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Staying on the ground, ILS approach at Southend and electing to go-around.

PostPosted:Sat Dec 15, 2018 10:19 pm
by ConcordeBA
Pre-Flight -

I've flown all across the world as crew and some of my most notable experiences of turbulence have put me off, such as Houston with 64,000ft Thunderstorms, weather across the ITCZ to South Africa, flying across the notorious Bay of Bengal and in a 300mph jetstream across the North Atlantic.

But nothing compares to being thrown around by yourself in a light aircraft on a windy frontal day, and ever since that final flight of 2017 I've been very put off by the slightest of windy days. Lots of turbulence and lots of experience with that feeling I'd rather be on the ground than in the air.

Having had a long time away from flying, it took some confidence for me to head to the airport with the wind forecast as it was. Rather than cancel for the second week in a row, I headed to the airport so I could gather my thoughts and explain to my passenger what we was going to do.

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Having checked the aircraft over and realised that the wind was awful, it was probably best we delayed the flight. This meant our 1400 slot at Southend for two ILS approaches and the idea of stopping for a few hours would not happen. I rang back, but the next available slot was 1600hrs. After chatting with reception at Stapleford, night flying would not happen due to the crosswind. But having spoken to some of the instructors they was keen to get flying later that day if the wind dropped of as forecast.


Code: Select allTAF EGMC 090756Z 0909/0918 26018KT 9999 SCT035 TEMPO 0909/0912 6000 SHRA TEMPO 0909/0910 27018G28KT PROB30 TEMPO 0909/0911 4000 +SHRA BECMG 0910/0913 31015G25KT BECMG 0916/0918 29010KT=


So I took Southend up on the flight booking at 1600hrs, with a routing towards CLN VOR for some VOR/DME tracking and climbing up to 4-5000ft for some cloud surfing fun. I had to wait till 1530 to find out if anyone was night flying as I did not want to come back to a (lights off) Stapleford in the dark, as that meant a rather expensive divert back to Southend and having to collect the aircraft before work the next day.

We departed 21L with a slight crosswind before making our way towards Southend, but we did not fly to CLN VOR. I was relatively surprised how little turbulence we had considering the wind at the surface being 10-12 knots and 34 knots at just 2000ft. Earlier in the day I think it would have been pretty uncomfortable, although plenty of people were flying so it couldn't have been that bad?

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The first approach was to be hand flown, with a controller initiated go-around at the threshold - although a departing ATR meant the go-around would most likely be quite a dramatic one. We was given an amended clearance. I recently purchased a new flight-board specific to the Diamond Aircraft and other stick aircraft, so this took a little bit of getting used too. But works well for my type of flying.

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I conducted a go-around over Southend-on-Sea but probably turned at an unsafe altitude of 400ft, although this was versus the likely chance of hitting wake-turbulence if I hadn't of turned. It was a bit of last minute risk-assessment, but maybe pegging the aircraft at 80knots and waiting for 500ft would probably have been more sufficient.

The second approach originally was going to be based on the autopilot with me primarily monitoring what was happening with the ability to maintain safe flight, but I decided to hand fly for the experience of hand flying sakes. I haven't used the autopilot since I flew the aircraft in May 2018. We was going to land on this approach originally, but this now became a quick touch and go and back to Stapleford for a VFR night landing.

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The approach was a little bit more bumpy than the previous, but not much more. As I approached the threshold the aircraft became unstable and I lost 10 knots as a change of wind direction/wind speed made for quite an uncomfortable experience that forced me to scrap the approach and fly back to Stapleford. I simply had enough for one day and was happy with my hand flown ILS approaches. The question is was I right to go-around?


Here is a rather extended video of the learning experience and fun evening.


Re: Staying on the ground, ILS approach at Southend and electing to go-around.

PostPosted:Mon Dec 17, 2018 10:04 am
by James Chan
The question is was I right to go-around?


Controllers have defined separation procedures between aircraft of different weight categories, meaning you shouldn't hit wake turbulence on approach. The headings and airspeeds they may give you are finely tuned - based on winds and their experience.

But if feel you had to ask yourself that question, then answer is yes - go around. Was there some error that brought you too close for comfort to something else in front?

Tell the controller too if you need to take up a hold somewhere for some breathing room and have a think and wait until things are less intense - otherwise they can immediately re-slot you in-between the next set of big jets and renewed pressure to get it down.

Don't force/continue a landing where you're not comfortable, or you can do yourself some damage and block the runway.

A chat with instructors or having them on-board will give you a better idea of what to expect / what you can achieve. :thumleft:

Re: Staying on the ground, ILS approach at Southend and electing to go-around.

PostPosted:Tue Dec 18, 2018 5:27 pm
by BirdsEyeView
Thanks for posting. Gave your video a thumbs up in YouTube. But if I may just add: "all copy..." aghhh! It's "roger" then your call sign. It irritates me, just like calls "rolling..." when someone means "taking off..." I guess it's YouTube videos from the US that's getting us into this language. Just my hobby horse; hope you don't mind. Very helpful nonetheless. Thanks :)

Re: Staying on the ground, ILS approach at Southend and electing to go-around.

PostPosted:Sat Dec 22, 2018 1:02 pm
by ConcordeBA
James Chan wrote:
The question is was I right to go-around?


Controllers have defined separation procedures between aircraft of different weight categories, meaning you shouldn't hit wake turbulence on approach. The headings and airspeeds they may give you are finely tuned - based on winds and their experience.

But if feel you had to ask yourself that question, then answer is yes - go around. Was there some error that brought you too close for comfort to something else in front?

Tell the controller too if you need to take up a hold somewhere for some breathing room and have a think and wait until things are less intense - otherwise they can immediately re-slot you in-between the next set of big jets and renewed pressure to get it down.

Don't force/continue a landing where you're not comfortable, or you can do yourself some damage and block the runway.

A chat with instructors or having them on-board will give you a better idea of what to expect / what you can achieve. :thumleft:


The question was regarding the second go-around during windshear at 150ft :) But this is a good read nonetheless.

BirdsEyeView wrote:Thanks for posting. Gave your video a thumbs up in YouTube. But if I may just add: "all copy..." aghhh! It's "roger" then your call sign. It irritates me, just like calls "rolling..." when someone means "taking off..." I guess it's YouTube videos from the US that's getting us into this language. Just my hobby horse; hope you don't mind. Very helpful nonetheless. Thanks :)


It probably is all that lingo from the US videos. I watch them a great deal more than the ones in Europe. Not many people seem to do it hear. But I guess when I do my CB-IR I'll be brushing up on CAP413. Thanks for watching and glad you enjoyed :)