Ultralight engine failure vid

Landing was executed as well as you could do with the field he chose. Hard to tell from the video, but I may have tried for one of the dirt roads on the perimeter of the fields if there weren't any obstructions. May have had packed soil which could have avoided the nose-over. Either way, got it down with minimal damage to persons aboard, so I'd call it a success.
 
Engine failure directly over 10 square miles of improved fields = brush with death. Ok, if you say so.

But I do wonder why he didn't keep it on the track he was going when the engine quit and make that a downwind for the long straight two-track road that was right under his left arm.
 
I’m not impressed. Unless best glide in that thing is double the cruise speed, he stole a lot of time from himself diving out of the sky. You can hear the airspeed pick up a LOT after the engine went out.

Kudos for a safe landing, but as an uninvolved observer, it seems like it could have been a slower landing and he could have had more time with a slower decent.
 
No way that was best glide!?

And all those dirt roads, not sure why he went for a flip worthy soft area with all that altitude he had.

When the person at the controls is wearing a non issued nomex suit that he stiched wings on, it’s going to be an adventure
 
I fly an Ultralight....and have 4 engine outs, two forced landings...NBD.
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Engine failure directly over 10 square miles of improved fields = brush with death.
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No kidding! I was looking at that video and thinking "duck soup."

Find a good landing here, and I'll be more impressed:

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James331 said:
So...the other two engine outs didn’t force you to land as well?
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Nope...in air restart.

My ultralight is just two stroke butt fan, but even more so than GA you fly with the mindset of not if...but WHEN you engine will quit any Ultralight.
 
Could have been a lot worse. Could have stalled and smashed into bits. On liveleak you never know what your going to get, some of the stuff getting posted on there is pretty savage and raw
 
Not a pilot, still a student. But I have a few questions..
With all that space why not bleed off more speed before putting it down? Could have just held it over the dirt a little longer and may not have flipped it.
I did not see any power lines or trees on the dirt roads that stretched for what looked like miles, why go for a soft field?
Why was he so anxious to nose dive down? Why not spend the time looking more for a place than nose dive it into the ground?
 
Shawn said:
Nope...in air restart.

My ultralight is just two stroke butt fan, but even more so than GA you fly with the mindset of not if...but WHEN you engine will quit any Ultralight.
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Meh, that’s not a failure it’s a hiccup ;)
 
Wow! Why all the hate? I have a couple thousand hours in ultralights, and have experience several forced landings. NBD! You plan for it, expect it, and live to fly another day. I nearly feel sorry for those of us who’ve never experienced this wonderful type of flight, you don’t know what you’re missing. I might add, it will make you a better pilot.
Dave
 
Holy smokes, that looked like a FAST landing! That’s a great example illustrating that ultralight flyers aren’t necessarily pilots.

To add to that, I have a couple certificated pilot buddies that own and fly ultralights. They swear that stall speed isn’t much above cruise speed, and after watching them land lots of times, I believe it. So, this video is deceptive. Vids always make it look faster than it is, and always make things look less severe than they are.
 
Jamie Kirk said:
Not a pilot, still a student. But I have a few questions..
With all that space why not bleed off more speed before putting it down? Could have just held it over the dirt a little longer and may not have flipped it.
I did not see any power lines or trees on the dirt roads that stretched for what looked like miles, why go for a soft field?
Why was he so anxious to nose dive down? Why not spend the time looking more for a place than nose dive it into the ground?
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Depends. Tough to tell how fast he was when he set it down, and I don't know the speed at which the wing quits flying (stalls). Ideally, yes, you would hold it off 1-2' above ground and set the wheels down right at the edge of a stall to bleed off every last bit of energy.

As far as not seeing power lines/trees, that's difficult to tell from the video. Ruts, rough roads, fences, etc. may have steered him to the field he chose, but it could have been the best location he initially saw and he didn't deviate from that choice. Hindsight 20/20 and all that.

The first action upon loss of power for just about every aircraft is to lower the nose to best glide speed. I don't know what his best glide speed was, or if he needed to dive at that rate to make the intended field without making S-turns or a 360-turn. To be clear, he didn't "nose dive it into the ground", he just initiated an aggressive descent. Aside from the possible excess landing speed, there's not much you can do to prevent the nose-over in a really soft field.
 
