Engine Loss: Which Airport do you go for?

Buster1

Buster1

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Buster
Hi guys,

I've had an interesting convo over the past few days with a friend, about which airport to glide to after an engine failure. He posed some really smart questions to me, mostly related to wind effects.

Anyway, he permitted me to credit him and use some of his drawings on my latest article. If you'd like to know more about wind effects and glide ratios and general engine out glide type stuff, have a look at this link and learn some goodies. It's all free!

http://engineout.weebly.com/articles/youve-lost-the-engine-which-airport
Thanks again for the support!

Nate
 
Interesting article Buster, thanks for sharing.
 
Interesting twist if you make the "downwind" airport a couple miles further away then the "upwind" airport. Hit "Nearest" on the GPS when the engine fails and fall into the trap.

And then bring terrain into it which can be a huge factor here in the west. Large elevation differences in just a few miles.
 
bdtaz said:
Interesting twist if you make the "downwind" airport a couple miles further away then the "upwind" airport. Hit "Nearest" on the GPS when the engine fails and fall into the trap.
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Not necessarily a trap...just more info at your fingertips. You've got to take that info, factor in winds & terrain, and make your best decision.
 
I kept looking for the hidden "gotcha".

Like maybe, "the 1948 Bonanza V tail's have reduced drag when the headwind is 10 knots or less due to the inverted dihedral of the angled elevator, so airport A is the correct answer."

Now that would have been a cool learning experience.

Flying to the downwind airport when both are equally apart and are exact headwind/tailwind options, not so much.
 
Good reminder of the basic things to remember in this scenario. Truth is it can be and is more complicated. What if you were already heading towards the upwind airport? How much time and altitude would you lose doing the 180? Would that alter your decision? If you are exactly midway between the two airports when the engine fails and you are already heading towards one, by the time you mentally process everything, identify the two airports, and figure out the winds; how much closer to one than the other would you now be? This is sort of like the overly dramatized scene in the movie Scully where the NTSB appears to be oblivious to the concept of the startle response which of course was BS.
 
Good article, I picked the "correct" airport before I read the article, but in real life I'd probably take a look at the sectional and terrain on the way to both. If the downwind airport didn't leave me many options except the runway, and the other had some nice fields, a nice long empty road, etc along the way, I'd probably opt for that one just incase I couldn't make either one.
 
Didn't have time to read the article but will say that when my engine fails I expect my analytical skills to suffer quite drastically and therefore will hit the "nearest" button and fly the damn plane (as my instructor would always say).
 
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Thanks guys.

For those thinking they can rely on avionics or glide rings on FF/GP...grab a copy of my book and read about Jamie MacDougal's engine loss story. His panel was shaking like a paint shaker when his turbo let go. All he could do was fly the plane and look outside. When i interviewed him, it was an eye opener.

Never a better reason to train for that all important 'sight picture' and know your glide angles (all in my book...bad sales pitch in there somewhere) :confused:
 
Buster1 said:
Thanks guys.

For those thinking they can rely on avionics or glide rings on FF/GP...grab a copy of my book and read about Jamie MacDougal's engine loss story. His panel was shaking like a paint shaker when his turbo let go. All he could do was fly the plane and look outside. When i interviewed him, it was an eye opener.
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Know two people who's engine outs were accompanied by so much vibration the instrument panel was beyond unreadable and the view out the window wasn't much better with the natural tunnel vision such a shaking will give most people from a massive adrenaline dump.

Tossing metal things out of piston engines tends to make them rather unbalanced.

One person I only knew tangentially told the story of his engine out by starting with, "After I landed the mechanics saw dents on the cowl from the inside. When they opened it, the engine had twisted itself out of the engine mounts when the failure occurred and had been rotating along with the prop when the camshaft seized."

All involved were amazed it stayed in there and didn't punch its way out and depart the aircraft. If it had, the airplane would have pitched up and been far too out of balance to fly, and he'd be dead.

The photos were impressive.
 
denverpilot said:
"After I landed the mechanics saw dents on the cowl from the inside. When they opened it, the engine had twisted itself out of the engine mounts when the failure occurred and had been rotating along with the prop when the camshaft seized.".
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STFU that is INSANE. Wow. I guess it's easy to forget how much power these things have when everything is purring smoothly.
 
onezuludelta said:
STFU that is INSANE. Wow. I guess it's easy to forget how much power these things have when everything is purring smoothly.
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The best they could figure out was the engine mounts were also fairly weak on that model. I forget what it was.

I just realized it was so long ago, it was a safety presentation someone gave under the original (non-points based) Wings program.
 
denverpilot said:
Know two people who's engine outs were accompanied by so much vibration the instrument panel was beyond unreadable and the view out the window wasn't much better with the natural tunnel vision such a shaking will give most people from a massive adrenaline dump.

Tossing metal things out of piston engines tends to make them rather unbalanced.

One person I only knew tangentially told the story of his engine out by starting with, "After I landed the mechanics saw dents on the cowl from the inside. When they opened it, the engine had twisted itself out of the engine mounts when the failure occurred and had been rotating along with the prop when the camshaft seized."

All involved were amazed it stayed in there and didn't punch its way out and depart the aircraft. If it had, the airplane would have pitched up and been far too out of balance to fly, and he'd be dead.

The photos were impressive.
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This makes me think twice about the (4) flimsy locks holding the top cowling on my Archer.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Well... I'll keep that in mind next time I'm flying along exactly between two airports with equal runway lengths at equal elevations flying a tangent track to the line between them and my engine quits. :crazy:

In reality, there are too many variables to say "always do this" but certainly going with the winds aloft is part of the decision.

