He would have made a slight turn to the right and landed straight ahead in the water.
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Van's Air Force
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Airport turnback procedure
- Thread starter trib
- Start date
He would have made a slight turn to the right and landed straight ahead in the water.
RV10inOz
Well Known Member
Or perhaps he may have made another runway on the field. Go jump in a A320 sim and see for yourself. I can ask a couple of mates who fly them to try it one day, if I remember.
The Royal Flying Doctor Service use something like 33 of the Pilatus PC12. They also have a large fleet of B200's. They teach EFATO turnbacks with gear out and takeoff flap untouched, from I think 300' AGL. Otherwise its straight ahead or off to one side depending UPON local conditions. They teach engine outs in the cruise and techniques to ensure you make a suitable field and fly procedures that take into account night flights.
Have a read of this and consider that in these parts of Australia, in fact most interior parts, there is nothing for hundreds or thousands of miles. The US has nothing this remote left, so imagine dark....like the inside of a cow
http://www.atsb.gov.au/media/808954/ao2010006_prelim.pdfLongrangeor, shooting random what if's could go on for ever, facts are these;
1. know your aeroplane
2. know the surrounding terrain
3. know your limits
Will there always be a Gotcha.....sure will, just minimise them.
RV10inOz
Well Known Member
Just watched the Cirrus video and I have the following observations.
1. He wasted 10 seconds from the first surge to decide to head back.
2. He let it drift to the right but eventually turned left.
3. Bank angle was 10-15 degrees and then later on 25, then much later at 30 seconds it reached 40 degrees.
My comments;
1. At low level after takeoff the first sign of trouble start turning back, unless its a complete failure, partial power may be more than enough....Keep Flying the **** plane! This is not helpful if off a short strip and at 100' so my usual caveat applies.
2. Always turn the direction you intend to go in your pre takeoff brief, it may be left or right depending on where the suitable ground is. My usual caveat applies.
The pilot wasted huge amounts of time and energy up to this point.
3. Bank angle applied was pathetic. If he truly knew his aeroplane and practised these skills he may have performed far better.
A good pilot is never surprised when an engine fails, he is surprised when it does not!
I do not know the Cirrus, but from 700 feet it may well be possible, he just wasted so much time and energy that all that video displays is the OWT is sound. Which it is not.
Had the ground been unfriendly and you were sure you could not do it above 500 pulling the handle may have been better.
The thing we RV folk need to realise is the RV10 for example will achieve 700 feet much much closer to the aerodrome and will I think glide better, so an RV10 would have had trouble losing height, and if flown exactly as he did it may have made it nicely.
1. know your aeroplane
2. know the surrounding terrain
3. know your limits
And practise........
1. He wasted 10 seconds from the first surge to decide to head back.
2. He let it drift to the right but eventually turned left.
3. Bank angle was 10-15 degrees and then later on 25, then much later at 30 seconds it reached 40 degrees.
My comments;
1. At low level after takeoff the first sign of trouble start turning back, unless its a complete failure, partial power may be more than enough....Keep Flying the **** plane! This is not helpful if off a short strip and at 100' so my usual caveat applies.
2. Always turn the direction you intend to go in your pre takeoff brief, it may be left or right depending on where the suitable ground is. My usual caveat applies.
The pilot wasted huge amounts of time and energy up to this point.
3. Bank angle applied was pathetic. If he truly knew his aeroplane and practised these skills he may have performed far better.
A good pilot is never surprised when an engine fails, he is surprised when it does not!
I do not know the Cirrus, but from 700 feet it may well be possible, he just wasted so much time and energy that all that video displays is the OWT is sound. Which it is not.
Had the ground been unfriendly and you were sure you could not do it above 500 pulling the handle may have been better.
The thing we RV folk need to realise is the RV10 for example will achieve 700 feet much much closer to the aerodrome and will I think glide better, so an RV10 would have had trouble losing height, and if flown exactly as he did it may have made it nicely.
