Ed Haywood
Final Approach
Did he chop the throttle or cut off the mixture? I've read there is a significant difference in glide performance, but I've never seen it quantified.
Mooney down, 3 dead Nampa, Id. Impossible turn?
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Did he chop the throttle or cut off the mixture? I've read there is a significant difference in glide performance, but I've never seen it quantified.
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And I'm sure you didn't pull back on the stick and increase angle of attack while turning. Instead, you let the rate of descent increase to whatever was needed to maintain airspeed, with the ball centered, before rolling out at the desired flying airspeed.
Ed Haywood
Final Approach
Been there, done that. Yes, that is how it happens. Very very fast. Checklist out the window.
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Like to reinforce that the WTF fluster factor, during the initial climb out is significant.
Only had one off airport landing due to an engine issue in over 50 years of flying singles, and it was a sudden and unexpected event from a 2000' altitude. Super rough, couldn't hold altitude, but the surprise factor was more of being mad, versus flustered. Probably due to the time it took to decelerate and only then realize it wouldn't hold altitude. The reasonably low rate of descent left time to establish a glide, get a good look around, then ultimately turn towards the most survivable section of land.
Had a few engine issues at cross country altitudes with enough power remaining to hold altitude and find an airport to land... easy peezy, doubt the heart rate increased too much. Plenty of time to communicate and instruct ATC that no, we're not descending as instructed, but coming overhead the airport to spiral down and land on whatever runway they prefer. No arguments from them.
The most rattled and flustered, by far, was a departure to the southeast from the Northeast Philadelphia Airport where the engine suddenly went real rough while passing near the end of the runway and climbing somewhere between 300' and 400'. When they say a pilot needs some time to sort it out and react, believe it. Like throwing a wallet at a barking dog, the brain instantly changes gears as the adrenaline kicks into "fight or flight" mode the moment the plane begins shaking.
Out front there was nothing but city streets, rooftops and little back yards. As the nose came down I began scanning the neighborhood in the windscreen, looking out front for a place to plant it, fully expecting it to quit at the next nanosecond. Realizing it hadn't quit, and there weren't any houses, backyards or city streets that looked better than another, made a relatively gentle left turn back towards the northeast quadrant of the airport.
Once in a position to reduce the remaining power, landed on another runway, about halfway down it to stay close. Don't know if it would have held altitude or not, but it was what it was. It happened quick. And all visual.
Pumping the throttle to taxi back to the FBO, discovered a small group of pilots standing outside the FBO that heard the engine go rough. One guy said "we thought you were still headed out". Apparently, the fluster factor, combined with the search out front, delayed their expectation of an immediate impossible turn enough to where he was wondering what's taking so long. But if/when a similar low altitude situation like this one happens again, I'd probably do the same thing.
Ed Haywood
Final Approach
Yes, 100% agree. It does not happen like you imagine it will. WTF factor is huge and not to be underestimated.
I had fuel exhaustion due to venting cap. Bone dry and it still ran off/on for 30 seconds.
If CFI's really wanted to train to reality, they would start randomly moving the throttle around or flipping the mags off and on while saying "that's weird, WTF is happening?"
You're 100% correct, but isn't the "push the nose down" really just a quick memory item way to help students mostly, but also some less experienced pilots to not pull back when they feel or see the climb performance fading? One my first few training flights, I really struggled with remembering to hold the throttle in. I think my CFI gave me about 3 take offs before he started backing out the throttle every time I forgot. It definitely took me some hours to wire my brain to recognize why we weren't climbing as a power loss and not some miscontrol on my part. I think it can be really natural and also really dangerous that a new pilot would continue to apply more back pressure when their climb performance doesn't seem right and it seems like a not particularly harmful mental checklist to say if my engine is failing, get the nose down. The applying more back pressure while processing what is going on is what kills. I can't imagine anyone thinks this means to firewall it.
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This was done more often many years ago. Like soloing in under 10 hours.
