Bo down Pembroke Pines, FL

steingar said:
But if I don't complete the turn, things aren't going to be any worse.
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This is the flaw in your logic. If you do not complete the turn, you are going to impact when and where you run out of altitude, regardless of what obstacles are there. You give up the chance to select the most suitable location and heading for a crash landing. That is, if you do not drop a wing trying to stretch that last bit of glide, or clip a wire or palm tree you did not see until the last minute.

If you are below your minimum turn back altitude and you decide to land straight ahead, then you have more time to pick the least hazardous impact point, and put yourself on a glide path most likely to contact the ground under control.
 
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To illustrate my point, let's look closer at this situation. Note that SW 9th Street is directly lined up with runway 10L.

runway.JPG

Here is a point on SW 9th Street approx 1500 feet from the edge of the airport. Note there is a segment of road approx 750' long without large trees over the road.

overhead.JPG

So let's take a closer look. Image below is from Google street view, standing under the trees at the zero mark above, looking east on SW 9th Street. What do you see, or rather not see? NO POWER LINES OR LIGHT POLES. The east-west power lines are run between the rows of houses, so the road is unobstructed except for some smaller palms set back from the road.

street view.JPG

I dare say most pilots could drop flaps, gear, and do a steep approach to put wheels on pavement in that 750' segment of straight road. It might not be pretty after that, but your odds of survival are a heck of a lot better than if you attempt a 180, only make 179, drop a wing or clip a tree trying to milk the turn, and cartwheel out of control.
 
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PaulS said:
I think it's better to train to maintain the airspeed, but your method could work. The only issue I see is that some SE airplanes, especially those with a lot of horsepower, generate a lot of heat. On warmer days, you can turn cylinders into molten blobs flying Vx or even Vy for any extended period of time.
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Yes, but we are only talking 0-1000' AGL. I would assume most high HP airplanes can reach that quickly - as opposed to my anemic C150.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
You want a prize or something? Not sure what your point is in replying.
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Pointing out the folly of generalization. You said, "no reason anyone should be flying around out of trim in any phase of flight." I'm pointing out that I do this all the time and don't see a safety impact. My plane doesn't have cockpit-adjustable trim.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Tarheelpilot said:
I just figured it was obvious your airplane wasn’t relevant. Only aircraft that need elevator trim have it installed. No different than rudder trim. Plenty of small GA aircraft running around with trim for pitch and nothing for rudder because their flight envelope and excess power don’t need it for safe flight. You want me to be more specific I’m happy to oblige. There is no excuse for anyone with pitch trim installed to fly out of trim.

There are aircraft that can not be rotated and flown if the trim is improperly set. Yours isn’t one of them so I’m still not sure what you are on about.
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I swear my underpowered C150 has a bunch of right rudder baked into it (no rudder trim tab) because more often than not, I need more left rudder on low power settings than I do need right rudder at high power.

So it begs the question, why are there so many stall spin accidents if elevator trim alone without pilot input will quickly and correctly re-pitch the aircraft to maintain the desired speed in the event of an engine failure? It seems like a no-brainer to climb out at a Vy trim setting and be taught to not fight the yoke if there is an engine failure. What am I missing and why is it not mentioned? Is it because there is a difference between full power and no power trim to maintain the same airspeed? We are taught that trim is independent of power, but maybe only in the range of cruise power, not 100-0.

Same thing applies to seat rail failures, but there is a strong tendency to grab the yoke to prevent sliding back, not much can stop that reaction and there are seat stops that are cheap and easily installed that can mitigate that potential.
 
Matthew Rogers said:
So it begs the question, why are there so many stall spin accidents if elevator trim alone without pilot input will quickly and correctly re-pitch the aircraft to maintain the desired speed in the event of an engine failure? It seems like a no-brainer to climb out at a Vy trim setting and be taught to not fight the yoke if there is an engine failure. What am I missing and why is it not mentioned?