1. know your aeroplane
2. know the surrounding terrain
3. know your limits
And practise........
mv031161
Well Known Member
Rv10inOz. Great posts! I know well some of the people you talk about. Do you know Allan Yeoman in QL? He just purchased my Pitts and should be inside a container before months end. I was replacing w/ an RV8 but already made a deal for a Local Giles 202. Hard to pass on a Giles!!!
"Know your aircraft Know your surroundings Know your limits" Should be placarded in every panel! Just be careful when you practice and make sure there's plenty of altitude when you do in case you stall!
"Know your aircraft Know your surroundings Know your limits" Should be placarded in every panel! Just be careful when you practice and make sure there's plenty of altitude when you do in case you stall!
There's no way an A321 can make a 270 degree turn at 500' and make another runway. Plus, around LGA, it would have been deadly to even attempt. Too many things with tons of people to hit.
Steve
JonJay
Well Known Member
What Van says
I just read his latest article and find it interesting that Vansaircraft will not endorse an instructor who teaches turn back procedures.
If this was brought up before, I apologize, I got tired trying to read through the immense amount of "opinion"....sprinkled with an occasional fact, that still leaves more questions asked than answered, not that I am afraid of a good discussion....
This is how I was taught, and will use this procedure on any engine out;
Establish best glide
Find your field or landing area (you hope there is one out there!) and manuever toward it.
Troubleshoot if you have time but never give up the field and always fly the airplane.
If I have established best glide, and I can aquire the field behind me in confidence, I have enough altitude to turn back. Otherwise, the landing area in front of me is where I am going to put it down. I would hazard a guess that I would not make a decision in time to turn back to the field if I was at my go, no go point for a 180 turn back.
Should I modify my procedures? Train for that scenerio? or stick with what I was taught knowing that in a panic situation, I will remember to do this.
PS - I have had two 180 turn backs (not in an RV). I made the 180 turn on one and landed safely. I did not make the field the second time but flew the airplane all the way to a safe, although aircraft damaging, landing. In both cases I followed my training and lived.
I just read his latest article and find it interesting that Vansaircraft will not endorse an instructor who teaches turn back procedures.
If this was brought up before, I apologize, I got tired trying to read through the immense amount of "opinion"....sprinkled with an occasional fact, that still leaves more questions asked than answered, not that I am afraid of a good discussion....
This is how I was taught, and will use this procedure on any engine out;
Establish best glide
Find your field or landing area (you hope there is one out there!) and manuever toward it.
Troubleshoot if you have time but never give up the field and always fly the airplane.
If I have established best glide, and I can aquire the field behind me in confidence, I have enough altitude to turn back. Otherwise, the landing area in front of me is where I am going to put it down. I would hazard a guess that I would not make a decision in time to turn back to the field if I was at my go, no go point for a 180 turn back.
Should I modify my procedures? Train for that scenerio? or stick with what I was taught knowing that in a panic situation, I will remember to do this.
PS - I have had two 180 turn backs (not in an RV). I made the 180 turn on one and landed safely. I did not make the field the second time but flew the airplane all the way to a safe, although aircraft damaging, landing. In both cases I followed my training and lived.
Brantel
Well Known Member
I have also lived thru a partial engine failure at night on takeoff in a 152. I lost most of the power around 500ft AGL about the time I was starting my crosswind turn. Like JonJay, I put the ASI on best glide and continued my turn left on around and ended slipping some after the field was made. Lucky for my passenger and I, we were where we were in the climb, the engine went to a little above idle power and I had already began the turn. We had to pull the airplane back to the hangar.
To have landed straight out would have most likely killed us both because there was no good spot out there off the end for a landing not to mention it was pitch black dark.
Guess who the passenger was....Evelyn Bryan Johnson, 58,000+ hours. Last hour of night flying before my PP checkride back in the late 80's. Scared the poo out of her!
To have landed straight out would have most likely killed us both because there was no good spot out there off the end for a landing not to mention it was pitch black dark.
Guess who the passenger was....Evelyn Bryan Johnson, 58,000+ hours. Last hour of night flying before my PP checkride back in the late 80's. Scared the poo out of her!