Also, if I'm ever in a situation where the plane is vibrating so badly I can't see the panel or the FF glide ring on the yoke mount, I'm going to pull the mixture and pitch up to slow down until the thing stops rotating, since if it keeps that up it might not stay attached to the airplane long enough for me to make it to the ground under control.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Also, if I'm ever in a situation where the plane is vibrating so badly I can't see the panel or the FF glide ring on the yoke mount, I'm going to pull the mixture and pitch up to slow down until the thing stops rotating, since if it keeps that up it might not stay attached to the airplane long enough for me to make it to the ground under control.
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Not always an option. One of those engine outs I know of that shook so badly they couldn't read anything was a CFI at night with a student who had just gone missed on a VOR approach with the VOR on the field. Just after power up and start of climb, the engine sucked a valve.

The CFI needed every last ounce of power the thing would give after that, to get back to something known-good to land on. The airport property. (He shared with me that he just wanted onto the property because it was flat and a known quantity. He wasn't trying to make the runway at first.)

He got just enough out of it to see he had enough energy to turn at extremely low altitude and put the airplane on the runway. He jokes he had enough altitude to do it as long as he didn't clip a runway light with the wingtip.

Reducing power would have meant an off-airport landing into a black hole. Rural airport.

There were never any guarantees that it would keep making any power but they had the flat semi-lit airport property made, energy wise, after the initial turn in. The runway ended up being a bonus.

Frankly not a fun situation, but he definitely says he didn't care about the vibration in that scenario. If it would make any power at all, he wanted it.

He jokes now about it. "My student was such a chicken... the engine eats itself and he has the audacity to say 'Your airplane!'" LOL.

Wonder if the student kept working on the Instrument and thinks the emergency was the best lesson in energy management they ever got, or if it scared the crap out of them. Haha. I should ask him.

Cessna 175 with that venerable geared engine. Below TBO. Good maintenance. FWIW.
 
Easiest way to not have to worry about engine outs is to not start with one in the first place :D

Also best glide varies with gross weight. Best glide at full weight will be at a higher airspeed than when light.
 
I had the shaking panel once when the engine ate a valve. At idle, vibes went almost totally away so I could glide into CVG. Prop kept turning to keep some feeling of normalcy but certainly didn't add anything to making the field.

Cheers
 
denverpilot said:
Not always an option. One of those engine outs I know of that shook so badly they couldn't read anything was a CFI at night with a student who had just gone missed on a VOR approach with the VOR on the field. Just after power up and start of climb, the engine sucked a valve.

The CFI needed every last ounce of power the thing would give after that, to get back to something known-good to land on. The airport property. (He shared with me that he just wanted onto the property because it was flat and a known quantity. He wasn't trying to make the runway at first.)

He got just enough out of it to see he had enough energy to turn at extremely low altitude and put the airplane on the runway. He jokes he had enough altitude to do it as long as he didn't clip a runway light with the wingtip.

Reducing power would have meant an off-airport landing into a black hole. Rural airport.

There were never any guarantees that it would keep making any power but they had the flat semi-lit airport property made, energy wise, after the initial turn in. The runway ended up being a bonus.

Frankly not a fun situation, but he definitely says he didn't care about the vibration in that scenario. If it would make any power at all, he wanted it.
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Seriously, if the vibration was really that bad, I would take my chances landing off airport rather than have the engine separate from the airframe trying to get back and cause me to go splat.
 
vontresc said:
Easiest way to not have to worry about engine outs is to not start with one in the first place :D
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An engine out, or an engine? :D

Also best glide varies with gross weight. Best glide at full weight will be at a higher airspeed than when light.
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Best glide *airspeed* varies with weight, but the glide *ratio* stays the same. Right?
 
Yep ratio remains the same but speed increases with gross weight
 
flyingcheesehead said:
Seriously, if the vibration was really that bad, I would take my chances landing off airport rather than have the engine separate from the airframe trying to get back and cause me to go splat.
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A complete black hole and literally nothing lit. That change your mind on the possible risks?

That's what they were facing. Not normal "rural" black with farmhouses either. Dead southwestern scrub/desert land in rural AZ with zero possibility of agricultural use.
 
denverpilot said:
A complete black hole and literally nothing lit. That change your mind on the possible risks?

That's what they were facing. Not normal "rural" black with farmhouses either. Dead southwestern scrub/desert land in rural AZ with zero possibility of agricultural use.
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Nope. If the engine separates, I am 100% dead. If I go for the black hole at a slow airspeed, I have a chance.

However, the fact that they made it back to the airport leads me to believe that it wasn't oh-my-god-the-engine-is-going-to-fall-off vibration. Not to mention, since you said it sucked a valve, that's engine roughness. Different story.
 
Someday you would think that satellite surveyed emergency landing sites could be compiled into a database and onboard avionics could provide guidance to find these emergency use only landing sites in all conditions day/night/VFR/IFR
 
Or just look out of the damn window (this does require some available light)
 
bnt83 said:
Someday you would think that satellite surveyed emergency landing sites could be compiled into a database and onboard avionics could provide guidance to find these emergency use only landing sites in all conditions day/night/VFR/IFR
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I think those are called "airports". ;)
 
denverpilot said:
I think those are called "airports". ;)
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And the Feds would hire 100 people to keep the surveys up to date, and contract out the real work, to another 100 people at $300K per. For a resource good for limited utility and a semi-rare event. In the Feds defense, they haven't done it. . .
 
10,000' msl when the engine quit, but what are the two field elevations?
 
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