Get the nose down

yep, the first by heart items of any engine failure checklist are:

1. …. FLY
2. …. FLY
3. …. FLY

or as Bob Hoover once said (though I wasn’t there…): If you’re faced with a forced landing, fly the thing as far into the crash as possible.

Before starting my PPL I had 5 years of winch launched gliders. My logbook has an entry : “6 launches. 3 cablebreaks.”
When the cable broke we tied it with a reef knot and held the tails to the wire with insulating tape.
Nose down on break was a well practiced reaction long before I went solo. And the nose was soon at a much higher angle than I’d fly an SEP.

but if we lose the engine we need to get the nose down no matter what

Good for aeroplanes. Lethal for helicopters.

Nose down on break was a well practiced reaction long before I went solo. And the nose was soon at a much higher angle than I’d fly an SEP.

I have done plenty of those maybe hundreds of practice cable breaks and few real ones, I still failed to push quickly & promptly in the piper Cub (judging by how far ASI needle rolled back, surprise element and lack of negative G that I felt was missing), I believe what saved the day was the shallow climb…

bq.I believe what saved the day was the shallow climb… Quote

Yes, a shallow climb is your best plan to be safer in the case of an engine failure. I demonstrate this to all of the pilots I mentor. Some types are better than others at entering a glide from a climb. I was teach in the Decathlon a few weeks ago, and it’s pretty good. I was demonstrating to another pilot in the 185 amphibian last week, and it is horrible – you have to get the nose way down fast in those, or any floatplane.

AOPA has a video on how we teach power on stalls is entirely different to what goes on when someone inadvertently stalls:

The video spends a lot of time saying: “fly the plane”. Okay, some videos say a lot, while really saying one simple important thing – which is: “fly the plane”. Sometimes, when you’d like the plane to increase altitude, a push in pitch may be required to accomplish that safely. I was demonstrating this to a fellow pilot in the C 185 amphibian last week. As the airplane comes airborne during takeoff (which requires a strong one hand, or somewhat two hand pull on the control wheel) at the point where the plane is a few feet up, it’s going to need an increasing push on the control wheel to maintain the desired climb angle and accelerate to Vy. It’s just the way they are, you must actually fly them!

In the context of GA flying (with a couple of exceptions) I disagree with the video’s presentation of “rotating” a GA plane. This is a habit which can induce pilot error: Wrong scenario; pilot opens the throttle, keeps it straight on the runway, and at some predetermined indicated airspeed, tentatively pulls, to make it fly. It probably will. But, the pilot has concentrated the transition from rolling to flying to a very short time period, and if anything isn’t right (trim/crosswind/gust of wind) it can be task saturation, and lead to failure to maintain the optimum pitch attitude. Right (for most tricycle types); pilot opens the throttle and holds the nose light throughout the acceleration on the runway. As the airplane accelerates, the pilot can feel it beginning to fly, and modulate as might be needed to maintain control. The airplane will come airborne when it is ready, and if that pitch attitude is maintained, it’ll probably accelerate to a safe climb nicely without too much further change. This is very low pilot workload.

And, whatever you fly, practice stalls! It is worrisome to me the number of pilots who seem to never practice stall their airplane. The aforementioned C185 I’ve recently been maintenance flight checking (nine flights totaling more than six hours so far!) had had a wing replacement nearly five years ago. I can say categorically that that wing replacement rendered the stall warning system inoperative, and no amount of adjustment could make it work. Bad: The stall warning system did not work at all. Worse: Neither the owner (who flew it more than 100 hours during that period) nor the four annual inspections it went through during that period detected that unsafe condition. Practicing stalls will keep your skills sharp, and confirm to you that the stall warning system is working as expected!

Pilot_DAR wrote:

Right (for most tricycle types); pilot opens the throttle and holds the nose light throughout the acceleration on the runway. As the airplane accelerates, the pilot can feel it beginning to fly, and modulate as might be needed to maintain control. The airplane will come airborne when it is ready, and if that pitch attitude is maintained, it’ll probably accelerate to a safe climb nicely without too much further change. This is very low pilot workload.

This works with some types and operating conditions but not with others. My club flight instructors teach students to let the aircraft lift off by itself. That works well in a Cessna 152/172 and possibly in a PA28 with 2 notches of flaps. (Which is SOP at our rather short grass field.)

Recently, I flew right seat in our PA28-181 with a rather low experience club member (≈80 hrs) as PIC. We took off from an airport with a long concrete runway so no take-off flap was used. The trim was in the correct take-off position and as there no one in the rear seats, we had a forward GC.

At 70 kt we were still not airborne and the aircraft had begun to skip sideways in the crosswind. It was clear the the aircraft was not going to lift off by itself so I had to tell him to rotate.

There’s an important nuance between “hold the nose light” and “let it fly itself off”. The first emphasis is to “hold” – apply a pitch up control input (not trim it to fly off with no input) and, hold the controls against a crosswind. “Nose light” means that I want to see the nose rise noticeably from the three point “at rest” pitch attitude. The nosehwheel does not have to come off early, but I like to see it “light” – meaning that the pilot is actively balancing the airplane on the mains. That balancing will mean the pilot will be continually modulating the pitch input to maintain that pitch attitude, which includes relaxing some pitch up input as the airplane accelerates. As I mentioned, with the 185 amphibian, as the plane lifted off, a prompt nose down control input was required. I do not like to see airplanes “lift off by itself”. That is an indicator to me that the pilot is not actually flying it, but rather being flown by it, and probably not actually in control. And, I’m opposed to trimming an airplane to lift off on its own by being trimmed to do so, this encourages a pitch up after the airplane lifts off, and can cause the accident which started this discussion.

If (most) GA planes have to be “rotated” to become airborne, the pilot was not holding the nose light throughout the earlier takeoff roll. My “most” qualification is in respect of T tailed Pipers I have flown, They don’t respond so well to holding the nose light, and do respond nicely to being purposefully “rotated”, but that is uncommon to most GA types.

We can agree that it’s good to “fly the plane” until it’s chocked. It’s also good to “fly” it from the moment you open the throttle for takeoff!