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scsmith
Well Known Member
Note important differences
Compare this to the C-172 experiments shown in the video from "aerobats". In that case, the 30-degree bank case failed because, although they got turned around, they were too far downrange of the field to make it back to the field.
In an RV, there is the opposite problem: at 500 ft you are right on top of the airport. You turn around and its hard to get down and stopped before the other end.
The posters here that seem adament that you are better off straight ahead have not made any caveat for the case when there is nothing but houses and wires off the end of the runway. I think this really does make the question and discussion valid-- at some altitude, it would be better to turn back.
I'm going to go practice. I take to heart all the comments about not doing enough simulated emergency drill.
Thanks.
Compare this to the C-172 experiments shown in the video from "aerobats". In that case, the 30-degree bank case failed because, although they got turned around, they were too far downrange of the field to make it back to the field.
In an RV, there is the opposite problem: at 500 ft you are right on top of the airport. You turn around and its hard to get down and stopped before the other end.
The posters here that seem adament that you are better off straight ahead have not made any caveat for the case when there is nothing but houses and wires off the end of the runway. I think this really does make the question and discussion valid-- at some altitude, it would be better to turn back.
I'm going to go practice. I take to heart all the comments about not doing enough simulated emergency drill.
Thanks.
johnny stick
Well Known Member
Question about standard wisdom
So I have a question, why is everyone attempting these turnbacks at an airspeed close to stall? I would think a turn back at best glide, or even higher, would produce the least altitude lost. Close to a stall, the plane is in a mush with very poor glide ratio. This is a very inefficient way to produce the turning force necessary to bring the plane round. Granted a higher airspeed produces a greater turn radius, but I think turn radius is not the biggest worry,it is altitude lost. Maybe there is a math problem in here that will answer the question.
So I have a question, why is everyone attempting these turnbacks at an airspeed close to stall? I would think a turn back at best glide, or even higher, would produce the least altitude lost. Close to a stall, the plane is in a mush with very poor glide ratio. This is a very inefficient way to produce the turning force necessary to bring the plane round. Granted a higher airspeed produces a greater turn radius, but I think turn radius is not the biggest worry,it is altitude lost. Maybe there is a math problem in here that will answer the question.
Turning from x-wind to downwind with partial power is not a turnback from an EFATO...
This highlights one of the problems with this discussion. What constitutes a turnback after EFATO versus flying back to the airport and landing.
The obvious answer is that there is no answer....
My position is that the default action needs to be lowering the nose and picking a soft spot, ahead of the wing, into the wind.
If the default action is certain death, then other options must be considered, but trees do not mean certain death, some water doesn't mean certain death, but a SSCBD does......
I had a partial EFATO at 15,500 25 miles from departure. I turned around and was headed home, all my math said I had the airport made. I had a farm strip 4 miles short, and lots of good quiet country roads, if I did not, but I chickened out and landed at a grass strip underneath me.... It would have meant a lot less hassles getting the airplane fixed, and it became a total power loss. Even though still I could have made it, but it was still a bad idea....
This was clearly that is not an EFATO but where do we cross that line? I believe that occurs at an altitude from which you can take a few seconds to recognize the problem, push the nose over, turn back, and then take a few seconds to asses the situation and still have time and altitude to turnback into the wind for a minimum speed, (read into the wind) off airport landing.
Someone brought this up earlier, but landing into the wind is critical.. A 10 knot wind and a 45 knot stall speed plus a 5 not margin means a 40 knot accident into the wind and a 60 knot crash down wind.
This is 50% increase in energy, I'll defer to the engineers, but energy is not directly related to survivability, I believe it is like lift, a log function... That means a lot less survivable.