Same thing applies to seat rail failures, but there is a strong tendency to grab the yoke to prevent sliding back,
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During an engine failure, there is also a strong tendency to grab the yoke to prevent pointing the nose at the houses...
 
flyingcheesehead said:
During an engine failure, there is also a strong tendency to grab the yoke to prevent pointing the nose at the houses...
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Agreed, so that is what training is for. Train the first reaction to be some other important part of the process and let the trim handle the airspeed. Step one - pick a place to land (although I guess this should already be chosen before takeoff, but maybe a verbal confirmation "engine failure - land straight ahead"). Step two - grab the yoke and get the airplane to fly there. During step one the trim pitches the plane down to a proper attitude and airspeed and you already have your landing spot chosen
 
idahoflier said:
OK, then this is more or less what I thought you were alluding to. More training will always be helpful, but to what degree it moves the needle on fatal accidents is debatable. Taking a flight check and expecting problems is one thing, but facing those problems when they're unexpected (which is the vast majority of GA accidents) is another. Hopefully the training guides the pilot to a successful outcome, but if panic and denial take hold all bets are off.
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There's no "hopefully" about it. That's the part you didn't seem to accept in your response to @Salty 's original post, and makes you sceptical of the outcomes of proper training. Professional commercial airline pilots have a consistently lower accident rate than the private pilot cohort. The rigorous training is one of the important contributing factors to that outcome. There's no debate about that. The statistics are irrefutable.

The training statistics are equally irrefutable in the industrial world as well.
I'll use the example of fatal accidents in sour gas production and processing operations.
Sour gas contains H2S, a particularly deadly poisonous gas. At 1 part per million H2S has a strong rotten egg smell. At 150 ppm (that's a pretty low concentration) it destroys the sense of smell almost instantly...so you don't even know you are inhaling it. At >500 ppm it causes immediate loss of consciousness, and without external intervention that is followed by rapid death. The operations I supervised in the mid 1980s had H2S gas concentrations between 21% and 33% (%, not ppm!). In the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s the industry H2S fatality record was abysmal. We even had multiple instances where a worker was knocked down and the safety man panicked, charged in to save his co-worker without completely donning his own PPE, resulting in a double fatality. This led to a collaborative and comprehensive industry wide effort to develop and implement more rigorous procedures and repetitive training and certifications. The change was dramatic. We haven't have a single H2S fatality in the regulatory jurisdictions I work in for more than 30 years.

Another example. Take a look at the fatal accident rate for the CAPS equipped Cirrus airplanes up to 2010 (if you don't know, it was double the GA average). Then Cirrus implemented a comprehensive pilot training program, largely to attack and solve this problem. Have a look at the dramatic change in the fatal accident rate since. The training outcome statistics are irrefutable.

Of course training won't guarantee that a person/pilot won't panic and still take the wrong action, but the probabilities can be reduced considerably with effective and repetitive training. I am "hopeful" the above examples might cause more of us to reconsider and take advantage of the value of quality recurrent pilot training.
 
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Ed Haywood said:
To illustrate my point, let's look closer at this situation. Note that SW 9th Street is directly lined up with runway 10L.
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Nice analysis. I have looked generally at my home airport in the past, but with Google Earth, I think we could all do this in more detail at out home drones.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Nice analysis. I have looked generally at my home airport in the past, but with Google Earth, I think we could all do this in more detail at out home drones.
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I am lucky in that my airstrip is immediately parallel to the interstate, separated only by 50’ of grass and a few hangars. So either direction, the out is landing on the interstate (or median if available). Otherwise it is in the trees. There are a few weekend days where the traffic is bumper to bumper, so those days are not the best but viewable from each end before takeoff, and most others, I assume my C150 can approach at the 75 mph highway speed and fit myself in.
 
GRG55 said:
Of course training won't guarantee that a person/pilot won't panic and still take the wrong action
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Exactly! This is the point I was trying to make. I never said training doesn't work or is a waste of time. I just don't think it will eliminate these accidents.

The accident rates may be lower but ATP's with lots of experience still have accidents in GA aircraft. And that is also irrefutable...

P.S. I have a buddy that runs a nash plant so I have heard a lot about the dangers of H2S and the safety training involved...
 
steingar said:
Just about every take off I do is over heavily congested neighborhoods. I suppose if the mill quit and there's field in front of me I'll go straight in. But if I'm taking off from home base I'm going to try and do the turn. I'll keep the turn coming as far s I can and straighten it out before I clip a wing on the ground. My thinking is that even if I can't do the turn, odds are whatever I wind up landing in won't be any worse than if I went straight. And if I can make the turn I'm going to have a much easier time of it.
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In these pinned in airports like yours or the one in this example, why not plan to fly the pattern and exit after the downwind leg? At least you'd be maneuvering for TPA and not leave the departure end too far behind you. If you make it to the crosswind turn, you're only a 90 deg. turn away from bringing it back to the runway environment.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
I just figured it was obvious your airplane wasn’t relevant. Only aircraft that need elevator trim have it installed.
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That's certainly not true. Lots of planes have controllable trim that you can largely ignore. In fact, the Taylorcraft it's someone worthless and in the one I flew it would reset itself back to a neutral position on its own (not by design). I largely ignored the 150/152 trim because you can easily throw that plane wherever you want it.
 
