Impossible turn practice at 500ft

motoadve

motoadve

Pre-takeoff checklist
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motoadve
This practice was intense and I am glad I did it.
I taught me how difficult it is to do it in real life and that I would not attempt it at 500ft unless at very light weight and favorable wind conditions.
First attempt I though I could make it, not even close.
I asked my instructor to wait a couple of seconds but he said , do it now all the time.
Did 12 attempts in total, 2 of them without warning , first 4 didnt make it, then made the next 8 even the 2 thrown by surprise.
It is an extreme training at that low altitude.

 
Every once in a while an instructor manages to kill him/herself and student "teaching" something dumb like this. If you lose the engine at 500' find the clearest and cheapest place to put it within 20 degrees of straight ahead. DO NOT attempt to return. Let the insurance company worry about the airplane.

Bob
 
that's a insane bank angle at that alt.... with or without AOA. I don't think I can find a instructor in my field who would want to pull a stunt like that.
 
This was an area in which I did extensive flight testing a few years ago. It is a high performance maneuver, but doable. The minimum altitude depends on a lot of things, not just wind. I would fly it at 45 degree bank, weight/bank adjusted stall speed+5, and the thing will turn in a very small radius.

Why do you need to know it instead of landing more or less straight ahead? Depart from someplace like Runway 9 at FXE (Fort Lauderdale Exec) and its value is immediately apparent.
 
Many times I've heard instructors say " mastering the prohibited maneuvers is your best insurance."
Problem I see with that is simple.. most bust their S-- before they master them.
 
I practice those from time to time. I'm comfortable doing one down to 300' or so. You've gotta be aggressive and also mind your stall speed (or AOA if so equipped).

Nothing about the video bothered me.
 
I think you can do these, but at a safe altitude would be more prudent. After all its the turn and ability to realign with the runway that is important here, not the actual landing...IMHO
 
in my day job I often try to tell people about the CAN/MAY/SHOULD analysis... u CAN/MAY practice stalls at 700 AGL (albeit breaking a rule) and recover within 200 ft, but u probably shudnt. I know others will disagree
 
I've practiced these with the flight instructor from the last club I was in. We had a much larger airport environment to work with (not that slot in the trees!) and there are very few good choices around it for off airport landing. I think it was excellent practice and I have a much better understanding of what's possible and what's not. That said, he had a very good understanding of my comfort and skill level in slow flight, air plane feel etc. before we ever did any of this stuff. I'm not a novice (not an expert either!) and not at all prone to panic or freezing. I think it's safe enough under the right conditions. Like most things in aviation, it's about risk assessment and management.

I'm not an instructor, nor did I stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.
John
 
FlySince9 said:
I think you can do these, but at a safe altitude would be more prudent. After all its the turn and ability to realign with the runway that is important here, not the actual landing...IMHO
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The actual landing will become very important to you if you stall that MFer perfectly aligned with the runway 50 ft off the ground.

We had a double fatality at my airport last month. Right on the runway heading. Instructor and a student. Eyewitnesses (for whatever they are worth) estimated they stalled it at "100 ft".
 
GRG55 said:
The actual landing will become very important to you if you stall that MFer perfectly aligned with the runway 50 ft off the ground.

We had a double fatality at my airport last month. Right on the runway heading. Instructor and a student. Eyewitnesses (for whatever they are worth) estimated they stalled it at "100 ft".
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Why after all that would you stall 50' off the ground? And what would practicing at 500' do to mitigate that? The only way you would stall, after successfully making the turn and realigning is if you tried to stretch it. And, if you're inclined to do that, you would do it no matter where you practiced the maneuver...
 
OP, I have seen many of your videos- you post them often on here. As a fellow 182 driver I enjoy seeing you get in and out of some very tough spots. You are obviously a VERY good pilot and very comfortable with your skill level to be performing these. However, for many of us you seem to do things that most of us would consider "hazardous."

I'm curious what you (and your instructor's for this particular video) risk tolerance discussion is like. How did you evaluate that this was safe for you? As others have said, why not try this at 1000 ft ago and roll out to a heading to simulate losing an engine like most do? Again, I'm not trying to pick you apart, I understand risk tolerance is very different for everybody. But I don't think I'm the only one that wouldn't be comfortable hearing the stall horn blaring in a 30 degree bank less than 500 ft agl with my only option a small grass field.
 
Years ago I lost the engine at 600'. Fortunately, I was clean. However, straight ahead wasn't an option. I swung it around to put it on the airport access road, but realized once I did that I had enough room to make it to the runway.
 
I agree with doing this at altitude until you are very comfortable with the low speed handling and feel. But it does leave the sight picture aspect of the training out of the equation. Banking and dealing with the ground RIGHT THERE is one of the things that leads to stall spin accidents on the base to final turn. They don't want to bank more because the ground is close but the kick rudder in to make the turn.

