Touch and Goes
In primary training, touch-and-goes do not reflect reality. In the world we are preparing student pilots to enter, airplanes take off, go somewhere (even if it is the pattern) and return to land. The goal of getting a pilot certificate is to be able to travel by air rather than on the ground. Accordingly, for primary students the takeoff and climb to pattern altitude and the approach to land are different things and should not be conflated. After I got my CFI head screwed on properly I had students land to a full stop, at which time I took over the controls to taxi back to the departure end. During that time I could discuss the most recent landing and the student could assimilate what I was saying without having to divide his/her attention between listening to me and taxiing. The human brain can assimilate a limited number of simultaneous inputs, so why push it??
Bob Gardner
Bob’s view is in line with mine. One of the first things I learned when taking lessons is that you need to Fly the airplane all the way to the hangar. If you do touch and goes, you aren’t practicing techniques that you will use later.
The FAA shares our view as well. From FAA-H-8083-9A Aviation Instructor’s Handbook p 8-13:
The FAA recommends that in all student flights involving landings in an aircraft, the flight instructor should teach a full stop landing. Full stop landings help the student develop aircraft control and checklist usage. Aircraft speed and control take precedence over all other actions during landings and takeoffs.
I learned to fly in a 182 so there is a lot going on when you land. The 182 requires a lot of trim, is fairly heavy and has huge 40° flaps so it sinks like a rock, and it has a powerful engine that needs a lot of right rudder. To do a touch and go, you need to reach down to open the cowl flaps, hold the flap lever up for 10 seconds, verify that the flaps retracted, check that you remembered to push the prop in, give it power while also giving it right rudder, and then watch your airspeed while moving quickly down the runway. I don’t process things that fast so I always felt that I was behind the plane. When we got the Cessna 210, you had all of the same issues with a much heavier and more powerful plane. It still has electric flaps, but you can move them to the detent so it is easier to select 10° of flaps for takeoff. Slowing it down to make the turnoff requires that you stick the landing and landing speed. I have done touch and goes in the 210, but I really want to practice complete energy management, so I always do taxi-backs. Like Bob said, it gives me time to evaluate the last landing and go through my pre-takeoff checklist.