Engine out procedures...

fiveoboy01

fiveoboy01

Pattern Altitude
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Dirty B
I'd say that this is the item I'm the most nervous about on the checkride coming up in a couple weeks. I have the checklists memorized, that's easy. Doing it right, I've accomplished that a few times with my instructor.. but I feel like I have trouble sometimes with them. I'm not too confident with them. Sometimes I'm too low, more often I overshoot the field I was going for, or I'm too wishy-washy in picking the spot or deciding which way to turn if at all.

I know I'm going to be doing a bunch of these in the next couple weeks but if you guys can share any tips and tricks, I'd appreciate it.

I know it's "pick a field and do the checklist" but in practice I feel like it's more difficult than that.
 
If you're on a 172, what helps alot is that two up front when you trim it all the way nose up, it will do best glide at power off. That way you have one less thing to worry about.

It really is a non-issue, just know where you are on the map for your "mayday" call.
 
At this point what you are trying to do is satisfy the CFI and examiners. Always know which direction the wind is blowing and turn the plane into the wind ( or towards the airport) at first indication of problem. Always watch airspeed. Repeat after me.... "Airspeed is everything" .

Pick a field far enough away, or start slipping to get the view you are looking for and are use to.

Never be afraid to actually land it in the field (in the real world)

I had the same "fears" taking my exams.... Until I realized the CFI and examiner had never actually landed off field and I had. 3 engine outs in ul's. ;)

You will do just fine, just go through the motions.
 
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Always stay aware of your surroundings ,part of the test is that you recognize the most appropriate spot to land in in an emergency . Stay calm look around and go for it,you'll be fine . Good luck
 
Sorry should have specified a 152. I'm good at trimming the plane for 60 knots hands-off. The checklists I have committed to memory and come easily. The rest, in my mind, is "meh" as far as how well I am doing things.

Someone mentioned into the wind. I'm terrified that I will forget the wind direction when the time comes lol. Also, my instructor pulled the engine at 1000' AGL last week, and a turn into the wind would have put me into the side of a small hill full of trees. I sort of froze up and about 15 seconds went by as all my brain could process was the past instruction to "in the case of an engine out at low altitude, first put it into the wind then look for a field".... and there was literally nowhere to land if I turned into the wind in that instance. We talked about it on the ground after the flight, so I think next time should go better.
 
The other thing you can do is power off 180s at the airport. That will help you with perceiving the glide and set up for the las part of getting it down where you want and judging your turn onto "final" depending on the winds.
Don't suppose you're flyin in 20-24 kt winds though...
 
I would say first exchange speed into altitude, so before thinking about wind or anything, climb until you are at best glide speed, and then start looking for place to land.
 
No, I wouldn't have a student do that... Just hold her level till its at 60 while your finding a place... Doesn't take long.

He's in a 152 there's not much speed to trade up :)
 
fiveoboy01 said:
Sometimes I'm too low, more often I overshoot the field I was going for, or I'm too wishy-washy in picking the spot or deciding which way to turn if at all.
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When I gave private flight tests this was by far the weakest area for most applicants. Here's the secret: As soon as you pick a field aim for the key position, a big box where you turn from downwind to base. All you have to do is get reasonably close to 1000' AGL, say +/- 200' anywhere in a generously-sized imaginary box. Make it easy on yourself. From there, pretend the first third of the runway doesn't exist until you can see that there's absolutely no way, no matter what, that you might undershoot. At that point, use all your skills to lose the excess altitude (diving is not skillful). Besides always knowing where the wind is from, you need to know the elevation of terrain you're over. Good luck.

EDIT: The "box" can be for either right or left traffic, whichever you think will work better from your position.

dtuuri
 
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fiveoboy01 said:
Sorry should have specified a 152. I'm good at trimming the plane for 60 knots hands-off. The checklists I have committed to memory and come easily. The rest, in my mind, is "meh" as far as how well I am doing things.

Someone mentioned into the wind. I'm terrified that I will forget the wind direction when the time comes lol. Also, my instructor pulled the engine at 1000' AGL last week, and a turn into the wind would have put me into the side of a small hill full of trees. I sort of froze up and about 15 seconds went by as all my brain could process was the past instruction to "in the case of an engine out at low altitude, first put it into the wind then look for a field".... and there was literally nowhere to land if I turned into the wind in that instance. We talked about it on the ground after the flight, so I think next time should go better.
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First of all keep in mind that you're looking for a place big enough to make survival likely, NOT big enough to save the airplane. For a 152 that's not much bigger than a suburban back yard.

