Turn Around On Take Off After Engine Out.

During one of our flights here I asked Jesse what the options were for engine-outs on departure north. He joked, "There's a Kawasaki plant. Maybe the roof?"

While there's probably better things here, and it was a joke... this is one of the hardest parts about unfamiliar airports -- and one of the reasons you just have to truly know you're flying a single -- and that means you're going to have to commit to looking quickly left, center, right... and committing to whatever looks the most survivable.

I know where my best "outs" are at home. And I've seen a few airports that honestly don't have good options. But loss of control and airspeed in the turn will put you straight in and guaranteed death. Committing to the under control crappy option has to be ingrained. Say it. Do it.
 
bbchien said:
All those "one-up" on the forums-
"I did it in 600 feet!"
"I did it in 500!"

Whadda buncha garbage. The average GA joe needs 1,000 and he can still f-u really really good.
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+1

Stupid is as stupid does. :dunno:

Rather than heed the recommendations of the FAA more pilots and their passengers will die needlessly trying to return to the airport on take of rather than land safely off field.

Maybe now would be a good time to watch the video again of a pilot who thought he could make it back to the runway and his passengers who who paid the price for his miscalculation. This is what it is like to screw up and die.

http://vimeo.com/26640491
 
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Geico266 said:
+1

Stupid is as stupid does. :dunno:

Rather than heed the recommendations of the FAA more pilots and their passengers will die needlessly trying to return to the airport on take of rather than land safely off field.

Maybe now would be a good time to watch the video again of a pilot who thought he could make it back to the runway and his passengers who who paid the price for his miscalculation. This is what it is like to screw up and die.

http://vimeo.com/26640491
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Then we can go watch all the footage of pilots and pax that die landing straight and or just about any other way.

There is little wrong with learning what options you have and practicing executing those options. It is not a contest and it is not "watch this" (you know what those words are, don't you?) and if someone is making a contest of it, well they shouldn't.

Reminds me of the CFI that told me (or I read it) of a pilot that refused to do stalls on his BFR. He refused to "teach himself" how to stall the airplane because he figured not having that in his "memory bank" gave him an extra layer of protection. Needless to say, the CFI told him to try elsewhere.

If you want to have "land within 30 degrees left or right" as your only option on takeoff then that is fine with me. I just want a few more, altitude-dependent, options.
 
Ron Machado told a meaningful story about a couple high time pilots who picked up a freshly restored Stearman in Florida. The engine knocked out on takeoff, and they died trying to execute the impossible turn. The sad thing is there was a golf course fairway right in front of them.
 
Wow...the impossible turn...is.

Greater than 200? AGL - 2000 ft to the highway ahead. The mooney glides very well. Less than 200? AGL - Large open field to the left, slight left turn, then a right to line up with the field. In any case, the real cause was caused by not lowering the nose resulting in a stall/spin.

Mooneys are very photogenic apparently... http://flash.aopa.org/asf/pilotstories/impossibleturn/?WT.mc_id=091204epilot&WT.mc_sect=sap


The hidden lesson I take away from this AOPA link is that when you get an engine failure on takeoff, the nose needs to go down right now - note how fast it happens from the cockpit video. Before you even think about best glide speed or selecting the best field in front of you, drop the nose.
 
I have had an engine problem on departure over very hostile terrain.

At least for me it took a few seconds to realize I had a real problem, I would say maybe 5-7. You also have to fight brain lock for a few seconds, before you even start looking around for where to go. Most of us are also busy during departure, so stopping all the other activities also takes some time. All this is EASY in training, super hard in real life. No amount of practice can replace the real deal IMO. That said, I don't believe for a minute that the average or even above average pilot can return with the same altitude loss as in practice.

With departure briefings, I keep them super simple, because I found out how hard it is to think during a real problem. In my case lets say the field is 600' MSL. I add 1000' or 1600 MSL. MSL is the only thing I care about because I will be looking at the altimeter, so AGL or any other calculation is irrelevant once I start the roll. On the climbout I am looking for one number 1600'. At that level I call turn back (just my own thing). Otherwise I'm going somewhere generally straight ahead ( I don't worry about angles) even though it might be very ugly. The most important thing is that I won't let returning below that altitude enter my mind.