Ideally, we'd have class D flight sim devices to learn this skill.

John
 
bobmrg said:
Every once in a while an instructor manages to kill him/herself and student "teaching" something dumb like this. If you lose the engine at 500' find the clearest and cheapest place to put it within 20 degrees of straight ahead. DO NOT attempt to return. Let the insurance company worry about the airplane.

Bob
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Depends

Did a quasi 180 once to land in a dry riverbed, didn't get hurt or even scratch the paint, straight ahead 20 degrees, that would have been trees :(
 
I think the most ironic thing about that video was the intense practice to try try try to get back to the airport when there was a perfectly acceptable beach right below. I bet lots of folks have bought it trying to get their stricken aircraft back to the airport despite the presence of other acceptable places to land. And if the OP thinks he really has this under control he'd best thing about the difference between an airplane at idle power and one at no power.

I'd like to know the CFI's name so I can avoid him like the plague. This should have been performed at altitude. There was no reason whatsoever to take that kind of risk.
 
neilw2 said:
OP, I have seen many of your videos- you post them often on here. As a fellow 182 driver I enjoy seeing you get in and out of some very tough spots. You are obviously a VERY good pilot and very comfortable with your skill level to be performing these. However, for many of us you seem to do things that most of us would consider "hazardous."

I'm curious what you (and your instructor's for this particular video) risk tolerance discussion is like. How did you evaluate that this was safe for you? As others have said, why not try this at 1000 ft ago and roll out to a heading to simulate losing an engine like most do? Again, I'm not trying to pick you apart, I understand risk tolerance is very different for everybody. But I don't think I'm the only one that wouldn't be comfortable hearing the stall horn blaring in a 30 degree bank less than 500 ft agl with my only option a small grass field.
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The instructor who trained me in this , is a very accomplished aerobatic airshow pilot (I wouldnt have trusted just a regular instructor), its risky and intense I agree , and I am glad I did it so now I wont do it in a real scenario (knock on wood) I think this was the only way to really realize how much of a extreme turn is.

As far as risky landings in tough places, I would also consider this very dangerous in a stock 182, mine is far from stock and stalls at 40MPH most people do not realize this, I am not scared at all in all those landings , and quite comfortable honestly, another important factor,I train a lot (3 or 4 times per week).
 
steingar said:
I think the most ironic thing about that video was the intense practice to try try try to get back to the airport when there was a perfectly acceptable beach right below.
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That’s exactly what I was thinking watching the video. The amount of practice involved to pull it off and return to that grass strip surrounded by a ton of trees when you have other options with much higher odds of survival seems to contradict the training in the first place.

I once had a ferry job flying a homebuilt out a grass strip similar to the one in the video. Seeing as I was the first person to fly the airplane after a rebuild, I spent slot of time thinking about options if something went wrong on takeoff. My thoughts were to focus on putting it down under control in a farm field ahead of me over trying to stuff it back into that grass strip.
 
Great video! Thanks for sharing- this looks like awesome practice.
 
Nice job.

I totally freaked out a substitute instructor when I was learning to fly as a kid. He pulled the power after take off and said "Engine failure. Get us down!"
I rolled the plane inverted and pulled hard. It was a PA-11 on floats.
I don't know what the fuss was about. I had altitude to spare, but here endeth the lesson for the day.
He had some serious words with my regular instructor and myself. Such language!
My regular instructor was a WWII Navy fighter pilot. Maybe the best stick and rudder guy I ever met in my life. Period.
We did a lot of things not covered or required by the FAA.
 
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bobmrg said:
Every once in a while an instructor manages to kill him/herself and student "teaching" something dumb like this. If you lose the engine at 500' find the clearest and cheapest place to put it within 20 degrees of straight ahead. DO NOT attempt to return. Let the insurance company worry about the airplane.

Bob
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I don't disagree, normally. But sometimes straight ahead is just as dead.
Learn the critical envelops for every plane you fly.
 
Ken Ibold said:
...The minimum altitude depends on a lot of things, not just wind....
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That's one of the things that bothers me about discussions like these: nobody seems to have much of a plan to account for those other factors. I only know of one instructor who has worked out a pre-takeoff protocol to account for wind, runway length, and the actual climb and glide performance of the airplane being used.
 
FlySince9 said:
Why after all that would you stall 50' off the ground?
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Could have been a student who froze on the controls. Happened to me right after liftoff, she froze in a very high nose attitude, and it took three progressively louder commands to get her hands off the yoke before we stalled and crashed. It was her 2nd or 3rd lesson, and never saw her again. Shame, she a nice pair too.

