boscomantico wrote:
in an engine failure emergency one will not have the mental resources to maintain precision on the airspeed.
I had to land dead stick once, and I can’t remember that lack of mental resources was a factor (in comparison to normal flight). That incident included last second changes of my initial plan. This was due to my initial guesstimates were wrong, something that wasn’t evident before getting low enough. Increasing the danger, increases your mental capacity IMO, makes you more focused. At least up to the point when panic sets in, and if it does, you have lost.
I think what many people don’t comprehend is that engine out in a SEP is a very dangerous situation, and your priorities are no longer “aviate, navigate, communicate” or something similar. Your one and only priority is to survive. If flying at minimum sink increases the probability of survival, then you should of course do it. It’s just that it’s hard to think of a situation where it will make a (positive) difference all things considered.
Where I normally fly, my best bet of increasing my chances of surviving is to get as close to civilization (houses, roads etc) as possible. This will maximize the possibility that I get help as soon as possible. Thus V best glide is King.
I will be test flying a modified Cessna T206H tomorrow, so what’s the first thing I do? Read the flight manual. A four hour flight to Vancouver has afforded me that opportunity. Interestingly, I note that it’s a much more detailed flight manual than I have seen from Cessna for older models.
I note with interest that Cessna states a “best glide speed” (flaps up) of 80 KIAS. However, the speed for a flaps up power off landing is 85 KIAS. So, if you chose not to, or could not, use the flaps, you’d be speeding up on your final approach to comply with the flight manual – and I agree!
