Emergency Procedures, exhausting

Transvection

Transvection

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Transvection
I started emergency procedures, more specifically engine out training this weekend. I find it exhausting to constantly be scanning for suitable emergency landing spots. Especially in an area where there are more trees than fields. I figure from here on out in my training, I will need to be prepared for my instructor to pull the throttle back at any moment.

Does this get easier, more engrained? I could see how you would easily slip back to a point where you don't scan that often and only deal with it if the need arises. Thoughts? thx
 
Print out the layout of your cockpit and chair fly. Reach and do everything you would for the emergency in the plane. It will help you get your muscle memory down.
 
Training for emergencies may be exhausting, but not training for them is likely fatal. ;)

Yes, it will become more 'normalized' to you. Heck, as I'm flying around VFR, I'm regularly looking for suitable potential emergency landing spots as part of my scan. I never want to be in the position of having to start looking *after* a problem occurs!
 
Transvection said:
... I figure from here on out in my training, I will need to be prepared for my instructor to pull the throttle back at any moment.
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Yea...we CFI's have a sadistic streak in us when it comes to that! :D

It'll get easier for you, and what you learn in those emergency scenarios could someday save your life. Flying an airplane when everything is rosy is the easy part. When the big fan up front stops turning or smoke fills the cabin, you'll be glad that your training will kick in to save your bacon.

Good luck and hang in there!!
 
Transvection said:
I started emergency procedures, more specifically engine out training this weekend. I find it exhausting to constantly be scanning for suitable emergency landing spots. Especially in an area where there are more trees than fields. I figure from here on out in my training, I will need to be prepared for my instructor to pull the throttle back at any moment.

Does this get easier, more engrained? I could see how you would easily slip back to a point where you don't scan that often and only deal with it if the need arises. Thoughts? thx
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I don't think you need to be constantly scanning for suitable fields unless you are in a situation where there is a problem (engine acting sick) and you expect to lose power at some point before reaching a divert field.

Unless you are cruising at 1000-1500' AGL, you will have a few seconds to scan around you if the engine quits and pick the best place to put it down. In other words, don't spend too much time while you are flying along looking for the perfect places to land. Be familiar with the area you are flying over (trees/farmland/water/mountains...etc) and when the fan stops, pick the most survivable outcome.

Generally speaking, the CFI is not going to make you actually land in a field - they just want to see that you can pick a spot and maintain control of the airplane while you prepare to put it down in that spot.

It will get easier.

FWIW, when I am usually flying the biplane in the area where you are training, I typically look for farm fields (seem to be enough of those scattered around). They may not be as long as a runway, but the idea is to land on the field and if you have to, use the trees on the end to stop you. Better to enter the trees while already on the ground at 25 mph than hit the trees in the air at 65 mph.
 
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We don't have many airports out here and since I have two GPSs in the plane, I will often put an upcoming airport in the 2nd GPS. I know how far I can glide and having the distance to a runway saves having to figure it out if something goes wrong. Yes, there is a "nearest" function, but unless you fly around with that page displayed, you don't want to waste time figuring out where you are going to go.

It's a good idea to always be looking for good places to land.
 
Thanks for the replies. I definitely think it is important and I want to be as safe as I can be. I figure it is like everything else so far, it is new so it takes more brain power. I think this was the first time that I thought maybe it is more exhausting than it is fun but I am sure it will get better.

I have worked on committing the engine out procedure to memory so hopefully that will help with the workload next time.
 
I can't remember a single flight (after some of the very early lessons) where my CFI didn't either pull the power or ask "where would you land if the engine quit now?" It taught me to be aware of what's under and around me, but didn't border on paranoia. I still ask myself that question all the time. One thing it did do was make me think twice about routes I'd plan for XCs. There are some direct routes that take you over not-so-friendly terrain, and some less direct routes that take you over much-more-friendly-terrain. It gave me some more things to consider, sometimes the not-direct routes don't add a whole lot of extra time and distance.
 
Heresy here - I do not constantly look for where to put it with an engine failure. I usually fly a 172 nowadays, and it'll go into the average driveway, flat spot, warehouse roof, parking lot, creek bed, etc. and be survivable. Probably.

If it quits, I will push NRST, while taking a hard look around. In your shoes, I'd immediately just point to someplace 30 degrees or so either side of current heading.

I might pay a little more attention at lower altitudes in nastier terrain. That's about it.

Caveat - this is my tactic (or lack of tactic) for a 172. For an airplane with significantly less capable short-field/low speed performance (bigger singles, Cirrus, etc.), maybe I'd be more tuned in.
 
