Simulated engine out. Chopping the throttle at 50'

Old Geek

Old Geek

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Old Geek
Looking back at my training, the most memorable event was just before I took my checkride. My instructor and I were going over all the rough spots and while doing a touch and go, the instructor reached over and chopped the throttle to idle at 50' on my climb out and said "put it back down". It caught me completely by surprise. I managed a reasonable landing, but have to admit I was shaking a little. As a further point of information, we had at least 3000' feet of good runway ahead of us when he cut power.

Looking back, the landing was a pivotal point in building confidence in my plane handling ability. Any of you instructors hand this problem to your students?
 
Old Geek said:
Any of you instructors hand this problem to your students?
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I hope so. Even though it's not in the PTS, I figured most CFI's do this sort of thing. Mine did when I was learning to fly. Pretty much a non-event in a Champ.
 
50' is easy because there really is no decision, you put it back down as best you can. Do the same exercise at 800 AGL on climb out over an urban area. Those are the kinds of things that really test your decision making as a pilot.
 
I didn't get this during my primary training, probably because the rwy we normally used wasn't long enough to do it with enough margin.

But I did get it on a flight review once, on a much longer rwy.
 
Sadly, mine never did this.
But I have practiced it!- w plenty of runway ahead of course.
 
Wish I didn't see this post. Now I will be expecting my instructor to do it.
 
I do remember my primary instructor pulling power at 50 feet and then still land on the remaining runway. I think my instructor had a little bit of evil in him. He would leave a seat belt hanging out the door so that as soon as you became airborne you could hear them banging. I would say "what's that" and then he would say "what's what". When I wasn't looking he would readjust almost any of the flight instruments to get me confused. He would have me land and take off with and without flaps. He would also pull the power back a few hundred RPM while we are rolling down the runway and then say go ahead a take off.
 
Old Geek said:
Looking back at my training, the most memorable event was just before I took my checkride. My instructor and I were going over all the rough spots and while doing a touch and go, the instructor reached over and chopped the throttle to idle at 50' on my climb out and said "put it back down". It caught me completely by surprise. I managed a reasonable landing, but have to admit I was shaking a little. As a further point of information, we had at least 3000' feet of good runway ahead of us when he cut power.

Looking back, the landing was a pivotal point in building confidence in my plane handling ability. Any of you instructors hand this problem to your students?
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Sounds like a good instructor to me. My original flight instructor did all sorts of things like that to me, and I consider myself a better trained pilot for it.
 
JeffDG said:
You should be expecting the engine to die at any time every time you fly.
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I get that and I should have my mind on that more. I guess at this stage in my training, my focus is on making sure I can take-off properly etc. My instructor doing that to me would have thrown me off for sure. :yikes: Prob. still would i'm sure.
 
Losing one on takeoff is a common emergency drill especially designed to see if you have the wherewithall not to make impossible turns, etc...

I've actually had several engine failures on takeoff.
 
I always do it, at least once to a student.
The student I got from another instructor that was taught to do every take off like a short field take off got a bit of surprise when I did it. Turns out that at best angle of climb at 50 feet you may not have enough energy to flare with. At the very least you need to be a lot more aggressive about nosing down when it fails.

Brian
CFIIG/ASEL
 
I think we had the runway for that, but it never happened to me. Bit of a pity in a way. I have been repeatedly questioned about what my actions would be if the mill quit. There were a couple of occasions when the answer was "I'll die". Murphy can get any of us at any time.
 
Mine never did it but he always had me on guard for his reputation of pushign the throttle forward when you took your hand off of it. So I was ready for that on taxi, departure and landing, so it would have been hard for him to pull the power unexpectedly I suppose.

David
 
I think my instructor is gonna have to pull the mixture because now that I think about it, my instructor has been making sure my hand stays on the throttle for takeoff. Would you guys pull the mixture on a student?
 
JasonM said:
I get that and I should have my mind on that more. I guess at this stage in my training, my focus is on making sure I can take-off properly etc. My instructor doing that to me would have thrown me off for sure. :yikes: Prob. still would i'm sure.
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JM,

My original instructor was pulling power on me VERY early, like in about the second or third hour as I recall. It was 23 years ago, so I'm not sure. Before I solo'd at 13 hours, he had me at a pretty good level of confidence.

I had a 20 year layoff after that, and my next instructor never pulled the power until we got pretty close to the checkride and I asked him to start pulling the power. In his defense, I had taken up tail dragging in the process, so most of our work was done on take offs and landings before I finally appealed to him about it.

On my checkride, my emergency landing was a gimme. He pulled power while I was downwind for the biggest open field in the state. For that reason, a number of times flying on my own since the checkride, when it pops in my mind, I pull the power on myself and start looking and setting up for some patch somewhere. I have a reasonable level of confidence with it now.

IMHO it is one of the most important things for a student pilot to work on.