exncsurfer said:
In these pinned in airports like yours or the one in this example, why not plan to fly the pattern and exit after the downwind leg? At least you'd be maneuvering for TPA and not leave the departure end too far behind you. If you make it to the crosswind turn, you're only a 90 deg. turn away from bringing it back to the runway environment.
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That's a good idea.
 
flyingron said:
That's certainly not true. Lots of planes have controllable trim that you can largely ignore. In fact, the Taylorcraft it's someone worthless and in the one I flew it would reset itself back to a neutral position on its own (not by design). I largely ignored the 150/152 trim because you can easily throw that plane wherever you want it.
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Agreed for the 150. I leave the trim nose down on approach (cruise setting) so that I have to pull back a little. That way if I get distracted on base, the plane wants to keep airspeed high as opposed to trying to get closer to stall speed. It is also easier for a go around, and still plenty easy to flare.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Nice analysis. I have looked generally at my home airport in the past, but with Google Earth, I think we could all do this in more detail at out home drones.
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Thanks. Can also drive by potential sites on your way to/from the airport. This accident has motivated me to research my options better.
 
exncsurfer said:
In these pinned in airports like yours or the one in this example, why not plan to fly the pattern and exit after the downwind leg? At least you'd be maneuvering for TPA and not leave the departure end too far behind you. If you make it to the crosswind turn, you're only a 90 deg. turn away from bringing it back to the runway environment.
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My airport is towered. I think ATC would take a dim view of me orbiting the pattern every time I take off. That said, not a bad idea at all for an untoward airport.
 
Matthew Rogers said:
Agreed for the 150. I leave the trim nose down on approach (cruise setting) so that I have to pull back a little. That way if I get distracted on base, the plane wants to keep airspeed high as opposed to trying to get closer to stall speed. It is also easier for a go around, and still plenty easy to flare.
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I played around with trim in the pattern in a 182. You can set trim for takeoff and not touch it at any point thru landing, controlling the plane mostly with throttle. The plane flew better than when I constantly fiddled with trim.

To connect this back to the original topic so Tarheel doesn't jump on me, I don't think a lot of pilots understand that their takeoff trim marking is not arbitrary. Per Aviation Safety magazine:

"In many light airplanes, the takeoff trim setting approximates “hands off” flying at VX speed in the takeoff configuration."

If you are trimmed for takeoff and have ANY back pressure, then you are below Vx and thus approaching a stall. Best glide is generally between Vx and Vy, so takeoff trim is a good starting point for an engine out situation.
 
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Tarheelpilot said:
Oh. This is cool. So the entire discussion is about engine failure after takeoff but now you want to discuss landings as well.
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I suppose it's no worse than making an absolute statement like "there is no reason anyone should be flying around out of trim in any phase of flight" and then getting all cranky when someone points out that there really is a reason. :D
 
donjohnston said:
I suppose it's no worse than making an absolute statement like "there is no reason anyone should be flying around out of trim in any phase of flight" and then getting all cranky when someone points out that there really is a reason. :D
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This almost begs the question, can an airplane with no trim, be out of trim? (Ducks head waiting for the manual trim tab pedants to chime in, lol. )
 
wanttaja said:
Pointing out the folly of generalization. You said, "no reason anyone should be flying around out of trim in any phase of flight." I'm pointing out that I do this all the time and don't see a safety impact. My plane doesn't have cockpit-adjustable trim.

Ron Wanttaja
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Your point is valid, but your example is poor IMO. If 30% of the existing GA fleet were not equipped with cockpit-adjustable trim, you'd have a great point AND and a great example. But I'd dare say less than 5% of the GA fleet lacks cockpit-adjustable trim. If someone said everyone should take the stairs to get extra exercise does it really need to be pointed out to anyone that people in wheel chairs can't take the stairs? Isn't that obvious?
 
It is a tall order to fly perfectly to the crash site. But it’s flatly necessary!

This happened to me, loss of power at about 150’ headed into houses, buildings and wires...

I wound up doing the deed, turned back!

But I didn’t realize it. Turns out I simply kept burying the nose and taking what I could. In my efforts to simply not quit flying, I kept looking for optimal well below the tree tops and found it. Landed in a small tree lined field full of cows. Had to dodge a few trees, hop a fence line, was a little too Red Bull air racing than I cared for, but NOTHING got damaged. Granted there had to be a little divine intervention! But had I given up and stalled, the odds were 100% something was gonna break.

