I think the priority has to be to identify a decent sized area of ground that is suitable for a survivable crash landing. Unless you have loads of altitude for a glide to overhead an airfield arriving with thousands of feet in hand.
A airport is ideal but if it involves flying over built up areas or terrain to get there with a chance of falling short, it is a high risk strategy. But I can imagine the temptation to aim for the nearest airport must be high.
Certainly no point taking ATC advice on an airfield to aim for when they have no clue about your ability to make the glide there or not.
BeechBaby wrote:
Synth vision, BRS, all great, but the majority of the GA fleet will not have, nor possibly will, ever get.
At least in the US, synth vision is available on an iPad via ForeFlight. Today.
I say if it is your day, because you may glide out where there is zero option in front of you, and that is the luck of the draw.
That comes down to old saying about SEP ops with engine failure at night: after gliding down and approaching the ground, turn on the landing light. If you like what you see, keep it on. If not, switch off……
Sad event.
dnj wrote:
Certainly no point taking ATC advice on an airfield to aim for when they have no clue about your ability to make the glide there or not.
I’d say it depends who you talk to. Tower controllers often have very good knowledge of their area and can guide you to a landing (or at least controlled crash) site. An approach controller most likely not (unless co-located in the tower).
If you read this you will realise that was in IMC too.
And I can tell you that, as they say, the battle plan doesn’t survive the first shot. One gets very busy, especially if you get ambiguous cues. If you got a big bang, a lump appears on the cowling and the prop stops dead, then at least you can concentrate of the gliding. But this is very rare. Most engine failures are very subtle and evident only from a change of noise (possibly), change of EGTs (definitely), change of MP (if you get around to looking at it), etc. You lose valuable tens of seconds working out what has probably happened. Fortunately those types of incidents will happen only at high altitudes so you have time.
If you get an ambiguous one at low level, say 2000ft, then you have to work like a one armed bandit. You have to
and forget about waiting for something to happen as a result. You have to think about gliding right away. You have already wasted tens of seconds…
Forget about ATC – you won’t hear them. Hearing is the first thing that goes out of the window.
Do you mean that single-engine aircraft should be operated so that they are within gliding distance of an airport at all times?
Yes, you understood me right. And this is indeed what I was taught, with great emphasis, enough to make it a second nature. Just a detail correction: not necessarily an aerodrome, but do always have a field available, suitable for landing in one piece. Perhaps not the plane undamaged, or even the occupants undamaged, but, with any luck, the occupants returned to a serviceable state. If very lucky, even the plane returned to a flyable state, at bearable cost.
Flying a rather slow plane with an engine less reliable than the famous Lycosaurs, I am always keeping half an eye open to a field where I will put down if the engine quits now.
Of course I have not the slightest idea about IFR flying, neither the underlying technological limitations nor the current implementation – which might excuse my posting hopelessly irrealistic expectations of applying available technology to optimise survivability.
In the same spirit, I always approach fairly high, especially on shortish runways, and do “sideslip off” the excess altitude when close enough to be sure I’l make it to the runway even if the engine quits. My performance on long hard runways has been less than impressive, for lack of experience… I was always aiming for the numbers, though there was ten times more runway behind than what I would need at the worst of times.
172, I was aware of the synth via I pad, with Xavion, Fore Flight etc, BUT, setting up for the approach, IMC, coming from 3to 2, and large vibration through the engine, to we have no engine, ie engine failure, with everything going on would an individual have the time, or even the wherewithall to start looking at configuring the I pad for synth. Ok, if you had pre set it, maybe, but I find in normal conditions, hand flying IMC, if I start to look at the I pad, or even away from my scan, I can get the start of leans.
I will go with having the display panel mounted, but are they not like hens teeth?
I might add, that in this particular crash, the NTSB have discovered a large hole blown in the crankcase. Engine was a major rebuild, 200 hrs app on it, IO550…..so any engine monitors may well have shown…..nothing
I concur that ATC would be of very little assistance
A few years ago I met an ex IMC student who told me that our discussion on Engine failure in IMC had paid off, he was IMC near Bellfast at around 8000 feet when the engine quit. He maintained cruise speed whilst in IMC and was vectored by ATC towards Belfast City Airport. When out of cloud he selected glide speed and made a perfect landing on the main runway. He commented that ATC were most helpful.
Tumbleweed, obviously in that instance ATC assistance was crucial. The body of the discussion revolves around the engine failure on approach…
I also think that there are two general issues
That’s why I think a pilot needs to be terrain-aware at all times. But how many are? The technology for this is hardly mature.
Much European ATC don’t speak much English, and many will not understand “engine failure”. For a fact, some in Spain cannot understand “icing” which is a lot more common
ATCOs are required to have Level 4 English and should understand common aviation phraseology.
How does that help that they “should”?
