Post by r***@whitemailbox.fsnet.co.uk2) On a recent trip to Norway, I was on a Fokker F-50 which had to
abort it's landing. This resulted in the landing gear retracting very
quickly, a sudden steep climb and some vomiting passengers.
To abandon an approach, the process is pretty straightforward: first, you
arrest the descent and get a positive rate of climb, then you "clean up" the
aircraft (raise the wheels and retract the flaps) and point it in the right
direction and toward the right height for the "missed approach" procedure
that applies to that airfield. So although it may have felt that the wheels
went up "very quickly", that was probably just a bit of an illusion - they
simply went up because that was the next thing to do after shoving the
throttles forward.
The "steep" climb may also have been largely down to sensations and
intuition, too. A go-around will often feel more vigorous than a take-off
because before you can make the aircraft go upwards, you first have to stop
it going downwanrd. So you've probably gone from a slightly nose-down
attitude to a very nose-up attitude. Contrast this with take-off, you go
from a slightly nose-up attitude (a little while before take-off, the pilot
"rotates", i.e. lifts the nose gently off the ground and drives for some
distance in that configuration) to a slightly more nose-up attitude after
lift-off. So the climb may have felt steep because what your balance system
was telling your brain was not that it thought it was pointing steeply
upward (it can't figure that out) but that it had experienced a large change
in the vertical direction you were pointing in. I was a passenger in an A320
flying to Cyprus a few months ago when we had to go around because of
vehicles on the runway, and the attitude (and thrust) change was pronounced.
It was a nice evening, though, and so everyone's brain could figure out what
was going on.
Now, for the vomit-inducing aspect, combine this attitude change with the
fact that you're in a cloud (so your eyes can't get any visual references to
explain to your brain why your inner ear is going a bit mad) and it's a bit
like sitting on a rollercoaster with your eyes shut. Combine this with the
fact that the F-50 is a small, pretty nimble little aircraft which,
relatively speaking, will go from engines at idle, nose pointing downward to
throttles open full, pointing upward, maybe with a turn in there somewhere
to avoid the end of a fjord, and it's understandable that some people might
be a bit queasy.
Post by r***@whitemailbox.fsnet.co.ukAfter a few minutes, the pilot said he was unable to land because of low
cloud.
After a second aborted landing 30 minutes later, we diverted to another
airport.
You could ask why the pilots decided to attempt the approach at all. After
all, if the conditions were lousy, and the forecast was no better, the
pilots would probably not even have considered trying an approach, and would
have gone to their "alternate" airport. So it's likely in this case that the
cloudbase was just a little below the permitted minimum (a figure which
varies from airfield to airfield, and also for different types of approach)
but the pilots thought they'd have a couple of goes at getting in because
the nature of cloudbases is that they go up and down a bit all the time and
presumably they had sufficient fuel for it to be worth a bash.
Post by r***@whitemailbox.fsnet.co.ukI am curious to know at what point the pilot decided to abort
the landing?
Generally, the point at which he/she decided that it was not going to be
sensible to attempt another approach into the airfield given the current and
near-future-predicted conditions and his/her fuel situation. The fuel an
aircraft carries is calculated based on the requirement to get to your
destination, plus enough to divert, plus a bit for holding before making the
approach, plus enough for taxying at each end, plus a percentage for
contingency, and so on.
Each airline's standard operating procedure (SOP) will contain rules that
dictate the minimum fuel an aircraft must have in any given circumstance. So
the pilots would know the minimum fuel level at which they must give up
trying to get into the airport and diverte to the alternate. If they'd had
oodles left in the tanks and the forecast was favourable, they could have
decided to fly around the hold for a while until the conditions improved; in
this case the conditions dictated that a diversion was necessary instead.
Post by r***@whitemailbox.fsnet.co.ukHow far would we have been from the ground and/or runway?
Peter's spot on with his "Far enough" comment! I'll elaborate a bit, though.
The approach plate (the diagram produced for the pilot to explain to them
how to do the approach to land) varies from airport to airport. It takes
into account bits of high ground, tall buildings, radio masts, etc, etc in
order to provide a safe approach path into the runway, guided by navigation
aids (radio transmitters, etc). Oh, and of course, it also takes into
account what's on the other end of the runway, so that if you have to
abandon your attempt to land, you don't fly smartly into a mountain. To give
you a vague idea, though, 250 feet or so wouldn't be unusual for an airport
not surrounded by high ground - so just under a minute away from landing.
David C