Shutting Engine OFF in Flight

AKBill

AKBill

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AKBill
Talked with a co worker this week about flying. He told me he took a flight with a neighbor, local site seeing. He said he was not happy when the pilot shut the engine off...

How many of you have internally shut the engine off in flight?

I personally have never shut the engine off in flight. The thought has never crossed my mind.

Comments
 
Uh.....no. not happening.
 
many years ago when I was learning aerobatics in the venerable hand cranked Tiger Moth. one of the requirements was to shut off the engine and fly as slowly as possible in order to stop the prop. Then an air restart by a vertical dive to Vne to spin the prop! Done at 3k feet over the home airport just in case!
 
Seems like an unneeded risk. Would tell your coworker not to fly with his show off neighbor again.
 
There are any number of things that could appear to the uninitiated as "shutting an engine off" in flight...Unless they were quite specific about how the pilot did that, I'd be suspicious of the report.:dunno:
 
I did it once in my ultralight. 3000' AGL with a 25mph stall speed directly over the field. It was interesting to see how the brick glided and how quiet the shut-down 2-stroke was.
 
Not really. Im not intentionally shutting off half my engines any more than all my engines
 
creweite said:
many years ago when I was learning aerobatics in the venerable hand cranked Tiger Moth. one of the requirements was to shut off the engine and fly as slowly as possible in order to stop the prop. Then an air restart by a vertical dive to Vne to spin the prop! Done at 3k feet over the home airport just in case!
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Wondering if you shut down with mixture or mags. I would think if you shut down with mags, and the prop was spinning, you would get a build up of fuel in the exhaust. When the mags are turned on with the build up of fuel in the exhaust it would explode and may blow exhaust apart.
 
AKBill said:
Wondering if you shut down with mixture or mags. I would think if you shut down with mags, and the prop was spinning, you would get a build up of fuel in the exhaust. When the mags are turned on with the build up of fuel in the exhaust it would explode and may blow exhaust apart.
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With the mags, stub exhaust so no fuel build up. In that aircraft normal shut down was with the mags, not with the mixture control, then open the throttle wide.
 
AKBill said:
Wondering if you shut down with mixture or mags. I would think if you shut down with mags, and the prop was spinning, you would get a build up of fuel in the exhaust. When the mags are turned on with the build up of fuel in the exhaust it would explode and may blow exhaust apart.
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Unlikely with the throttle at idle. Too lean. But with it open, it's asking for busted exhaust components. That could be fatal.
 
I've run tanks dry which causes the engine to get quiet for a moment. Not exactly a big deal.

Then there is this (not me):

And, a 14 year old girl flying with no engine at all on her birthday.

And doing spins at age 10.
 
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Only time I've heard it was an awesome pilot I know and trust who did some controlled studies on engine-out procedures; he was establishing data on how best to position the throttle and prop controls for best glide in a NA injected engine, CS prop.
 
MauleSkinner said:
There are any number of things that could appear to the uninitiated as "shutting an engine off" in flight...Unless they were quite specific about how the pilot did that, I'd be suspicious of the report.:dunno:
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I was taking a young lady for a dinner date (a long time ago) and she was just a bit nervous about "what if the engine quits". So, at some point I slowly pulled the throttle back to idle, waited a bit, and asked her if she felt that anything had gone wrong. Then I mentioned that the engine had been at idle for a while and it was no big deal.
 
I'm new to flying, but when I did simulated engine out emergency procedures, my instructor said why turn a simulated emergency into a potential real emergency. I can't say I would ever entertain the idea of shutting it off in flight on purpose.
 
AKBill said:
Talked with a co worker this week about flying. He told me he took a flight with a neighbor, local site seeing. He said he was not happy when the pilot shut the engine off...

How many of you have internally shut the engine off in flight?

I personally have never shut the engine off in flight. The thought has never crossed my mind.