My $0.02,
 
I was taking off in a small twin on one of the very first lessons and we rotated and began to lift off, the instructor chopped one throttle. I said, "your airplane" and took my hands off the yoke.

He never did that to me again, at least not without some kind of warning. Of course, a twin is different.
 
jnmeade said:
I was taking off in a small twin on one of the very first lessons and we rotated and began to lift off, the instructor chopped one throttle. I said, "your airplane" and took my hands off the yoke.

He never did that to me again, at least not without some kind of warning. Of course, a twin is different.
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I'm thinking I miscalculated your statement. That's not funny. That's scary..

edit: pulling my head out of my _ _ _..:mad2:
 
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I do it to my students, but the first time we have briefed for it and they know it's coming. Then well, they're fair game :)....
And yes if they take their hand off the throttle I pull it. Had one guy who from that point on kept a finger on it nearly constantly, saying you aren't gonna pull this on me today. I figured out a nice distraction and got him. We just laughed.

We also do power off 180s spot landings in the pattern. It's good practice
 
JasonM said:
Several?? Is is that common? Would you mind sharing those events with us?
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Sure, I had a double mag failure resulting in substantial power loss and limped it back to the field.

Years later I swallowed a valve and pretty much loss all power at about 600' flying Young Eagles. Made it back to runway. Got a nice letter from the EAA thanking me for not killing any Young Eagles.
 
flyingron said:
Sure, I had a double mag failure resulting in substantial power loss and limped it back to the field.

Years later I swallowed a valve and pretty much loss all power at about 600' flying Young Eagles. Made it back to runway. Got a nice letter from the EAA thanking me for not killing any Young Eagles.
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Thanks flyingron. What types of planes were these? How did you get back from 600' AGL, did you do the impossible turn?
 
Gutsy instructor. At that altitude, it doesn't take but a heartbeat for the trainee to make an input from which you cannot recover before the runway comes up and smacks you -- hard.
 
jnmeade said:
I was taking off in a small twin on one of the very first lessons and we rotated and began to lift off, the instructor chopped one throttle. I said, "your airplane" and took my hands off the yoke.

He never did that to me again, at least not without some kind of warning. Of course, a twin is different.
Click to expand...
Well, (in the twin) if the airman ceases guarding the throttle(s), instant one engine neutral thrust is the penalty.

Thereafter, there is Zero chance given by the student, to me, to zero thrust an engine at that point. And the H_LL I'm going to do a real cut without 6,000 feet left in front of me. Besides, when the engine dies from fuel starvation, we'll be a 200 AGL with insufficient runway left....

No cowboy stuff here.

In a single, though, the kill/stop maneuver is an ESSENTIAL survival skill.
 
Alexb2000 said:
50' is easy because there really is no decision, you put it back down as best you can. Do the same exercise at 800 AGL on climb out over an urban area. Those are the kinds of things that really test your decision making as a pilot.
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What did you do at 800 gal over urban area? Call out a street or did you attempt "the turn" or a wider turn to at least get parallel to runway but maybe on grass?

The 50' shutdown caught me off guard, but I'll have to think about the 800' one as most of my training pattern at gtu puts me into trees or i35..
 
supernovae said:
What did you do at 800 gal over urban area? Call out a street or did you attempt "the turn" or a wider turn to at least get parallel to runway but maybe on grass?

The 50' shutdown caught me off guard, but I'll have to think about the 800' one as most of my training pattern at gtu puts me into trees or i35..
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I had an actual engine emergency on departure, I was able to make it back because I had partial power.

Now whenever conditions are challenging like over an urban area, swamp, forrest, etc. I do a take off briefing and call out 1200 AGL for a turn back. In perfect conditions it could be done in less, but for me that is a good number. If I haven't called a turn back, then I look around and make the best choice I can, but no trying to go back.

I believe that CFI's should do things like pull power when it forces a tough decision. It's not the flying skills that kill us as much as the decisions we make IMO.
 
Am I the only one here that was trained to ALWAYS keep a hand on throttle(s) during takeoff? My instructor at the time couldn't do this if he wanted to.
 
JasonM said:
Thanks flyingron. What types of planes were these? How did you get back from 600' AGL, did you do the impossible turn?
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Both times it was in my Navion. In the second case I was at 600 with the gear up and nothing landable ahead, I swung it around to put it on the aircraft access road but came to the realization that I had sufficient altitude to get it all the way back on the runway which I did. I did even remember to get the gear down once I got back over the runway (fortunately it comes down fast in the Navion) but still had a little sideways drift in the process and rolled the tire off the rim in the process which was pretty much the sum total of damage (other than the cooked Gopher engine).
 
ProspectingCFI said:
Am I the only one here that was trained to ALWAYS keep a hand on throttle(s) during takeoff? My instructor at the time couldn't do this if he wanted to.
Click to expand...

