Hello All:

Just gave a presentation to EAA Chapter 92 on our engine out accuracy landing practice on the local Southern California dry lakes.

There was a lot of interest shown and we have several who have signed up for our next session at the end of September.

There was some concern from those with Certified GA aircraft, i.e. C172, C182 and one with a Mooney as to damage to the prop and wheel pants on the dry lake bed.

I mentioned that the dry lake we use are as smooth or smoother than some local airport runways and they only thing they might get on their planes is some lake dust.

We can schedule for weekend or weekdays. Of course, week days and especially not on holidays the lake is void of any other users.

Our preferred lakes are El Mirage and Soggy.

We also practice the "Deadly Turnback" and other skills.

Don't let your emergency engine out be your 1st dead stick practice session.

Better to have a skill you may never need than to need a skill you don't have.

Those who have joined us say they feel much more confident from the practice.

To be pit on the list please contact me at skypics234 at aol.com.

John

Excellent idea!

I sometimes practice over a patch of desert out here for the same reasons. I'll even go so far as to raise the nose to stop the prop. Unnerving but as you say good to have the emergency not be the first time you see your motionless prop.

I will be back in S. Ca late Sept. Will see you there.

This is a very worthwhile project given present statistics. 75% of forced landings touch down beyond the middle of the chosen landing zone. I forget the fatality rate but any fatality with a light airplane forced landing in daylight is very excessive.

I typically fly one "prop stopped" on -purpose practice engine out landing per month to my home field. I used to do one per week at the old strip in Texas. The current airport is a little to busy for that most of the time.

Best practice one can do. I figure if I can't put the dead stick down within 30' of my intended target, i am out of practice.

El Mirage is a great surface to do it on too. My plane lived on the shore of that lake of 40 years with the previous owner and I've taken it out there several times since owning it. Really gets your attention stoping the prop!

I had the engine shut off the other day in the cub. It's kind of spooky that it's so quiet that was my first time with out the engine running.

Great idea a seminar a practice for "dead stick" landings .I fly over El Mirage quite often and have landed there several times.We have "Red Lake" ( North of Kingman,AZ. ) and several more in Southern Nevada near by. Landing with precision is all about CONTROL of your airspeed ,altitude and direction of touch down .The airplane with whatever your flying at at that time will react differently. Density Altitude is another factor that must be figured in .

Didn't Harrison Ford write off his first helicopter in 1999 doing full-on auto's with an instructor at Lake Piru riverbed, north-east of Los Angeles? Things were going fine until on a slide-out they clipped an unseen log.

I'd like to do this myself to get to Jughead15's level of expertise, but not a lot of areas with undershoot/overshoot distances around here. I guess that's the attraction of dry lake beds.

Karmutzen wrote:Didn't Harrison Ford write off his first helicopter in 1999 doing full-on auto's with an instructor at Lake Piru riverbed, north-east of Los Angeles? Things were going fine until on a slide-out they clipped an unseen log.

I'd like to do this myself to get to Jughead15's level of expertise, but not a lot of areas with undershoot/overshoot distances around here. I guess that's the attraction of dry lake beds.

One thing you can do is use a long runway, but pick a spot on it that gives you the safety valve of plenty of room before and after your intended landing spot, so you can misjudge without damage.

I have a regular instructor whom I use for BFRs, IPCs, etc., and one day he saw me practicing short fields using just the leading edge of the numbers as my touchdown spot, rolling to a stop in about 600'. He asked me to use the touchdown markers at 1000' instead, commenting, "I know you can do that, and I know you won't come up short, but I have students who are going to see you do that and try to match you--and we don't need any wrecked airplanes here." So now I'm really careful to pick my touchdown spots based on whether there are other airplanes in the pattern--no point in being a bad example.

On stopping the prop, I've done that, too, although not recently. It will certainly show you how much drag that spinning prop has vs. a stopped prop. Because of the possibility that the engine won't restart (even if that's pretty remote), best to do that in a situation in which a safe dead stick landing can be made, i.e., over the airport, or over a known-to-be-acceptably-smooth dry lake bed, etc. As the saying goes, don't ever turn a mock emergency into a real one.

I'd also suggest that the CS prop drivers practice pulling the prop control out all the way while idling on final. The kick in the butt that provides can be a life saver if you're otherwise coming up short. An FAA Inspector showed that to me the first ATCO checkride I took, after a mock downwind emergency engine out when I just barely got the airplane straight with the runway before touchdown. He had me take it up again, match the previous downwind distance from the runway, and this time, as soon as I had turned toward the runway after he pulled the throttle off, he had me pull the prop control all the way out. We turned final at least 100' higher than before. I've used that several times in mock emergencies during BFRs and other emergency training since then.

Cary

Today I had a great flight with jugheadF15 and at the end he demo a dead stick landing and told me , Im aiming for the yellow mark in the grass , and he did touch down right on target.

Great piloting skills, and fun to fly with.

Im going to start practicing it (first at idle though)

While not exactly a dead stick, you can simulate it by figuring out what engine/prop settings will replicate a dead engine (windmilling or stopped prop). The POH probably has glide profile info, or more accurately go to altitude, shut off the motor and see what your sink rate is. Fire up the engine and set a power setting that gives the same sink rate. This allows you to practice while still having a go around option.

This technique will not replicate the affect silence will have on your performance, though.

Sky pic has an excellent presentation for any groups interested, He just delivered i