Transvection said:
I started emergency procedures, more specifically engine out training this weekend. I find it exhausting to constantly be scanning for suitable emergency landing spots. Especially in an area where there are more trees than fields. I figure from here on out in my training, I will need to be prepared for my instructor to pull the throttle back at any moment.

Does this get easier, more engrained? I could see how you would easily slip back to a point where you don't scan that often and only deal with it if the need arises. Thoughts? thx
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I just have difficulty "period" selecting a potential location on the ground to land. partly because its not enough that there be no utility lines nearby or no grooves in the land(makes for very rough landing), nevermind any other unwanted feature of the land..one CFI I flew with recommended just selecting a nearby road below, but it seemed there were obstacles on either side made it seem too narrow.
 
Transvection said:
I have worked on committing the engine out procedure to memory so hopefully that will help with the workload next time.
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1. Carb heat
2. Pitch for best glide

The rest can be on your checklist, which should be close at hand.

I do a LOT of 1000 AGL flying with CAP, sometimes over rough terrain. Yes, we do look for survivable fields constantly. At 1000 AGL, you have maybe a minute before landing. You don't have the time to do much more than prep the airplane, maybe do ONE turn less than 90 deg, and land.

An emergency is a high workload situation. But you can reduce it somewhat by making rules about what you do. For instance, you don't have time to try to restart the engine if you're much below 2000 AGL.

The scan itself becomes habit rather quickly, if you do it religiously.
 
classicrock said:
I just have difficulty "period" selecting a potential location on the ground to land. partly because its not enough that there be no utility lines nearby or no grooves in the land(makes for very rough landing), nevermind any other unwanted feature of the land..one CFI I flew with recommended just selecting a nearby road below, but it seemed there were obstacles on either side made it seem too narrow.
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The point is to find a survivable emergency landing spot, not a perfect one. Once the engine quits, the airplane is trash. Your butt is not yet, so preserve it even at the cost of ripping up the airplane.

Roads often don't work that well, as it takes at least three lanes of clear space to fit a 172 wingspan.

This last Saturday, conducting search practice over heavily forested mountainous terrain, the emergency landing sites were all less than perfect. Things like a long narrow field with furrows the short way across (it will almost certainly flip us, but that sure beats hitting a tree), a shallow lake, several vineyards, etc.
 
My DPE taught me a great lesson about emergency procedures during my checkride. He pulled the throttle without warning and said "you just lost your engine". Pitched for best glide, scanned, spotted a field, figured out wind direction made a great approach to what could have been a non eventful landing and at 500' he says "nice job, but why didn't you land at the published grass strip we were right over?"...DOH!...I was so ready for an emergency off field landing I missed the obvious right in front of me!
 
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Shawn said:
My DPE taught me a great lesson about emergency procedures during my checkride. He pulled the throttle without warning and said "you just lost your engine". Scanned, spotted a field, figured out wind direction made a great approach to what could have been a non eventful landing and at 500' he says "nice job, but why didn't you land at the published grass strip we were right over?"...DOH!...I was so ready for an emergency off field landing I missed the obvious right in front of me!
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And uncharted dirt or grass strips are a lot more common than we were led to believe.
 
It's not so much a eyes in the cockpit thing, first priority is set up for the field, if you think you have extra time after that run your emergency.

A large help would be to do some backcountry work, ie landings on strips who's which aren't strips with paperwork. It's addicting and you'll always be looking for new spots, you'll also know what looks doable much faster.


Shawn said:
My DPE taught me a great lesson about emergency procedures during my checkride. He pulled the throttle without warning and said "you just lost your engine". Pitched for best glide, scanned, spotted a field, figured out wind direction made a great approach to what could have been a non eventful landing and at 500' he says "nice job, but why didn't you land at the published grass strip we were right over?"...DOH!...I was so ready for an emergency off field landing I missed the obvious right in front of me!
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DPEs love that one, if there is a "engine failure" I always look below and behind me, they looove that trick
 
Shawn said:
My DPE taught me a great lesson about emergency procedures during my checkride. He pulled the throttle without warning and said "you just lost your engine". Pitched for best glide, scanned, spotted a field, figured out wind direction made a great approach to what could have been a non eventful landing and at 500' he says "nice job, but why didn't you land at the published grass strip we were right over?"...DOH!...I was so ready for an emergency off field landing I missed the obvious right in front of me!
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My CFI did something similar. We were flying along, practicing heading, etc, when she said "oh look, Plum Island" (which was off to the right), and then pulled power.

I set up for an emergency landing in an empty parking lot along the coast. She said "that was a good place, but let me show you something better" and proceeded to point out the airport I glided away from...

lesson: when the CFI simulates an engine-out, take a look to the right and right rear to see if the CFI had a particular spot in mind.
 