My priorities were simple, stay 20’ away from EVERYTHING, and the only way to control that is with airspeed, so keep that until I’m on the ground.

Even after touchdown I used what I could to avoid a cow feeder and a couple cows. I literally kept controlling until I was STOPPED.

A very experienced parachutist recently told me he CANNOT freefall unstable. Kind of like I can’t spontaneously fall down while walking, I simply have too much experience to do that. My only explanation for what happened is that I simply couldn’t stall accidentally. I never once looked at the airspeed. I simply flew by feel and had my head on a swivel!

I don’t have that much practice engine out in a small plane. You don’t practice engine out in a military jet or airliner. But I think about it constantly. I guess I’ve trained myself to FLY all the way to the scene. It’s the only thing you got.

Tools
 
Tarheelpilot said:
Oh. This is cool. So the entire discussion is about engine failure after takeoff but now you want to discuss landings as well.
.
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Umm, well yes, exactly. My original point/question was about takeoffs and trimming for a non-stall airspeed (Vy or Vx) and letting the airplane keep the speed constant.

Also, unless I am mistaken, but don’t all engine failures result in a landing? I would like to see how you can discuss an engine failure and resultant crash without talking about landing.

Let’s assume you could have a plane that had a safety feature that detected an engine failure and pre-set trim or the elevator to maintain a set airspeed automatically and had a detent on the yoke that you could overcome, but only with a non-trivial amount of force. The pilot could then concentrate on steering the plane towards the landing spot until they need to adjust airspeed away from best glide and takeover airspeed control. It is like a stick shaker in that you have to consciously make a decision to override the elevator control, but could be easier to implement with a mechanical mechanism. Possibly part of the trim system and it is set up on takeoff and you deactivate it after passing through 1000’.

Literally just brain storming here - you know the process that has created most great inventions out there, and also come up with a lot of crappy ideas as well.
 
I've had two engine failures, one immediately after takeoff and did the "impossible" turn back and one in cruise flight. Even the one in cruise flight I didn't have time to worry about trimming things for the descent. I got the plane to best glide with the yoke hand held it there while I identified the field. Since I knew I could make the chosen field distance wise, my biggest concern was making sure I set my self up so I'd be pointed in the right direction when I got down close to the ground. I essentially circled until I could make a normal base-to-final approach.

If you don't think my trim points are relevant, why did you bring them up in response to RonW? The assertion that "if the plane has controllable trim, it is required to use it" is patently absurd.
 
Ed Haywood said:
To illustrate my point, let's look closer at this situation. Note that SW 9th Street is directly lined up with runway 10L.

View attachment 94735

Here is a point on SW 9th Street approx 1500 feet from the edge of the airport. Note there is a segment of road approx 750' long without large trees over the road.

View attachment 94732

So let's take a closer look. Image below is from Google street view, standing under the trees at the zero mark above, looking east on SW 9th Street. What do you see, or rather not see? NO POWER LINES OR LIGHT POLES. The east-west power lines are run between the rows of houses, so the road is unobstructed except for some smaller palms set back from the road.

View attachment 94734

I dare say most pilots could drop flaps, gear, and do a steep approach to put wheels on pavement in that 750' segment of straight road. It might not be pretty after that, but your odds of survival are a heck of a lot better than if you attempt a 180, only make 179, drop a wing or clip a tree trying to milk the turn, and cartwheel out of control.
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Until you meet a school bus full of elementary school children heading down the street in the opposite direction. Don't forget the full tanks, now. It's so easy to second guess. As bad as the result was, it could have been worse.

Bad things happen. Not every risk can be avoided without totally abandoning the activity.

That said, one thing we can do if there is anything out of the ordinary about the takeoff is to sidestep a little. That can make the impossible turn possible.
 
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Palmpilot said:
It's been mathematically proven that 45 degrees of bank provides the least amount of altitude loss in the turn.

