I have always flown an asymmetric circuit to land using gear down when estabished on the final approach track and flap when I know I can reach the runway. I aim to land beyond the numbers assuming the runway is long enough. My logic is that if I lose the other engine and have the gear or flaps too early then I am not reaching the runway due to the drag. This gives me the best chance to land safely and since I haven’t put the gear down I am also on approach a few knots faster than normal but soon slow down when gear and flaps go down.
I did an IR revalidation flight today and the examiner commented that I should drop the gear on commencing base turn in the descent and use flap earlier and look to land on the numbers. I mentioned that losing the other engine on commencing base would then give me no chance to reach the runway. Seems I have been doing this wrong for years.
What do others do?
I don’t fly twins, so take what I say with the usual grain of salt, but your approach makes perfect sense to me. I use a similar technique flying the C210 which drops like a brick once the gear is down and you have more than 10deg flaps. As for landing on the numbers. Unless required by LDA (or rather, lack thereof) why would you?
There are often several correct ways to fly an airplane. You have one and the examiner another one. Carry on with the one you feel most comfortable with.
True and I will revert to the examiner method for the next revalidation. However I do wonder if this is the better method or not.
Our SOP is something in-between. In the Arrow II if you are flaps 1 and on speed in the Intermediate segment, dropping the gear at the FAF and full fine gives more or less the 3° sink slope and final speed. No configuration changes on final at all, unless on a high-speed approach (where the >1000ft rule applies).
Gear down at the beginning of the base is early, but my reference is an already slow plane (by commercial airport standards), I would consume a lot of capacity.
I usually do my MEP and IR revalidation at the same time and would usually put approach flaps and gear down at the FAF/FAP, but if I remember correctly the last time I did an MEP revalidation on its own I put approach flaps down on base and gear down having turned final.(asymatric that is) None of my examiners have ever corrected me on this but I do find that different examiners do have certain preferences for the way things should be done and as already has neen said, go with the method you prefer except if is preferable to do something different such as when you know an examiner has a particular way of doing things.
Losing one engine in twin can’t lead to situation of not being able to reach the field if you handle the emergency correctly.
And thinking about losing another engine would be like flying single completely focused all the time about losing the engine.
I like your thinking John, I fly so as to make the best of an engine failure. Once my choices of a place to go are reduced, I’d like to at least make it into the airport, if not onto a runway. Accidents are never good, but they are less bad inside the airport, rather than “out in public”. I’ve had four forced landings, and each time, I got the plane down damage free, and was able to fly out when the defect was corrected.
For a number of lighter twins I have flown, I treat them like a single when closer to the ground. If one quits, it is unlikely that I will do any more than try to stretch a glide with the other engine – certainly not climb away!
Emir wrote:
Losing one engine in twin can’t lead to situation of not being able to reach the field if you handle the emergency correctly
From within the circuit, probably. Otherwise, perhaps overly optimistic.
