Do you mean the one who used to fly the DA40TDi? Yes I think so.
Actually I was thinking of descending at say 150kt, which would give you a whole load more options - providing you do actually become visual at all
Putting that through the calculator, I make it as the equivalent of 230 extra metres of altitude, which is certainly worthwhile.
If you meet the hillside at 65 knots, are you much more likely to survive than if you meet it at 150 knots? If the answer is 'no' then you could argue that it's a good bet to keep the extra speed.
I think the answer would be Yes i.e. you are much more likely to survive.
I can think of at least two cases straight off, of a CFIT, where they survived.
One was into a hill in a TB20, where the pilot said it was at about 120kt.
The other was at an unknown speed but in a C150 (?) so perhaps not all that fast, on a night PPL training flight. Badly injured but apparently now recovered.
I think both hit the ground on a gentle slope.
This is why, when I cross the Alps above an overcast (thankfully not often) I am running a topo map on the GPS. Better than nothing...
Well, it's pleasing to hear that I am now known as "The Kat" rather than just plain old "Kat" ;)
I shall copy and paste my engine failure at night experience, and maybe tweak it a bit. Here goes:
Last night my instructor and I were doing the final night requirement for my US PPL. We decided to combine it with some IR work, and filed IFR down from Sarasota to Naples and back. Upon taxiing out in our 172S we discovered that the right brake had failed, through the medium of braking, and violently veering left towards parked aircraft. We missed all of them, the last one in line only because the pilot pre-flighting it saw us coming, leapt out, and pushed it backwards! We returned gingerly to parking and swapped into the other 172.
An hour's flight saw us shooting the VOR approach to Naples, and then departing back to Sarasota. Just north of Fort Myers, out over the bay, the engine hiccupped once. We glanced at each other, sharing a "that's not good" expression, before all hell broke loose; the engine started running very rough, and we started to lose altitude from our assigned 4000'. I was flying, and stayed on the controls while the instructor called up the nearest airport in the Garmin 430; a private strip called Coral Creek 6nm away. There was no info on the charts about it but Ft Myers approach gave us the frequency, and informed us that it had pilot controlled lighting.
Turns out, the lighting was inop (see post-script), and the airfield is in the middle of a swamp; no ground lighting for miles around. We poured on full power and turned for Punta Gorda, 15 miles across the bay; but lighted. After about a mile, and topping out at 3500' it was clear that the engine was getting worse and would not maintain altitude, and an invisible airport was preferable to a swim so we turned back.
Coral Creek during the day:
Coral Creek at night:
The instructor brought Coral Creek back up onto the map, and switched to OBS mode; this gave us a line centred on the airport that we set to the runway heading and used as a guide. On a tight downwind we were still at 2500' so I put on full flap and extended my downwind; the instructor wanted to turn, but I was sure we were still too high and needed more space. I eventually turned a single 180 degree turn to finals and lined up using the GPS; we went down a little faster than best glide to lose the rest of the excess height, and flared when the altimeter read just above field elevation. The GPS at full zoom showed us over the runway and finally the rather weedy landing light picked out the centreline; right as our main wheels settled onto it. We had enough power to taxi off and shut down.
Things that we should have done better:
1) We should have declared a Mayday or at least a Pan. Approach control helped us all they could, but there's no point hesitating. I wanted to call a Pan but the instructor did not, which brings me on to point 2.
2) We did not brief what to do in emergencies; who would have control, etc. In the event it worked ok, with me doing all the flying and him handling the avionics, but things like the Pan decision were left unclear. In future I will do an emergency brief before departure and male it clear who will be PIC in event of an emergency.
3) We should have turned on the taxi light, in addition to the landing light. This would probably have helped us see the runway before we actually landed on it!
4) I need to familiarise myself more with the 430. I can run the basics, but a couple of times the instructor had navigated to another page (to get a frequency for example) and had then become distracted talking on the radio, and I could not navigate back to the map. I suggested fairly certainly that he should change it back and he did, but if I could have done it myself it would have helped.
A post-script: I flew back past the Coral Creek airport a few nights later. I decided to try the lighting again/ Where-as the instructor had been the one keying it before (in a fast, frantic, way), this time I tried it his way to start with (no lights came on), and then in a slow, measured way. The lights came on...if we'd tried this at the time, life might have been a whole lot easier...
Kat,
I remember reading that amazing story on some other site, can`t remember where.
My question: what caused this abrupt engine failure?
Ultra Long Hauler