For the derivation, see "The Possible 'Impossible' Turn," which can be accessed through this Web page:

http://www.nar-associates.com/technical-flying/technical_flying.html
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It's been proven for a steady turn, but that derivation doesn't account for getting to the optimal speed, nor does it include maneuvering to get into and out of the turn or to get to a desired touchdown point for an engine-out landing. The end result is something that may or may not look like a 45 deg angle of bank steady turn, and is documented in other papers that turn up when doing a literature search on the subject. ;)

Nauga,
OTIS driver
 
Honestly, about trim, I can't think of the last time I consciously thought of it during flight, it just happens. Whether it's this automatic for me in an emergency? Probably, but who knows?
 
nauga said:
It's been proven for a steady turn, but that derivation doesn't account for getting to the optimal speed, nor does it include maneuvering to get into and out of the turn or to get to a desired touchdown point for an engine-out landing. The end result is something that may or may not look like a 45 deg angle of bank steady turn, and is documented in other papers that turn up when doing a literature search on the subject. ;)

Nauga,
OTIS driver
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Also doesn't take into account the *oh ***** factor that will eat several seconds even for the best trained pilot.

Sure is easy to pull up google earth and identify a plausible landing area. Pilot was put in a hard position and certainly did what they thought was best as many of us would have done, I have no room to critique what they did. It just sucks and that's okay, sometimes things just suck in life.
 
LesGawlik said:
Until you meet a school bus full of elementary school children heading down the street in the opposite direction.
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Ok, I'll play your game. That bus could just as easily be at the crash site at the end of the turn. But now you have given up the time and altitude you could have used to avoid it.
 
nauga said:
It's been proven for a steady turn, but that derivation doesn't account for getting to the optimal speed, nor does it include maneuvering to get into and out of the turn or to get to a desired touchdown point for an engine-out landing. The end result is something that may or may not look like a 45 deg angle of bank steady turn, and is documented in other papers that turn up when doing a literature search on the subject. ;)

Nauga,
OTIS driver
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Did these papers come up with a conclusion, or was it just "we don't know what procedure is best"?
 
Ed Haywood said:
Ok, I'll play your game. That bus could just as easily be at the crash site at the end of the turn. But now you have given up the time and altitude you could have used to avoid it.
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That's my point. As bad as the result was, there is always a worse outcome. Docs call it the "retrospectoscope." The man was in a bad position. He made his decision. It did not turn out well, but his actions were reasonable and not the worst possible outcome.
 
Palmpilot said:
Did these papers come up with a conclusion, or was it just "we don't know what procedure is best"?
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The one I'm most familiar with concluded that is was more a case of energy management than nailing a specific flight condition, and shows the "optimal"* trajectories for a variety of conditions and uncertainty. What I got from it is that it I wouldn't consider an aggressive turnback without being proficient in it, without knowing my gates for that particular airplane, and without an AOA indicator.

Nauga,
at high key

*there are always assumptions and uncertainties that must be considered. They are not optimal in the mathematical sense
 
nauga said:
The one I'm most familiar with concluded that is was more a case of energy management than nailing a specific flight condition, and shows the "optimal"* trajectories for a variety of conditions and uncertainty. What I got from it is that it I wouldn't consider an aggressive turnback without being proficient in it, without knowing my gates for that particular airplane, and without an AOA indicator.

Nauga,
at high key

*there are always assumptions and uncertainties that must be considered. They are not optimal in the mathematical sense
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If you get time to post links or bibliographical info, I would be interested.
 
PaulS said:
Yup, I will say, that I do pre take off briefings pretty religiously, again part of the training I received. I haven't gotten to the point of briefing where I would put it down off field on takeoff, I'm not that disciplined, but sitting here thinking about it, I have the info in Foreflight, it would only take 30 seconds to check it out before take off. Maybe.
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The take off briefing in the Cirrus is a bit of a unique animal. Mine always was

-under 500 get as slow as possible and land as safely as possible.. hopefully there's some runway left under me.. but I'll probably die

-500-2000 pull the chute automatically

-2000+ asses

Honestly in just about any airplane it's a safe idea to do a max performance climb until at a reasonable altitude
 
LesGawlik said:
That's my point. As bad as the result was, there is always a worse outcome. Docs call it the "retrospectoscope." The man was in a bad position. He made his decision. It did not turn out well, but his actions were reasonable and not the worst possible outcome.
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Unless his actions were not reasonable. In which case we would be dumb not to try and learn from his mistake. Which is pretty much the whole point of this discussion, this thread, and this forum.

I'm not a doctor, but I am confident that as a science-based profession, they put a lot of effort into gathering data on expected versus actual outcomes to validate their decision criteria. I'm also confident that when something goes wrong and causes a significant negative outcome, they make a sincere effort to understand why, and not dismiss the analysis with hypothetical deus ex machinas involving school buses.

I am retired military special operations. After every operation, both training and real world, we conducted an after action review. An AAR is an unforgiving look at what you did, why you did it, and how you could have done it better. How else are you going to improve?
 
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