway).
I use the speeds from the flight manual, same as with full flaps:
One important thing I find Is not to operate switches in a “blind” automated manner, but rather take a split second to:
- Think where I want the switch to be
- Look at where it is
- Act
@Noe that speed grid looks far difficult to remember 
DA40 is probably one of those aircraft with high “Speed Range/Power Range” (you can add a Mooney to this list) but I am still not sure if rounding those numbers to the nearest +/-5kts helps?
pilotrobbie wrote:
So you never land in IMC with flaps full? Just t/o flaps. What sort of speeds do you use in reference to the Flight Manual?
I know you didn’t ask me, but I also never land off an instrument approach with full flaps. If the AFM/POH doesn’t provide approach speeds for partial flap, I use 1.3*Vs0.