My primary instructor shut the C-150 engine down by (I imagine) turning off the fuel selector on downwind abeam the numbers. Prop stopped cold, and he instructed me to land it. We were coming up short and with a few hundred feet (or less) of altitude on final he said start it up. I needed two hands to pull a real stiff old starter (no key) type T-Handle to crank the starter. I pulled, he took over and worked fuel and throttle, it started, he blasted some power and landed it, barely making it to the runway.
A great learning experience, but it could have gone wrong, too. I was his first student. He was a brand new CFI, recently returned from flying 101 missions over Viet Nam in F-105 Thuds. Now in the USAF reserves screening ROTC cadets. Different world back then.
bonefishpete
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45 degree turn at 600’ or less engine out is a big nope for me.
ateamer
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Pulled the throttle. I don’t know how much residual thrust there is at idle. I did many, many power off 180s to land in my -8A with a constant speed. I know that with that prop when the blades go flat it’s like a brake, so the fixed pitch might glide better at idle and the CS might more closely replicate a stopped prop.
When I went to a Cessna with a STOL kit, my patterns and landings were a mess - lots of runway left behind before finally touching down.
ateamer
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Exactly. Trying to hold altitude will bleed the speed off in a heartbeat. Pitch for Vg and accept the descent. And stay coordinated - you can’t spin if the ball is centered.
Ed Haywood
Final Approach
That's fair, but I've seen it carried too far. Have seen several people state on this board that if you do not quickly push the nose down, you will stall. That indicates a lack of understanding of aerodynamics, in particular AoA.
idahoflier
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What were the conditions like Density Altitude and surrounding area?
ateamer
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Florida, August, 20’ MSL, DA about 2000. Wonderful conditions for sitting under a bubble canopy.
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I beat it in my head repeatedly on departure. Loss of power?
PUSH-PUSH-PUSH
We should all know what our plan is when departing home plate.
Assuming this was their home base as the plane is registered to a location 20 miles from Nampa
PUSH-PUSH-PUSH
We should all know what our plan is when departing home plate.
Assuming this was their home base as the plane is registered to a location 20 miles from Nampa
tobnpr
Pre-takeoff checklist
I spend a fair amount of time (4-6 hours/week) in my X-Plane VR simulator, often utilizing its ability to generate random (or specifically programmed- such as engine out at 500' agl) "events".
Pinecone
Final Approach
The impossible turn is a engine out situation. So hard to fly level or climb with no power.
Partial power situation is totally different. It allows options.
Yes, it could have a kid or door open, but those are also not impossible turn scenarios.
If you can maintain level flight, you may do a shallow turn with little or no altitude loss, allowing a lot more option.
Clip4
Touchdown! Greaser!
I hope you never have to prove your theory in a real situation with a >12 kt crosswind off a short runway with an obstacle.
Pinecone
Final Approach
Not my experience.
I had an exhaust valve stick right after take off in a C-172. Vibration yes, very violent NO.
I was able to slightly climb. I started to turn to return when it cleared itself. I flew home hop scotching to stay within gliding distance of airports.
rockwoodrv9a
Pre-takeoff checklist
I have flown out of Nampa KMAN many times. I restarted my flying lessons there several years ago. There are not a lot of places to put it down using 29. What a sad story.
Depends what ELT you have. But frankly, if you handle the emergency landing right, it won't be tripped.
idahoflier
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O-300, O-320 or O-360?
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Interstate 84 would be my go to location, if possible. Keep enough energy (airspeed) in reserve to fly past the last vehicle you pass, and land in front of it. Landing in-between vehicles has saved a lot of pilots over the years.
My home base has farm fields north and east adjacent to the airport, big and beautiful year round. One late afternoon hot day (calm winds) I was riding along in the right front seat of an older and lower horsepower Mooney (M20C), with another pilot seated in back. The three of us were headed out to an airport restaurant for dinner. Taking off on runway 31 (4100' long), I thought the runway roll felt a little slow, but everything else felt and sounded normal. Figured it was a hot day and we had 3 adults on board (one big guy), so I wasn't expecting normal performance.
Just after lift off, it wasn't climbing as much as I expected, but the owner pilot didn't seemed concerned as he quickly retracted the gear with the Johnson Bar. Only then did the three of us start talking (paraphrasing), "hey, this doesn't seem right, we're barely climbing. Let's go back and land".
