Among so interesting and technical inputs I would like to share with you a
very heuristic (at least for me) experience I had, after a minor accident of
a DC-9 landing bellow minimums in a dark and stormy night, perhaps 15 years ago.
In that days we had no CRM (in Tierra del Fuego), or AQP (neither have we
today) or FOQA, and "vox populi" said that go-around were like four letter
words for our pilots.
Well, immediatle after the event, I initiated a very quick quest asking
pilots themselves, why they were so reluctant to performe that maneuver
(answers should be written and anonimous).
Results: Professional Pride 65%, Corporate Pressure 30%, Miscalculation
(error) 5% (more or less).
Next weak, came the pilot who protagonised the accident mencioned before. He
wanted to talk with me (I was the chief of the medical certification board
at that time). He confessed to me that landings were an everlasting problem
for him, and that as he also suffered "impotentia coeundi" he was 8 years
now under psychoanalitic treatment (I mean freudian style).
He told with details to me, that the explanation his psychoanalist gave to
him was that the two phenomena were symbolically the same, since the plane
represents the erectil member (a propo, we use to call the plane with words
with pornografic connotations) and the runway, the female organ (no
pornografic words, in Spanish at least, for it).
So he never used to think in go-arounds because that accion represented his
imposibility to "put in" or "insert" or "introduce" (actually this are
translations of our verb "meter" used to describe the accion of landing in
difficult meteorologicval conditions, for instance) the thing.
So folks, contemplate the freudian wisdom... Imagine my dilema on leting or
not that pilot continue flying. But that is another story. I beg your pardon
for this digression.
Cheers from Buenos Aires
Hugo
http://www.houseware.com.ar/users/hf_crm (regretably in Spanish)
PS: By the way Neil, the Altavista translator is very fast but not so
acurate as the Global-Link, although is easier to use. I agree with
Florian's observations.