Lachlan said:
Holy smokes, that looked like a FAST landing! That’s a great example illustrating that ultralight flyers aren’t necessarily pilots.

To add to that, I have a couple certificated pilot buddies that own and fly ultralights. They swear that stall speed isn’t much above cruise speed, and after watching them land lots of times, I believe it. So, this video is deceptive. Vids always make it look faster than it is, and always make things look less severe than they are.
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I certainly hope stall speed isn't much above cruise speed. :eek:

It wasn't the video that looked fast. It was the audio the air made that made it sound fast. He increased speed when the engine shut off, it's very noticeable.
 
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Lachlan said:
Holy smokes, that looked like a FAST landing! That’s a great example illustrating that ultralight flyers aren’t necessarily pilots.
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Not sure how you are making that distinction here, but ok. If you are sitting in an aircraft while in controlled flight, I'd call you a pilot, certificated or not. There are plenty of certificated pilots in this world who have done much worse with better conditions.
 
Salty said:
I certainly hope stall speed isn't much above cruise speed. :eek:

It wasn't the video that looked fast. It was the audio the air made that made it sound fast. He increased speed when the engine shut off, it's very noticeable.
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Also the ASI

He’s was noticeable flying the slowest when the engine was running
69_DB3170-0499-4_FC8-9232-386_A34_E68554.jpg


Faster after the prop stoped tuning
BBAFB5_CA-117_C-4_A38-_B6_EF-_B43294456911.jpg


Fastt on final to that field.
FE2_D7108-1_D19-4619-_BE14-23_F23574130_A.jpg
 
James331 said:
Also the ASI

He’s was noticeable flying the slowest when the engine was running
69_DB3170-0499-4_FC8-9232-386_A34_E68554.jpg


Faster after the prop stoped tuning
BBAFB5_CA-117_C-4_A38-_B6_EF-_B43294456911.jpg


Fastt on final to that field.
FE2_D7108-1_D19-4619-_BE14-23_F23574130_A.jpg
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If the markings on that indicator are accurate, I'm guessing best glide was probably less than half what he was doing.
 
Again, if the stall markings on the indicator are accurate, he wasn't horribly over speed on the landing, but it would have been better to be stalling into that rocky mess. 10 knots slower might have meant a normal rollout......

In his defense, the thing did seem to slow down very quickly when he flared, so it may be a tricky beast to land without power.

Screen Shot 2018-10-04 at 3.26.25 PM.png
 
When the wheels touched dirt, the ASI was just a bit above the bottom of the white-arc, looked like 7-8mph above the bottom (guessing mph but who knows), so he may have had a little bit of room to hold-off/decelerate but it wasn't much.
 
Salty said:
I certainly hope stall speed isn't much above cruise speed. :eek:

It wasn't the video that looked fast. It was the audio the air made that made it sound fast. He increased speed when the engine shut off, it's very noticeable.
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Nice catch! :) Stall speed isn't much slower than cruise on one of their ultralights, or so they insist. I have never flown one so I'm using second hand info. Yeah, it looked by all references like he was moving right along on approach and at touchdown, but I was trying to give the guy the benefit of the doubt.
 
SoonerAviator said:
Not sure how you are making that distinction here, but ok. If you are sitting in an aircraft while in controlled flight, I'd call you a pilot, certificated or not. There are plenty of certificated pilots in this world who have done much worse with better conditions.
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Pilots are trained to run a checklist and try an engine restart; to establish best glide; to find the most suitable place to land. This video did not appear to demonstrate any of those. Ultralight flyers are not necessarily trained PILOTS. They are often just ultralight flyers, and that's cool with me. Flying is flying.
 