During our conversation we were passed over the end of the runway, over a busy road, at no more than 100' or 200' feet high, tops. But it was still climbing, barely, with no vibrations, and sounding completely normal.
As the owner began talking to the tower to announce a return I was sticking my left hand in his windshield with my thumb pointed right, and motioning to the right. Which would have kept the aircraft over nothing but farms on downwind, right base, and final, then landing onto runway 26. By keeping the downwind tight the engine could have quit and a right turn would be on the airport, somewhere. But, the owner wanted back quickly, and turned left to land on runway 8.
During the left turn there was nothing but houses and neighborhoods, and a return over the busy two lane highway with rush hour traffic backed up. Not exactly my choice, but thankfully the engine kept running.
Turned out one cam lobe was completely gone, and the engine went right out for a rebuild at around 1000 hours from the last rebuild.
You are very quick to be offended for someone that states some grossly wrong facts here. I actually took the time to go try out your brilliant idea, so we can dismantle it with proper, fresh facts.
Here's what you are saying, in a thread about a plane that might've attempted an "impossible" turn, where we are discussing handling a low altitude engine out emergency:
I trimmed the plane fully aft, with power at idle. This is a picture of the airspeed indicator:
You are right at the edge of the green arc, stall horn yelling at you. But you're trying to tell me that it's "nearly impossible to stall", when the plane is trimmed literally at the published stall speed in the clean configuration, with minimum effort required to pitch it up into a proper stall. Oh, and that's the LEVEL stall speed. Now attempt a sensible turn from that configuration, while not allowing the sink rate to develop to something that will cut your glide time in half.
If I fly at best climb speed and the engine quits, without some positive pitch intervention the airplane will continue climbing and bleeding speed, getting rather close to the edge of the green arc before the nose finally drops enough for the speed to pick up. Meanwhile, you're in a low speed situation, where a stall might develop a lot quicker, where the drag is higher, further reducing the glide time and distance available, and a plane that's not actively managed in pitch will enter a phugoid that will take a few cycles to dampen. Most likely it won't have time to dampen in the altitude available for the scenarios we've been discussing so far.
Or you could actively position the nose, quickly but not in a manhandling way, to the best glide speed. Not wasting time and energy allowing the plane to slow down to pretty much stall speed before it speeds up again. Nobody (but you) is talking about developing negative Gs in the process.
Here's a good quote from an older thread on trim and best glide set-up:
This is the article in question: https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media...ight-training-magazine/the-minimum-trim-glide
It has some bad statements that have probably propagated a lot in the almost 20 years since its publication.
My actual numbers matched @brcase's statement quite well. About 800 fpm sink rate at best glide (85), and probably closer to 1000 fpm at full aft trim (70, clean stall speed). You'll get almost 50% more glide distance by flying at the published best glide speed vs doing that aberration of a "trim full aft because you can't stall" maneuver.
And that's the problem with your statements.
You start by mixing up 172 and 182 data. Then you state that you don't see the point of doing proper performance climbs (some slight paraphrasing here), instead climbing at some anemic rate that absolutely puts the airplane in a bad spot.
Then you come up with this brilliant idea about the first thing to do in an engine failure being trimming the plane full aft. Wasting 3-5 seconds in the process, out of the 35 or so that you might have available if the engine fails at low altitude. While also placing the aircraft literally at the edge of the envelope, where it won't take much for that stall to develop. And drastically reducing the glide distance available.
You have CFI-I in your profile. Some fresh pilot might come here and read the stuff you posted, and then try to use it in a real emergency. Chances are he will badly hurt or kill himself in the process. I won't allow that to happen.
And that's why I called you out on those statements. You might be offended by how I worded it, but (as you saw from my initial reply to you, when I challenged your runway and altitude required numbers) I tried to have a polite conversation. You persisted in making dangerous statements. The only way that I can see someone make such statements is if he's never flown those maneuvers for real. You fly it once and it's readily apparent that it's a bad idea.