One of my instructors would just have pulled the mixture in that case.
 
I had the engine quit at about 300agl in a C 140. Shoved the nose over put it in a big slip and got it down on the remaining runway. Didn't even have to think about it as my primary instructor had drilled into me 25 years before. Don
 
Garthur said:
I do remember my primary instructor pulling power at 50 feet and then still land on the remaining runway. I think my instructor had a little bit of evil in him. He would leave a seat belt hanging out the door so that as soon as you became airborne you could hear them banging. I would say "what's that" and then he would say "what's what". When I wasn't looking he would readjust almost any of the flight instruments to get me confused. He would have me land and take off with and without flaps. He would also pull the power back a few hundred RPM while we are rolling down the runway and then say go ahead a take off.
Click to expand...

My instructor would so something like this about once every other lesson. He was interesting, a young guy straight out of college with a ton of time under his belt. He had a great disposition but would do sneaky stuff like this whenever you weren't paying attention. Those were some of my best lessons.

The chief instructor doing checkrides was an idiot though. Used to flying citations and then would jump in a 172 for a check ride, he'd do some pretty stupid stuff. Like the one time he called a go around right before the wheels touched the ground and slapped my hands away when I went to retract one level of flaps, then went on a 10 minute rant about the proper go around technique, except he was quoting it for a jet... He about got a fist in the face with that one.
 
Ron Levy said:
Gutsy instructor. At that altitude, it doesn't take but a heartbeat for the trainee to make an input from which you cannot recover before the runway comes up and smacks you -- hard.
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Absolutely right. I'd prefer a little more altitude for this exercise, and a long runway. The lesson will be the same at 100' vs. 50', but the margins will not be cut so close.
 
bbchien said:
Well, (in the twin) if the airman ceases guarding the throttle(s), instant one engine neutral thrust is the penalty.

Thereafter, there is Zero chance given by the student, to me, to zero thrust an engine at that point. And the H_LL I'm going to do a real cut without 6,000 feet left in front of me. Besides, when the engine dies from fuel starvation, we'll be a 200 AGL with insufficient runway left....

No cowboy stuff here.

In a single, though, the kill/stop maneuver is an ESSENTIAL survival skill.
Click to expand...

The CFI was managing the throttles. You're right. No cowboy stuff in a twin.
 
ProspectingCFI said:
Am I the only one here that was trained to ALWAYS keep a hand on throttle(s) during takeoff? My instructor at the time couldn't do this if he wanted to.
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One reason for teaching a hand on the throttle is that in the old Cessnas, the throttle would walk it's way back and leave you with partial power if you weren't careful. The vernier sometimes didn't work or had to be clamped so hard you couldn't move the throttle readily if you needed to.

The easiest solution seemed to be to just keep a hand on the throttle. I suspect this technique has been carried over to teaching in other aircraft where the throttle wasn't an issue, but no one questioned it.

"Why keep a hand on the throttle?"
"Because" (and maybe make up a story)

Like much of our aviation instruction.
 
My folks are told to keep a hand on the throttle during take off roll for two reasons: a coyote or cow walks in front pull it to idle, your seat rolls back on rotatation you pull it to idle... Once we're in the air you can lock it open
 
Ron Levy said:
Gutsy instructor. At that altitude, it doesn't take but a heartbeat for the trainee to make an input from which you cannot recover before the runway comes up and smacks you -- hard.
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Exactly what I was thinking.....if the student doesn't respond correctly, it is very easy to screw up and bend metal.

The two CFIs in a Seminole accident comes to mind. They were testing the FAA's recommendation for Engine failure at 50'. Problem was, when the PF chopped the throttle, the airplane sank like a rock and collapsed the gear on the runway.
 
jnmeade said:
I was taking off in a small twin on one of the very first lessons and we rotated and began to lift off, the instructor chopped one throttle. I said, "your airplane" and took my hands off the yoke.

He never did that to me again, at least not without some kind of warning. Of course, a twin is different.
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Examiners can't pull an engine below 400' agl....why would an instructor think that s/he could pull one at liftoff? This is another of those "What would the judge say at the inquest?" situations.

Bob Gardner
 
bobmrg said:
Examiners can't pull an engine below 400' agl....why would an instructor think that s/he could pull one at liftoff? This is another of those "What would the judge say at the inquest?" situations.

Bob Gardner
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Bob, a flight instructor has to teach more than what an examiner may test.
Examinations are standardized for a variety of reasons besides safety, but just on the safety issue, a skilled instructor can approach the '50 foot cut' in a safe and learning environment that promotes confidence and skill in this expected emergency maneuver.

An endorsement to take a certification test is a statement that the applicant has demonstrated proficiency in "all pilot operations".

I read that to include, at least, all maneuvers in the FAA Flight Training Handbook.
 
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