I agree completely. We do it mostly at towered airports only if tower approves a short approach.
We can start with the Glasair I mentioned, and probably the Pilatus PC-12, and I don't know about the Malibu and other similar singles. The "why" is because of the extremely high wing loading and poor L/D ratio in landing configuration.
In some planes, yes, and in others, you'll grossly overshoot the runway with a "shallow" 180 degree turn due to the high glide speed. Have you done the numbers to see what bank angle is required for a 1200' diameter turn at varying airspeeds, and compared those speeds to the best glide speed of the bigger, heavier, faster singles?
As I said, some planes (even singles) will lose more than 1000 feet performing a power-off 180 degree turn in landing configuration due to their basic aerodynamics. Either the bank is so shallow they overshoot the turn or the sink rate is so high they run out of altitude before completing it.
Who's looking at the VSI on final?
Anyone who has never flown one, or seen one would be shocked.
You gotta get configured sometime (you aren't suggesting holding the gear until crossing the threshold, are you?), and the best glide speed on some planes in cruise configuration is so high you'd never get around the corner without using so much bank you'd trade away too much lift and hit the ground before reaching the runway. There really are airplanes in which the PTS-described 180 power-off approach/landing from 1000 AGL abeam is either totally impossible, and many more in which it is impossible to do safely.
You aim for a much higher key position abeam -- around 2500-3000 AGL in that Glasair. However, that isn't possible to do in the normal traffic pattern, so you have to so somewhere away from other planes to practice it, and you don't ever do it as a "normal" procedure.
What you're missing is that a lot of planes don't fit your assumed characteristics and can't do what you described.
:I've already mentioned a few of which I know, and I'm sure there are others. I suspect that even the Cherokee Six is pushing the envelope if up near gross weight, and probably most HP/retractables unless you hold the gear to the threshold, which ain't something you want to be doing outside of an emergency.
That increases the distancy to fly to the point where you run out of altitude before you reach the runway. Some production-certified GA single-engine airplanes just can't do this maneuver as described in the Commercial PTS -- they must use a higher key altitude at the abeam position to make an engine-out approach.
At what weight and from what key altitude? And if you say max gross and 1000 AGL, you'll have to prove it to me. I've tried such approaches in such planes, and it's right on the edge of dangerous.
See ya, Dan.