Tailwinds,
Doug Rozendaal
Having taking Professor Robert E. Ball's masters level course in Air Combat Survivability, to which he wrote and published the test book called "The Fundamentals Of Aircraft Combat Survivability Analysis and Design" and is probably THE expert on the subject, and looking through the text as I write this - a mathematical relationship between energy and survivability doesn't exist in such simplistic terms as "it's a log function". The structure, restraints, pilot anthropomorphic (fancy way of saying size) measurements, helmet, the impulse at impact (delta momentum between two given time periods), fuel system (is it a pressure or vacuum system, self sealing bladders, etc.), seat angle, gear configuration, and on and on all significantly affect the survivability.
It is pure silliness to suggest any one course of action is better or worse than another as each must be determined based solely upon the circumstances at the moment the decision must be made - this is called judgement.
It is pure silliness to suggest any one course of action is better or worse than another as each must be determined based solely upon the circumstances at the moment the decision must be made - this is called judgement.
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the_other_dougreeves
Well Known Member
I'm not a CFI, I haven't landed an Airbus in a public waterway, and I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night, but in my glider flying (both as a student and CFI-G trainee), I've had plenty of simulated rope breaks (PT3) in the 200-300' range. I've also tried it in my CT at about 600ft AGL.
In both powered and unpowered aircraft, I've never took the time to establish best glide to assess where to go and start maneuvering. If you're at 500AGL, don't bother to establish best glide right away - you have more important things to do, like make sure you have enough speed (it's amazing how much you have to push the nose down, and if you stall it, you're done), start turning and pick up your landing point. Once you're well into the turn with your landing point picked up, then focus on best L/D if you need it. Chances are in a RV you're going to be high and need to bleed off energy anyway (slip), so best L/D isn't always what you want.
Second, you should already know whether you're going to return and land downwind because you should have already called your decision height. In the glider, if a student fails to tell the instructor their decision height for that tow or doesn't call it once you pass it, we will probably give them a PT3. Lots goes into the choice of decision height - wind (too strong to land downwind?), runway layout, operations (are you going to crash into a line of gliders and towplanes?), etc. Taking 5-10 seconds before pushing the throttle to consider where you will go could be the difference between making it or not.
TODR
Brantel
Well Known Member
I miss worded my post above and have edited it. I was not "Crosswind" I had just started my Crosswind Turn from the departure course. Sorry for the confusion. To further clarify, I made about a 165-170° turn at little more than idle power. This by no means makes me a super pilot. I just followed my training and selected the best choice I had at the time.
In my opinion any loss of engine power before reaching pattern altitude is an EFATO. Night failures increase the risk by many times I am sure.
I think we can all agree that we are discussing anything from ~ 200ft to 1000ft AGL. Anything less is pointless to debate and anything higher should be doable by most proficient pilots unless we are already outside of the glide range of a particular airplane.
Is a successful 180° turnback from 500' after a complete EFATO not "Flying back to the airport and landing"?
Phlyan Pan
Well Known Member
The issue here is glide range. At a specific altitude you have a specific linear range you can cover before you meet mother earth. (L/D) A larger circle eats up more of that distance, think about the circumference of a circle...a larger circle is going to make you travel a longer distance to get around it. The steep turn is less efficient, but the less distance traveled makes up for it.
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Ron Lee
Well Known Member
Actually I think it is a difference of 2.25 times higher at 60 versus 40.
Non trivial.
RV6airplanePilot
Well Known Member
Practice video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywuEUVZ3epo
All the talk about safety motivated me to practice. This was after 3 flights with simulations starting at 3800 AGL this week. I did not pull the prop control since the engine was providing idle thrust; these 2 issues have some degree of offset. I need to quantify in the future.
Dale
RV6a Hartzell c/s, Grand Rapids Sport SX (synthetic vision)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywuEUVZ3epo
All the talk about safety motivated me to practice. This was after 3 flights with simulations starting at 3800 AGL this week. I did not pull the prop control since the engine was providing idle thrust; these 2 issues have some degree of offset. I need to quantify in the future.
Dale
RV6a Hartzell c/s, Grand Rapids Sport SX (synthetic vision)
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This is a great video and a great job. The numbers/performance is very similar to my test with is with similar type engine/prop.