Second, if the wind is strong enough to matter you might be able to "read" the wind if there are any bodies of water in sight. The calm water will be on the upwind side (i.e. your landing direction should be towards the direction of the calm water). Smoke or steam from a chimney drifts downwind. In a strong wind you can even tell the direction by the way the tops of the trees behave in that the ones on the downwind side of an open area will be moving noticeably more than the ones on the upwind side.

Third, it's not critical that you land directly into the wind. It's more important that you don't stall or run into something big and solid even if that means landing downwind. Also terrain slope can be more important than wind direction. You almost never want to land downhill as it can be almost impossible to stop the airplane before smacking into something. You should try to avoid a downwind landing if there are other choices though as this minimizes the groundspeed at which you'll touch down and will shorten the landing distance. But 30° off the wind is almost as effective and 45° off the wind rarely makes enough difference to be worth worrying about.

Finally, the absolute highest priority has to be airspeed control. It's best to turn final a little fast/high because you can remove a significant amount of excess energy on final with an aggressive slip but there's nothing you can do to make up for an energy deficit. Just don't overdo it to the point where a full slip won't get your speed down to 1.3 Vso by the time you're 100 ft AGL. And even if it means landing short of the intended touchdown point or clipping trees never ever let the airspeed get below 1.2 Vso until you're within a few feet of the ground. A stall from 20 ft is more likely to kill you than flying into treetops above stall speed.
 
Everything above, also remember it is a checkride, I cannot imagine your DPE is going to ask you to land it off field(though one pilot had an engine out on his checkride and did exactly that). On my checkride, I was tested on this twice, once while "cruising" he pulled the throttle(after slapping my hand off it-I was taught to always fly with one hand on the throttle-unless it was doing something else such as changing mixture, trim, etc) and for this it was enough to demonstrate and perform the ABC, but at 1000 AGL(we were at 2000 AGL when he pulled it) and entering the "downwind" for my off field landing he ended it and continued to something else. Then on my last landing when we just entered the downwind, he pulled it again, and this time I had to do a "no power" landing.

Again, you will probably do well, and their is nothing to worry about. I think the biggest enemy in these sort of tests is overthinking the process, and forgetting your training. Remember you have been taught what you need to know, and stick with that, and you will be fine.
 
douglas393 said:
Everything above, also remember it is a checkride, I cannot imagine your DPE is going to ask you to land it off field(though one pilot had an engine out on his checkride and did exactly that). On my checkride, I was tested on this twice, once while "cruising" he pulled the throttle(after slapping my hand off it-I was taught to always fly with one hand on the throttle-unless it was doing something else such as changing mixture, trim, etc) and for this it was enough to demonstrate and perform the ABC, but at 1000 AGL(we were at 2000 AGL when he pulled it) and entering the "downwind" for my off field landing he ended it and continued to something else. Then on my last landing when we just entered the downwind, he pulled it again, and this time I had to do a "no power" landing.

Again, you will probably do well, and their is nothing to worry about. I think the biggest enemy in these sort of tests is overthinking the process, and forgetting your training. Remember you have been taught what you need to know, and stick with that, and you will be fine.
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I don't know if this is a common DPE trick but mine pulled the power shortly after I'd found my first two XC checkpoints when we were almost directly above an airport with a nice grass runway. I knew the airport was there because my second fix was a water tower near the airport. I set up to land at the airport and expected to land but on final the DPE said "good enough, your engine's fixed, let's go do some maneuvers".
 
On my checkride, the DPE "vectored" me over a lake under the hood doing the instrument manouvers, and then failed the engine. Great way to test decision making and situational awareness. Challenging, but fun.
 
mtuomi said:
On my checkride, the DPE "vectored" me over a lake under the hood doing the instrument manouvers, and then failed the engine. Great way to test decision making and situational awareness. Challenging, but fun.
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Hopefully he let you ditch the hood when the engine "failed". And technically that was pushing a bit beyond the PTS requirements which I think assume you are keeping track of potential emergency landing sites while motoring along. Kinda hard to do that with a hood on.
 