Also coming back from a straight out departure is relatively straight forward. Try it from the downwind. Every part of your body wants to turn immediately toward the runway even though that most likely means you'll overrun. I found holding off the turn in very difficult.

I sure the better pilots on here have a better briefing, but that's what I do.
 
The key to minimal altitude loss in a power off 180 is not best glide, but immediately nose forward, 60 degree bank in a COORDINATED turn, and maintain airspeed so as to remain above stall. That is the QUICKEST way to do a 180. Of course, your average GA pilot can't do this proficiently, which is why it must be practiced and automatic. This is part of the syllabus from Michael Church at Sunrise Aviation and must be demonstrated by students and potential renters. With a decathlon, a power off 180 then becomes possible, if not straightforward, in less than 500 feet. You should also be initially climbing out at Vx.

Like others have mentioned though, this is a high performance maneuver and you must be proficient at it or you will almost certainly die. And...your better options might be straight ahead anyway.

But the 'impossible' turn becomes possible at different altitudes for different pilots, in different locations, and in different planes.
 
I think the fact that the turn must be coordinated and at a proper airspeed are far more important than whether or not the turn is 45 or 60 degrees.
 
It doesn't make a big difference in the altitude lost, but why bank more steeply than you need to? I would think that maintaining a 60 degree bank would require greater skill than maintaining a 45 degree bank, and it also raises the stall speed (by nine or ten knots in a 172, for example).
 
Why do they teach Vx in that exercise? Proximity to the departure end of the runway?

Seems to make life harder especially given the plan to make a 60 degree banked turn. In a 7ECA at Vx you would be well short of the airspeed required even before the engine stopped (if my math is correct). Definitely true that it's a high performance maneuver.
 
You want to be high enough in the shortest amount of distance, not time. Thus, Vx. Of course, this means you gotta lower the nose even quicker.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD
 
Most of the pilots to whom I give BFRs who are taught this maneuver, can't hold airspeed, can't hold pitch. The ball is half a diameter out nearly the whole turn. I have only once encountered a SE pilot who practiced his monthly and he demonstrated the turn for me with the throttle closed (net propellor drag). He chose 45 degrees bank and his max bank was 60; airspeed was between 90 and 95 knots, and when we got to the runway threshold we were at precisely 1000 AGL, in practically no wind condition (which means we would just barely have made it).

M20J; this pilot knew his limtations.

But like I said, most cannot hold bank, nor pitch nor both. But somehow, we are all superior pilots. Now add the pressure of the truly failed engine. You get below 1.414 x stall and die. Yeah. That's the ticket. NOT.

You can add this tool but John, you gotta be realistic about your "in the clutch" capabilities. Many pilots have ended the BFR by saying, "you might have saved my life" but when I seen them 2 years later, they are absolutely terrible again. I guess I am a terrible teacher.
 
How many of us CFIs teach out students to brief every takeoff? The more sophisticated the airplane and the more structured the operation, the more you see and hear the crew saying outloud what they will do on takeoff. It needn't be elaborate, but it does outline the intent of the PIC and it does pre-load one to take certain actions. Most jets can fly off with one engine. Many twins cannot. Singles cannot. At certain altitudes, you take certain actions.
Why don't we?
1. We were never taught to
2. It would scare our passengers (but we can do it silently)
3. We haven't analyzed the airport to know what is appropriate
4. We forget
5. We aren't sure we can do anything so we pretend everything is alright.
 
bbchien said:
You can add this tool but John, you gotta be realistic about your "in the clutch" capabilities. Many pilots have ended the BFR by saying, "you might have saved my life" but when I seen them 2 years later, they are absolutely terrible again. I guess I am a terrible teacher.
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heh. I know the feeling. It would sure help if there wasn't so much pencil whipping out there. I've done flight reviews with people who haven't done a stall in 10 years...but yet have managed to complete flight review after flight review.

