Originally Posted by
jwillett13
If the voices are a little shaky, its because when we do a go-around, its all elbows and @ssholes in the cockpit. Even though we train every year to do a go-around, it is still an abnormal condtion and things become very hurried. So if you hear a shaky voice its because we (the capt or the f/o) remembered to pick up the mike and say something over the PA, not because we a scared
Firstly, thanks to the pilots on here for clearing things up technically and putting minds at rest! Even when I (as a pilot-in-training myself) try to explain to non-flying friends technical things about how what I'm doing in the left seat works, it can still make people nervous.
That all being said, in my grand old 77.5 hours of logged time as PIC of the Cessna 152 Heavy, out of ~180 landings I'd say there would have been about 30 or 40 more, but I went around after screwing it up! However, one day I chose (bad Aeronautical Decision Making!) to go up on a windy day for crosswind practice- runway 6/24 and it was 010 9 knots gusting 16 which turned into 12G18- about half of the 6 landings that day were go arounds due to the tricky winds!
Commercially, where I'm not in the front, I've never in my 21 years of ~50 hour a year flying had a fun of a go-around, however something interesting did happen at LAX- I was on a AE CR9 from DEN and we landed 24R- the northern most of LAX's 4 runways towards the sea. We roll the length of the runway and exit on AA (a taxiway name, nothing to do with my Coke and Rum!) for the 20 minute taxi, and are about to cross 24L, the parallel runway, when BAM someone hit the brakes and we screech to a halt. Silence ensues, with no one on the horn giving an explanation, and then ROOOOAAARRR, as an Asiana 747 blasts past in front of us and into the sky! Luckily I was on the right and saw her climb sluggishly off to Korea over the ocean, so I guess someone noticed at the last moment and let us know we should stop. That or those EagleFlight guys drive their CRJ's like Ferraris!
-NwaRJ