gismo said:
Hopefully he let you ditch the hood when the engine "failed". And technically that was pushing a bit beyond the PTS requirements which I think assume you are keeping track of potential emergency landing sites while motoring along. Kinda hard to do that with a hood on.
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Yep, he gave me a moment to get back to flying VMC and then failed the engine.
By doing it like that, he tested how quickly I can pick up my location. I had two VORs tuned so I simply checked which radials crossed and used that as my location. All this while trimming for best glide, looking for a suitable spot, and running the checklist. Challenging, but fun.
 
mtuomi said:
On my checkride, the DPE "vectored" me over a lake under the hood doing the instrument manouvers, and then failed the engine. Great way to test decision making and situational awareness. Challenging, but fun.
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My DPE did the same thing... he had me remove the hood and informed me of the emergency immediately. He had the plane positioned nose high at about 3000AGL.... had I not looked behind us while picking a place to land, I may have not noticed that we were on the extended downwind for an airport! I had to just circle around and lose enough altitude to join the downwind midfield.
 
mtuomi said:
I would say first exchange speed into altitude, so before thinking about wind or anything, climb until you are at best glide speed, and then start looking for place to land.
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You have to pull almost immediately and near 3Gs for this to pay off much at all unless you have some major excess airspeed, a 152 will probably be almost to glide speed before comprehending and reacting to what was going on if you were holding it level.
 
Henning said:
You have to pull almost immediately and near 3Gs for this to pay off much at all unless you have some major excess airspeed, a 152 will probably be almost to glide speed before comprehending and reacting to what was going on if you were holding it level.
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On 152 that is true, it is so slow it is an exception. 172/Cherokees not so much anymore, and if/when eventually transiting to high perf aircraft, that is a good procedure to learn from the start. I believe on a Bonanza you have roughly 60kts to trade, and that buys you a considerable amount of time/gliding distance to set up for the landing.
 
One other note for power-outs...

You're better off landing long than short, especially if you are close enough to a runway...

Why? Energy...

If you land short, you have a lot more momentum...you're travelling at a higher speed at touchdown. If you happen to run out of field or runway at the end, then you'll still be considerably slower than you were at touchdown.
 
mtuomi said:
On 152 that is true, it is so slow it is an exception. 172/Cherokees not so much anymore, and if/when eventually transiting to high perf aircraft, that is a good procedure to learn from the start. I believe on a Bonanza you have roughly 60kts to trade, and that buys you a considerable amount of time/gliding distance to set up for the landing.
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But you still have to pull 3G for the trade to pay over just holding level until your speed is down. Actually to get the best benefit, you have to pull 3G into a vertical climb and nose over around Vs with a stopped prop. Most people won't pull to 3G so they will lose regardless the details.
 
Henning said:
But you still have to pull 3G for the trade to pay over just holding level until your speed is down. Actually to get the best benefit, you have to pull 3G into a vertical climb and nose over around Vs with a stopped prop. Most people won't pull to 3G so they will lose regardless the details.
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Hmm, I'm not sure if I follow your logic. Where do you get 3G from?

Aren't we simply converting kinetic energy into potential energy? On an engine out situation we want to slow down to best glide speed as quickly as possible, and it makes most sense to do that by climbing. That way the we have most total energy available. If we stay above best glide speed or slow down beyond that, we are not in the sweetspot in our L/D curve.
Glider pilots do this all the time, and they dont pull 3Gs or nose over around Vs?
 
mtuomi said:
Hmm, I'm not sure if I follow your logic. Where do you get 3G from?

Aren't we simply converting kinetic energy into potential energy? On an engine out situation we want to slow down to best glide speed as quickly as possible, and it makes most sense to do that by climbing. That way the we have most total energy available. If we stay above best glide speed or slow down beyond that, we are not in the sweetspot in our L/D curve.
Glider pilots do this all the time, and they dont pull 3Gs or nose over around Vs?
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Because of drag in the transition. 3Gs is what you pull to minimize the loss of energy. The point isn't to slow down to best glide as soon as possible, the point is to have best glide end as far away as possible. If your drag increase from the climb eats more energy than you get in return from the altitude increase, then you have a net loss of energy and range.
 
fiveoboy01 said:
I'd say that this is the item I'm the most nervous about on the checkride coming up in a couple weeks. .
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After 35 years it's still the thing I'm most nervous about on my biennials. I always feel I've done a poor job. But, the two I have done for real came out great.
 