I've switched now to setting the expectations of the review before we even take to the air. I write it down and I write down what will be acceptable. Most people think sure no problem. Then they get up there and there is a problem and the expectations and results of that are known. I don't want it to feel like a test but at the same time people need to realize sometimes you need more work.
 
jesse said:
heh. I know the feeling. It would sure help if there wasn't so much pencil whipping out there. I've done flight reviews with people who haven't done a stall in 10 years...but yet have managed to complete flight review after flight review.
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I've been told by several CFIs that the idea is stall awareness, and not stall recovery. The reasoning is if you actually enter a stall, odds are you're going from base to final and your goose is already parboiled. I don't two them often myself, though my aircraft doesn't stall even if I want it to do so, at least not dirty.
 
steingar said:
I've been told by several CFIs that the idea is stall awareness, and not stall recovery. The reasoning is if you actually enter a stall, odds are you're going from base to final and your goose is already parboiled. I don't two them often myself, though my aircraft doesn't stall even if I want it to do so, at least not dirty.
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I disagree because I think the thing is that you want to have the correct muscle memory. In other words, don't keep pulling back.
 
Everskyward said:
I disagree because I think the thing is that you want to have the correct muscle memory. In other words, don't keep pulling back.
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If you enter a stall in the pattern it's game over. Thus the focus on awareness. I was told this came from the FAA. Wherever it came from, it was not from the overly fertile imagination of Steingar.

I really can't imagine doing much in an aircraft from muscle memory. It isn't like riding a unicycle.
 
steingar said:
If you enter a stall in the pattern it's game over. Thus the focus on awareness. I was told this came from the FAA. Wherever it came from, it was not from the overly fertile imagination of Steingar.

I really can't imagine doing much in an aircraft from muscle memory. It isn't like riding a unicycle.
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One can stall in the pattern and recover quite easily in almost any type. It has happened to many people and many people have lived because of the training they've received.

If one enters a fully developed SPIN on a base to final turn then yes, it's most likely game over, but even then TRY to recover. Any sort of recovery is going to be better then the spin upon impact.
 
jesse said:
One can stall in the pattern and recover quite easily in almost any type. It has happened to many people and many people have lived because of the training they've received.

If one enters a fully developed SPIN on a base to final turn then yes, it's most likely game over, but even then TRY to recover. Any sort of recovery is going to be better then the spin upon impact.
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The most common stall is base to final due to cross control, and if that happens, you enter an incipient spin. Game over. Been proven lots of times in blood.

Doing a stall like we do in training, where you're straight, not in a slip and expecting it, and yeah you can recover fairly quickly. Do it cross-controlled not expecting it, not so much. I suspect that's where the emphasis on awareness and avoidance came from. No doubt someone here knows better.
 
steingar said:
The most common stall is base to final due to cross control, and if that happens, you enter an incipient spin. Game over. Been proven lots of times in blood.

Doing a stall like we do in training, where you're straight, not in a slip and expecting it, and yeah you can recover fairly quickly. Do it cross-controlled not expecting it, not so much. I suspect that's where the emphasis on awareness and avoidance came from. No doubt someone here knows better.
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Both stall recognition and recovery are important skill sets which is why they're in the practical test standards. If one recognizes the impending stall and recovers before it happens -- GREAT. If they don't they sure the hell should still try and it's likely they'll live if they do so. Both are trained for at various certificate levels.