I have essentially the opposite challenge in the training area I use for my students. We're in central Oklahoma. At any time on any normal training flight, there are literally hundreds of potential, safe landing sites. Sometimes it becomes a "paralysis of choice": well, that one looks pretty good...no wait, that one's a little better...ooh, the one over there doesn't have the furrows across our landing direction...wait, now THAT one...

At some point I have to tell the student to just pick a landing site and go with it (and not pass by an acceptable landing site looking for one that's perfect). In other locations with more limited options, sometimes you just have to take what you have and make the best of it.
 
MAKG1 said:
1. Carb heat
2. Pitch for best glide

The rest can be on your checklist, which should be close at hand.
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I do things in the order that will save my bacon. Carb heat isn't near #1 on the list.

1 best glide

2 head towards best landing area

3 time permitting, quick trouble shoot flow for engine (carb heat would be in here if equipped)

4 if restart not successful, land.


If you have a EHSI or similar, always populate it with airports and select your range ring to your glide range based on altitude, makes that initial turn to a airport that much easer and faster.
 
James331 said:
I do things in the order that will save my bacon. Carb heat isn't near #1 on the list.

1 best glide

2 head towards best landing area

3 time permitting, quick trouble shoot flow for engine (carb heat would be in here if equipped)

4 if restart not successful, land.


If you have a EHSI or similar, always populate it with airports and select your range ring to your glide range based on altitude, makes that initial turn to a airport that much easer and faster.
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This is always an item for debate.

The engine will cool very quickly with no fuel burn and a windmilling prop. If you want to be able to use carb heat, it has to be used quickly. If you're so low that doesn't matter, it's not useful then.

It only takes half a second to yank it and it can be done at the same time as adjusting pitch and turning to the previously identified emergency landing site. It will be a LOT more effective than if you try it a minute later. And it's item #2 in the carbureted 182 POH (at least past model P).
 
James331 said:
I do things in the order that will save my bacon. Carb heat isn't near #1 on the list.

1 best glide

2 head towards best landing area

3 time permitting, quick trouble shoot flow for engine (carb heat would be in here if equipped)

4 if restart not successful, land.
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Depending on the symptoms of the failure, I'd probably add 'switch tanks' in between your number 1 and 2.
 
Practicing spot landings might be good - knowing you can plant it on a short, but survivable flat spot. I did pay a little more attention at 1,000' AGL when flying CAP, but honestly, not a lot more. But again, those were 172s and 182s, and I'd be touching down very slow, even if going into the trees, etc., if it came to that.
 
Aviate and navigate.

Pitching for best glide and pointing yourself in the general
direction of salvation will keep you alive. It also takes but a few seconds,
Not enough time to effect engine diagnostics.

So far after 2 full engine failures it's worked great for me, haven't even scratched any paint.
 
If I learned anything,it was ,always know where your going to ( crash ) land when everything goes wrong,in all phases of flight.
 
Shawn said:
My DPE taught me a great lesson... he says "nice job, but why didn't you land at the published grass strip we were right over?"...DOH!
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I've always wondered - What's the lesson? What's the takeaway?:dunno:

Are CFI's trying to teach students to look all around and underneath before committing to an emergency landing spot, to teach students that they should be aware of published landing strips, or to teach students that the DPE might do the same "sneaky" thing on the practical?
 
It will get easier and more automatic to you. I still scan regularly while flying and matter of fact Ill ask my self what if it quite right now, what would I do. Now that I fly IFR that throws a wrench into it. Above a cloud layer or in the clouds, you are trusting your engine completely.

My instructor always said use the ABC's...

A...Airspeed
B...Best place to land
C...Checklist

I own my own plane so flying the same plane all the time really helps with emergency management because I know my plane well. But honestly in my plane in an instant I'm going full rich, carb heat and switch tanks. it takes no time for all that. Hopefully I'm never put to the test though.

How many engine failures happen without any warning? I mean none, flying along with all instrumentation in the green one second and quiet the next? James, what was the cause of your two failures and was there any indication prior to it?
 
MAKG1 said:
And uncharted dirt or grass strips are a lot more common than we were led to believe.
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The number of times during training that I wound up picking an undocumented farm field was eye opening. It seems like they're everywhere in east Texas.
 
DesertNomad said:
We don't have many airports out here and since I have two GPSs in the plane, I will often put an upcoming airport in the 2nd GPS. I know how far I can glide and having the distance to a runway saves having to figure it out if something goes wrong. Yes, there is a "nearest" function, but unless you fly around with that page displayed, you don't want to waste time figuring out where you are going to go.