Henning said:
Because of drag in the transition. 3Gs is what you pull to minimize the loss of energy. The point isn't to slow down to best glide as soon as possible, the point is to have best glide end as far away as possible. If your drag increase from the climb eats more energy than you get in return from the altitude increase, then you have a net loss of energy and range.
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Interesting conversation about this "technique". I've never seen or heard any logical explanation about climbing to get to best glide.
To me, it seems any drag induced would shorten the total glide distance.
I've always thought that a smooth no-drag slow down holding altitude was the best.
Anyone have statistics or aerodynamic explanations that show inducing drag to slow quicker gets more distance?
 
nosehair said:
Interesting conversation about this "technique". I've never seen or heard any logical explanation about climbing to get to best glide.
To me, it seems any drag induced would shorten the total glide distance.
I've always thought that a smooth no-drag slow down holding altitude was the best.
Anyone have statistics or aerodynamic explanations that show inducing drag to slow quicker gets more distance?
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I had the same discussion with an instructor many years ago, he was the lead aerodynamics engineer for Douglas in Long Beach and a Corsair pilot in Korea. The numbers work in favor of the climb, but it has to be a steep ballistic arc. We also went ahead and did a whole series of test flights over the airport to various altitudes and using both stopped prop and windmilling. The best result was to haul back and climb for a stopped prop and nose over to best glide in a steep arc. HOWEVER, the reality is that you likely won't react fast enough for it to be a positive outcome and unless you have some aerobatic or military training, you aren't going to pull 3Gs in an emergency.

The second best result is to pull back to near stall until the prop stops to reduce the plate drag. This really only makes an appreciable difference in glide range if you have 7,000' or so beneath you, otherwise you the margin you gain is small enough that you should have found a closer place to put it. Below 3,000' IIRC, you actually lose distance to the sink stopping the prop.

In the end, the best result is to just pitch it for best glide and let it decelerate while you pay attention to where you're going to put it. There are very few un survivable places to ditch a small plane so long as you keep it in control at a minimal state of energy and keep your deceleration aligned down and forward as best you can. One thing they fail to teach in PP training is how to crash. If you don't have a nice place to put it down that you can keep from going up in your windshield as you glide for it, ABANDON the thought of landing on that field or whatever, you won't make it, you try to stretch the glide, stall and likely die. A nice stand of trees is a wonderful place to put the plane. I have recovered several planes out of trees where the occupants were fine. Drive right into the branches at stall speed with the nose up. Water, same thing.

You do not need to land the plane to survive, you just need to keep the deceleration preferably below 50Gs and in the orientation the plane was built to travel. If you can make a 200' field with a 1200-1600fpm rate of descent, you're likely going to walk away. Yes you'll crush the gear and bend the hell out of the airplane, nobody cares. As light as they are, planes are pretty damned strong in certain aspects, use those design aspects to absorb the energy. It's about angles and reducing the rate of energy absorption, it's about saving you and your passengers lives, not the airplane.
 
I have always used the 'fly the chair' technique for Emergency Procedures particularly, but also in preparation for checking out a new plane.

Get a photo or AFM illustration of the instrument panel and other control locations.

Then, you sit in a chair, and run through each EP, physically moving your hands/feet, eyes, etc., to where the control is located, and repeating the EP checklist step, out loud, while simulating the actual action - I find this builds a solid connection between cognitive memory and muscle memory. Do it until you can run the EP from memory with your eyes closed.

'Gimp
 
IMHO, you should be practicing engine out every time you go up with your CFI. Depending on what type of airspace you fly in, even most towered fields will let you call a practice engine out, unless things are too busy. Every landing is an opportunity to pull the power in a different spot in the pattern and practice.
Also, practice some downwind and some crosswind, because, when the real thing happens, you may have no other option.
 
I did some chair flying which helped with the checklist. Last lesson I felt pretty good about both emergencies, one at around 3,000' and the other only 800' AGL after the end of a ground reference maneuver. My instructor was pleased with both. One to two simulated emergencies is the norm each lesson, and I've had 4-5 total where the engine was pulled to idle somewhere abeam the numbers on downwind. If the tower asks for a tight pattern I can guarantee that there will be a simulated engine out at that point.

I do feel much more relaxed and comfortable with them now, so thank you all for your advice!
 
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