Had another one in a V tail, IMC, shooting a surveillance approach into Destin w/ sea fog that had rolled in. I knew we weren't gonna get in but it was a company plane and the manager was flying. We went actual missed approach and the pilot flying (PPCw/instrument) got that sucker in a 60*+ bank, I hollered "let go I got it", and fortunately he let ago and I recovered. That was a close one, only 3-400' above the ground, in IMC.
 
mscard88 said:
Could have been a student who froze on the controls. Happened to me right after liftoff, she froze in a very high nose attitude, and it took three progressively louder commands to get her hands off the yoke before we stalled and crashed. It was her 2nd or 3rd lesson, and never saw her again. Shame, she a nice pair too.
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Sounds like a missed opportunity... maybe if you grabbed the pair she would have dropped the yoke...
 
Try this at 1000', but pull the red lever instead. Airplanes with no engine power at all tend to have a higher sink rate, so you're not really experiencing an engine out. Try to get it aligned before 500', but you'll have an extra 500' to play with.
 
steingar said:
I think the most ironic thing about that video was the intense practice to try try try to get back to the airport when there was a perfectly acceptable beach right below. I bet lots of folks have bought it trying to get their stricken aircraft back to the airport despite the presence of other acceptable places to land. And if the OP thinks he really has this under control he'd best think about the difference between an airplane at idle power and one at no power.

I'd like to know the CFI's name so I can avoid him like the plague. This should have been performed at altitude. There was no reason whatsoever to take that kind of risk.
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I have researched the difference between Idle Power and No Power a bit. I would wager lunch that a 182 with the engine out and prop pulled back actually glides better than one at Idle power.
What I actually found that is, that practicing engine out landings at idle power is very realistic and few pilots could tell the difference between and idling engine and just a windmilling prop.
And yes in a real power failure, depending on the failure, pulling the prop back might not be an option which is one reason why I don't normally pull the prop back for my emergency practice unless the POH recommends it.
It was unclear in the video if they were pulling the prop back. Perhaps the instructor was saving that option just in case they needed the extra glide to get back to the airport.
I think the lens on the camera makes the distances and altitude appear worse than they really were.

Practicing the Impossible turn is much like the Impossible turn itself. There a number of factors that can make it safe or unsafe(aircraft, loading, runway length, density altitude, light wind conditions, instructor).
Unlike gliders where we can make a general rule that 99% of the time we can make the 180 turn back to the runway from 200 feet. ASEL aircraft have a much lower percentage of takeoffs where a turn back to the runway as option and more factors need to be considered.

At my 5000' runway at 2500 ft MSL, on most days in most aircraft I fly there is very good chance that once I start to turn my crosswind (500-700ft) I can make it back to the runway. On a hot day, heavily loaded and calm winds it might not be an option.
After practicing it quite a bit my two rules for the Impossible turn are.
1. Do NOT try it for real unless you have practiced it under similar conditions (aircraft, loading, runway length, density altitude, light wind conditions) . It truly is (should be) an impossible turn if you haven't practiced it.
2. Do NOT turn back if you are under 500 feet. May be higher in some aircraft and conditions.

If you are going to practice the "impossible turn" I strongly recommend doing it with an instructor present just to watch over your performance and help evaluate if the conditions are safe to practice it.

Brian
 
mscard88 said:
Damn, believe it or not, I didn't think of that. Filing that away for future use though. Thanks Jerry!
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These days that'll get you on the docket right after Bill Cosby or maybe Charlie Rose.
 
One thing I noticed is that in the ones I saw, the nose drops, and you are aggressively turning back towards the airport.

I wonder how much "Oh holy bleep" one would experience "in real life". I assume for real though, a person would already have a spot picked out that's not the departure runway.

Still, that maneuver is for real if you were taking off over a dense forest, for example. It has its time and place; usually you'd be looking for a field you're more assured to make. If there is nowhere else, you'd need to have in your head "up until this point, if the engine goes out, I am straight back at where I came from, at best glide".

Thanks for the video.
 
StevieTimes said:
One thing I noticed is that in the ones I saw, the nose drops, and you are aggressively turning back towards the airport.

I wonder how much "Oh holy bleep" one would experience "in real life". I assume for real though, a person would already have a spot picked out that's not the departure runway.

Still, that maneuver is for real if you were taking off over a dense forest, for example. It has its time and place; usually you'd be looking for a field you're more assured to make. If there is nowhere else, you'd need to have in your head "up until this point, if the engine goes out, I am straight back at where I came from, at best glide".

Thanks for the video.
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500' is about as low as I'd attempt this maneuver provided that I absolutley KNEW that it was going to happen right now, today. The real life scenario that you suggest usually adds about 3-5 seconds of denial on the pilot's part from what I've seen. 500' becomes really dicey then. 800' could be marginal in such a case. What's good about that instructor is that he's showing that it could be done. Too many out there don't know the capabilities of the aircraft that they fly on a regular basis. On the other hand, demonstrating it 3 months ago won't make you current today.
 
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