Comments
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First, I wonder if your co-worker got confused on the meaning of "stall", in that the pilot told the neighbor he wasn't going to stall the airplane and the co-worker didn't understand the comment in context.

Second, yes, I've stopped the engine in flight (with mixture) and done a veritable Bob Hoover energy management routine on the way down including rolls and split S's. More importantly, I determined the speeds necessary to stop the prop and to restart the prop, and found best glide speed and minimum sink speed in the prop stopped configuration.

I've also shut down the engine on short final to get a feel for how the airplane decelerates on approach and landing with the prop stopped.

My opinion is that it is worth practicing these things under controlled circumstances in order to be better prepared to handle a true engine-out situation.
 
Many times. Always within gliding distance of an airport. To emphasize to my students that over-leaning was not a big deal and that the master switch has nothing to with engine operation I have pulled the mix to idle cutoff and turned off the master (separate demos, of course). No backfires or other dire results.

Bob Gardner
 
Scotty78 said:
I'm new to flying, but when I did simulated engine out emergency procedures, my instructor said why turn a simulated emergency into a potential real emergency. I can't say I would ever entertain the idea of shutting it off in flight on purpose.
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My flight instructor accidentally did this one day when she confused the throttle and mixture. I saw her out of the corner of my eye reach for it, but when the engine really quit I started through my procedure then asked "Did you intend to use the mixture to really shut off the engine?" She got flustered and quickly corrected her mistake.

But no - I'd never think about doing it intentionally.
 
I've done it many times, always from at least 5000'. Requires a near stall to stop the prop and a dive to near redline to restart it. Then just richen the mixture -- no big deal.
 
Had an isntructor pull the throttle to idle then the mixture just to show me that the prop doesn't automatically stop with an engine failure. Was required to do it on the multi-engine checkride.
 
A Cub thermals much better with the engine off. So I've been told. And if you're within gliding distance of an airport, who cares if it doesn't restart? Not having a turning prop is not automatically an emergency. People fly gliders every day. :yes:

But I probably would not do it on a flight with an uninitiated passenger. Although I've take the uninitiated on glider rides, I think it might make someone uncomfortable in an airplane.
 
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I had the full shutdown for my ATP (multi) ride.

Aside from that no, and I would never shut down just to shutdown.
 
Multi engine yes, in practice and for real.

Single engine, heck yes. Especially over open water. I love it when the passengers start screaming....

Ok, not really but I have threatened my friends a few times...:lol::lol::lol:
 
Any of the turbine ME FW guys shutdown engines during recurrent training?
 
Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe said:
I've run tanks dry which causes the engine to get quiet for a moment. Not exactly a big deal.

Then there is this (not me):

And, a 14 year old girl flying with no engine at all on her birthday.

And doing spins at age 10.
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Awesome!

I would fly with the older guy anytime. Engines are so overrated!! :D
 
Yep did it just last night. Though I wasn't planning on it. Turned the fuel selector the wrong way. A few seconds later the engine quit. Turned the cabin lights on and saw both were in the off position. Oops. Flipped one back to main tank, and within 3 seconds the engine started back up.

I've dry tanked many times, sometimes the engine quits, and sometimes I time it so it just coughs.
 
On purpose, no thank you
 
What wrong with shutting the engine off in flight..??? If is doesn't start, just hand prop it.....

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Had to do it on the ME check ride.

My instructor recommended that in actual practice, if you troubleshoot, can't get it restarted and decide to feather, there's no reason to try and bring it out of feather again. Just land.

If you are at low altitude, forget about troubleshooting and just feather.

Seemed to make sense to me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
This is why "real" simulator training is far superior to in flight. You can do everything in a realistic setting.
 
Velocity173 said:
Any of the turbine ME FW guys shutdown engines during recurrent training?
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Only in the sim. In the T-1 we brought the power back to idle to simulate. I know the 4 engine guys(RC-135, KC-135) do the same. B-52 can fly with one engine inoperative and it is not an abnormal procedure.
 
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