2012 Private PTS Effective June 1:
Task B: Power-Off Stalls (ASEL and ASES)
References: FAA-H-8083-3; AC 61-67; POH/AFM.
Objective: To determine that the applicant:
1. Exhibits satisfactory knowledge of the elements related to
power-off stalls.
2. Selects an entry altitude that allows the task to be
completed no lower than 1,500 feet AGL.
3. Establishes a stabilized descent in the approach or landing
configuration, as specified by the examiner.
4. Transitions smoothly from the approach or landing attitude
to a pitch attitude that will induce a stall.
5. Maintains a specified heading, ±10°, if in straight flight;
maintains a specified angle of bank not to exceed 20°,
±10°; if in turning flight, while inducing the stall.
6. Recognizes and recovers promptly after a fully developed
stall occurs.
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2012 Commercial PTS:
Task B: Power-Off Stalls (ASEL and ASES)
References: FAA-H-8083-3; AC 61-67; POH/AFM.
NOTE: When published, the aircraft manufacturer’s procedures for
the specific make/mode/series aircraft take precedent over
the identification and recovery procedures described in
paragraphs 6, 7, and 8 below.
Objective: To determine that the applicant:
1. Exhibits satisfactory knowledge of the elements related to
power-off stalls.
2. Selects an entry altitude that allows the task to be
completed no lower than 1,500 feet (460 meters) AGL.
3. Establishes a stabilized descent approximating a 3 degree
final approach or landing descent rate in the landing
configuration, as specified by the examiner. AA-S-8081-12C 58
Change 3 (May 1, 2012)
4. Transitions smoothly from the approach or landing attitude
to a pitch attitude that will induce a stall.
5. Maintains a specified heading, ±10°, if in straight flight;
maintains a specified angle of bank, not to exceed 20°, ±5°,
if in turning flight while inducing the stall.
6. Recognizes and recovers promptly at the “onset” (buffeting)
stall condition.
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FAA AC 61-98B
(4) Regardless of the pilot’s experience, the CFI may wish to review at least those
maneuvers considered critical to safe flight, such as stalls, slow flight, and takeoffs and landings.
Based on his or her in-flight assessment of the pilot’s skills, the CFI may wish to add other
maneuvers from the PTS appropriate to the pilot’s grade of certificate. All reviews should
include those areas within the PTS identified as “Special Emphasis.” Appendix 5 includes a list
of suggested maneuvers. The FAA does not intend this list to be all-inclusive, nor does it limit a
CFI’s discretion in selecting other appropriate maneuvers and procedures. To the greatest
possible extent, the CFI should organize and sequence the selected maneuvers in a realistic
scenario appropriate to the kind of flying normally done by the pilot.
Click to expand...

I've done flight reviews for folks that haven't even flown in SLOW FLIGHT since before I was born. It really is a pretty big problem.
 
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Everskyward said:
I disagree because I think the thing is that you want to have the correct muscle memory. In other words, don't keep pulling back.
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That sounds like it could be an argument NOT to practice falling leaf stalls... so I'm not sure I would agree that you necessarily want the response to be automatic.

<threadjack>

(Come to think of it, though I've stalled my Cardinal lots of times, I've yet to try a falling leaf stall in it. I'm having a hard time imagining what that would be like, since my plane takes a lot of pulling back to stall, but when it stalls, the nose really drops aggressively.)

</threadjack>
 
azure said:
That sounds like it could be an argument NOT to practice falling leaf stalls... so I'm not sure I would agree that you necessarily want the response to be automatic.
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When you are practicing falling leaf stalls you know you are trying to hold the airplane in a stall. It's not a stall recovery. Using that logic you shouldn't practice spins either because you are trying to hold the airplane in a spin for a certain number of turns.

I think muscle memory is important because you are not going to have enough time to use logic to think about it. My opinion is that part of the reason that the Q-400 pilot pulled back is the way the teach stalls in higher performance airplanes. You're not supposed to lose any altitude in the recovery so you end up pulling back. This works out OK as a proficiency maneuver because the airplanes have enough power to accelerate out of a stall, however it conditions the wrong response if you stall inadvertently. Recently they have changed the way they teach stalls in that you're supposed to lower the nose 'a little'. This was as a direct response to that accident.
 
He pulled back because he thought he had a tailplane stall, not a main wing stall. Completely different training.
 
denverpilot said:
He pulled back because he thought he had a tailplane stall, not a main wing stall. Completely different training.
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According to the accident report that's not what they concluded.

11. The captain’s response to stick shaker activation should have been automatic, but his improper flight control inputs were inconsistent with his training and were instead consistent with startle and confusion.
12. The captain did not recognize the stick pusher’s action to decrease angle-of-attack as a proper step in a stall recovery, and his improper flight control inputs to override the stick pusher exacerbated the situation.
13. It is unlikely that the captain was deliberately attempting to perform a tailplane stall recovery.
14. No evidence indicated that the Q400 was susceptible to a tailplane stall.
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http://www.ntsb.gov/doclib/reports/2010/aar1001.pdf
 
steingar said:
i.e. stall recognition, just like I was saying.
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For the commercial certificate - NOT for the private certificate. Like I said saying, both are tested at various certificate levels.
 
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