Lachlan said:
Pilots are trained to run a checklist and try an engine restart; to establish best glide; to find the most suitable place to land. This video did not appear to demonstrate any of those. Ultralight flyers are not necessarily trained PILOTS. They are often just ultralight flyers, and that's cool with me. Flying is flying.
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I dunno if you heard that engine, but it sure sounded like something non-restartable, like a dropped valve or possible thrown rod. If I've got oil on my windscreen or I've knowingly run out of fuel, I doubt I'm trying a restart. May not be much point in attempting a restart, and we don't know what occurred prior to the start of the video. You "establish best glide" based on need. If my chosen best-landing spot is right below me, I will use any airspeed above stall that gets me there, best-glide or otherwise. I'm just saying my definition of pilot isn't limited to those who are trained/certificated. The guy looked like he handled the UL with as much authority as was necessary, and I sure wouldn't question it based off of an 83-second video clip.
 
Salty said:
In his defense, the thing did seem to slow down very quickly when he flared, so it may be a tricky beast to land without power.

View attachment 67810
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I've flown a two seat ultralight, possibly that model. They are very light and therefore have very little momentum. They are extremely draggy too. So, when you pull the power, the deceleration is pretty strong. Those guys (the fat ultralight guys) often carry power right to the flare.

The way to go, IMO, would have been to roll it on at the lowest possible airspeed, and with the elevator in the full "up" position, to help with the rollover scenario.
 
SoonerAviator said:
When the wheels touched dirt, the ASI was just a bit above the bottom of the white-arc, looked like 7-8mph above the bottom (guessing mph but who knows), so he may have had a little bit of room to hold-off/decelerate but it wasn't much.
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I notices that too. But if you watch, airspeed dropped to that lowest point almost instantly when the nose was pitched up just before touchdown. The sharp angle of attack makes me think most of that final ASI drop was more position error than actual speed reduction. I've never flown an ultralight so I could be totally wrong but it would seem that getting the ASI slowed in a more stable manner a tad bit further before touchdown and then holding it off until stall might have resulted in a less violent roll over. It would also seem that shooting for setting it on one of the multiple 2-track roads might have resulted in getting the wheels something a little more hard packed and given a better chance of staying upright through the roll out.
 
Sounds like that engine was windmilling at the start so probably was looking for a bit before vid starts. But once it locked he got it to the ground and walked away seemingly unscathed. It’s easy to armchair quarterback! I’m guilty of that. But a minute goes fast. Not sure elevation but it’s not like he had 6000’ to come up with a plan.
 
benyflyguy said:
Sounds like that engine was windmilling at the start so probably was looking for a bit before vid starts. But once it locked he got it to the ground and walked away seemingly unscathed. It’s easy to armchair quarterback! I’m guilty of that. But a minute goes fast. Not sure elevation but it’s not like he had 6000’ to come up with a plan.
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Fair point. Yeah a minute goes fast. But jeez louise how fricken long does it take to go there's an empty road right there?
 
Juliet Hotel said:
Fair point. Yeah a minute goes fast. But jeez louise how fricken long does it take to go there's an empty road right there?
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Not flying best glide robs you of time to come up with a plan.
 
Ultralights have lots of drag and little mass. So they slow down FAST when the engine quits and you push the nose way down to pick up and maintain airspeed. With all that drag, most ultralights have a much steeper glide angle than, for example, a Cessna. But you can also dive at the runway at way over normal approach speed and when you level out you slow right down, no need for flaps or slips, there's no float. Normally, you fly it right down to the runway and hold it off at about six inches until the speed bleeds off and you settle down, not at all like flaring a larger plane.
 
Zeldman said:
:lol::lol:

I found that a little humorous myself. Sort of like when I was flying over Oklahoma and the instructor asked me where I would go if the engine quit. I just said, "Down".
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I heard that. Our debates involve whether wheat, alfalfa, soy beans, or cattle pastures are the best engine out options. We don't shoot for survival, we shoot for not tearing up the wheel pants.;)

As for the video, it looks like there were multiple better options than the freshly plowed field, but you can't expect perfection in that situation. Kudos for not getting anybody dead.
 
Shawn said:
Nope...in air restart.

My ultralight is just two stroke butt fan, but even more so than GA you fly with the mindset of not if...but WHEN you engine will quit any Ultralight.
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Do you fly paramotor? I’m doing a school in December.
 
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