Look Out For The Bounce

摘要

Don't feel bad when it happens to you, even spaceships bounce 1 off the earth's atmosphere if their reentry isn't perfectly choreographed. What matters is that you have a game plan ready, to instantly execute, in the event a botched landing leaves you airborne, and a bit surprised at the top of a bounce. In fact, let's freeze-frame that picture in our mind—the image of you, in your airplane, at the top of an unexpected bounce, and a rather high bounce at that. You've come in for what seemed a typical landing and somehow things went askew. Maybe it was that tight base turn, resulting in a short final that never really gave you time to set up a stabilized approach. Or, perhaps you had a good crab going in a strong crosswind, padding the speed for gusts with a few extra knots for luck. In the commotion of kicking the plane straight and keeping one wing low into the wind, you forgot to bleed off all that extra speed and, whoops—before you knew it—a big bounce. Suddenly, you're airborne, at a weird angle, with airspeed rapidly decaying. What would you do? What should you do?