It's a good idea to always be looking for good places to land.
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If you have ForeFlight, you can configure the fixed boxes on the bottom of the map to always show NRST.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I took a new pilot who had been trained to scan for emergency landing spots flying in the backcountry. It was annoying having him constantly looking and wondering where to land instead of looking where to fly.

More important to cross ridges correctly and fly canyons correctly than concentrating on emergency landings.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Its a lot easier to land off field in a large field than spot land at an airport. Even for pilots that are seasoned. Not saying it cant be done but I say go for the biggest flatest non treed thing you've got.

I just fly a base along the edge of the field until Im about 200 AGL, then turn and land.
 
More immediate, not more important.

You have to do both. And crossing ridges correctly is part of the emergency planning.

An engine failure over hostile terrain requires more careful planning and identification if anything.
 
Do your best to commit what you can to memory, depending on the situation, you might not have time for any restart procedures, you will just have to put it down. My instructor would pull the throttle back and say "engine out" ALL THE TIME... It used to drive me nuts, especially when I was not so comfortable with it. By the time I took my check ride, I had done it so many times it wasn't that big of a deal.

I'm very grateful for all those engine outs. Because let's be honest, a lot of us GA guys likely won't fly more than single engine, and guess what, when that spinning thing in front of you gives up, you don't have a lot of options.

Oddly enough my instructor and I were talking about that same thing this morning (he is now teaching my instrument flying). He just turned 70 yesterday, and has had 6 different engine failures over the years, and had to put two air planes down. So when someone like him teaches me the importance of emergency landings, you can bet I am going to pay attention.

When the engine quits, go for best glide, pick a reasonably survivable spot and fly the plane there. The more altitude the more time to try to restart. Like others have said, carb heat first and go from there as time allows.
 
Mostly situational awareness. At the end of the day in an emergency you land where you can land, but yeah you should know if there's an airport right near you.
 
JoseCuervo said:
If you have ForeFlight, you can configure the fixed boxes on the bottom of the map to always show NRST.
Click to expand...

That's cool! How do you enable it? I looked in options, and I can't find how to turn that on?
 
Yes they can be exhausting. And they are necessary but there are ways to mitigate the mental strain.

Constantly scanning the ground for specific landing sites is probably too much. But I still think about engine-outs a lot while flying. I don't constantly scan the ground but I have a sort of mental concept of what I'd do and what I'd be looking for depending on the terrain, rather than constantly scanning for a specific place to land. I think piston single pilots do this a lot but it becomes pretty second nature after a while.

As I fly across different terrain, I do look down a periodically and just imagine where I'd actually set it down. When you're in cruise you have time to do this.

When I'm in cruise I kind of keep a mental idea of how high I am and how far I could glide, in nautical miles, from that height (more advanced aircraft can do this for you). As I fly along I periodically note whether there are any airports within glide range. There is far more terrain that is NOT an airport than an airport. So I'm thinking straight roads (love those long straight section/county roads out west) or cultivated fields. Ditching in a lake is preferable to smashing into rocks or buildings. Above all, fly the airplane to the point of impact; (i.e., do your best not to stall/spin because that is almost always fatal).

But yeah in training, that engine quits a LOT so just develop protocols and general principles for each phase of flight. Your options increase with altitude.

Jump on Google Maps or Earth and check the area around your airport. For takeoff failures below, say, 500 agl, you're not turning back. Look for golf courses - there's often a golf course somewhere near short final. There are other possibilities too that you might be able to see on Google Earth.

Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. In an engine-out, the first two matter far more than the third.
 
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simtech said:
It will get easier and more automatic to you. I still scan regularly while flying and matter of fact Ill ask my self what if it quite right now, what would I do. Now that I fly IFR that throws a wrench into it. Above a cloud layer or in the clouds, you are trusting your engine completely.

My instructor always said use the ABC's...

A...Airspeed
B...Best place to land
C...Checklist

I own my own plane so flying the same plane all the time really helps with emergency management because I know my plane well. But honestly in my plane in an instant I'm going full rich, carb heat and switch tanks. it takes no time for all that. Hopefully I'm never put to the test though.

How many engine failures happen without any warning? I mean none, flying along with all instrumentation in the green one second and quiet the next? James, what was the cause of your two failures and was there any indication prior to it?
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And there's one more:

D - Declare emergency on 121.5 (or ATC, if you're talking to them) and squak 7700.

In training my CFI's tried to instill in me the fact that a pilot should always be aware of where they are and should have an idea of any airports/fields in the vicinity they can land on, and should scan every few minutes for a potential landing spot when flying over unknown areas.
 
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