Disoriented Scans

Fine article about bounced landings. Preventing them should be primary but when we do get a bounce, for some airplanes the recommendation is not to save the landing but just to go around. A number of years ago, there was a series of fatal Cirrus bounced landing accidents. Im not sure if there were official findings that gave common cause, but one theory was that the fixed landing gear acted like a pogo stick and was unforgiving of too much energy on touchdown. The finesse that you describe to salvage this type of bounce was not easily done by some pilots.

Editorial Staff

Sunday, March 17, 2019 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

I thoroughly enjoyed Mike Hart’s “Losing Orientation” in the February 2019 issue and his sidebar, “Don’t Forget Your Scan.” It was a great review for me. Many writers of similar articles simply remind disoriented pilots to “trust your instruments” and recover. The instruments are easy to read, so how hard can it be? Well, really hard.

Autopilots alleviate this problem—until they don’t work. In my view, the trouble occurs almost only while hand flying…regardless of the logic of reliable, redundant, independent, clearly visible attitude indicators that you can easily interpret. Your reptilian brain ain’t buying it. “Up” is this way!