During our training for a pilot licence your flight instructor will do "simulated dead sticks." However you aircraft performs completely different when the engine is silent.

We are fortunate here in Southern California to have many dry lakes available on which to practice dead sticks. Think Edwards AFB where the space shuttle landed.

Our group at Corona Airport (KAJO) make it a point to use these lakes to practice not only accuracy dead sticks, but also learn the minimum turn back altitude AGL for a departure engine failure.

Added to this we try different techniques for shortening take off and landing distances. These all inspire confidence and minimize panic when the actual failure occurs.

Since the dry lakes are miles long and wide we can screw up pretty bad and still have a safe spot to put it down.

Hand held radios are used to notify the pilot of take off and landing distances which are marked with cones and flags are apecific intervals.

We encourage anyone to join us. Those who have say it was a real eye-opener.

John M (AKA Lil' John)

I complement you on your efforts to help pilots become more proficient in this worthwhile technique. We old pilots had to demonstrate the spot landing, which was at flight idle. The goal was to use flaps and forward or side slip or a combination to get down on the beginning of the chosen landing area. The horrible statistic, that 75% of forced landings touch down beyond the mid point of the chosen landing area, indicates that we might benefit from going back to that technique.

You are right about the airplane descending much faster with full shutdown and windmilling prop. I have had ten engine failures and can attest to that.

You are also correct that the school solution of descending straight ahead into whatever is there, on the takeoff forced landing, is not always good judgement. Nine of my ten engine failures were at or below 200' AGL and only once was the best solution straight ahead. That one was an engine failure on takeoff and I landed on the runway remaining. As long a we don't pull back on the stick in the turn, a turn utilizing whatever bank is necessary to make a good landing zone, is possible. The design of the airplane is to fly. It cannot create load factor or stall itself. If we simply allow the nose to go down in a turn, as it was designed to do, the airplane will continue to fly just fine. Also, the usable landing zone is very easy to find. At low altitude, the choices are few allowing the decision to be made quickly and firmly. And it will be close. We cannot see or make far away LZs. We are usually high and fast for the one we can make. We may need to use full flaps and full slip in the turn to it.

The takeoff forced landing, however, must be committed to prior to pushing the throttle in. We have to be spring loaded to the failure or we will lose a couple valuable seconds accepting the failure. It is a six second deal. Messing with mags, carb heat, radio, etc. is a time consuming distraction we may not have time for. Yes, we may end up on the ground without as big a problem as we thought. You guys are teaching life saving techniques, not airplane saving techniques. I starved a Super Cub of fuel when there was fuel in the other tank. The student up front and I had forgot to change. The engine quit coming out the field on a practice spray run. I was almost down on the adjoining field when he got the tank switched and the engine running. I landed anyway. I didn't damage the airplane. I could have quickly realized what we had done and that changing tanks solved the problem. That would have been a fine decision except that, if wrong, it might have killed us. You just don't have time for distractions in a low level forced landing.

Brain Lansbourgh from the "Tailwheelers Journal" has this interesting clip on dead stick landings.

http://tailwheelersjournal.com/2012/dead-stick-landing/

Fun Stuff

Gump

How many have actually done one with no fire in the engine.

Tim

Or, in some cases, no gas in the tanks!

Thank goodness for AAA and I-80, we'd miss you otherwise.

Gump

John, as soon as I get done putting the airplane pictured in your avatar back together, I'll be joining you guys out there practicing this stuff. Been a while, and I got 25+ years of rust to scrape off of that old skill. I still have a sectional chart from long-gone glider days that I marked up with the locations of a whole bunch of off-field landing spots, abandoned airport remnants, and other points of interest for the morbidly curious.

So far, in the last few weeks since I picked it up, I un-twisted the fuselage, found a new set of gear legs, found an engine for it, and have started laying out an engine mount. It's going to be a very tricky engine mount because the Avid is designed for a top mount to hang the motor from, and the 2A-120 Franklin engine is designed for a bed mount underneath. It'll take a couple of clever pills to figure it out, but I'll "git 'er done" . Should be in the air in a couple of months more.

I'm always amazed to hear a guy making a radio call when having an inflight emergency, like a dead stick landing, what a un needed distraction! My last one, in a Lycoming powered Avid Magnum, was at 500', and I had to make the snap decision to either land on a clear road with very high banks and at a 45 dregree to the 15 mph wind, or a plowed field directly into the wind.

I chose the field, and made an uneventful damage free landing. I'll never forget my response to the planes owner, who was sitting right next to me When he asked, "don't you think we should land on the road?" I responded with "not now Brent I'm busy". THEN I called the tower. Flew the plane out the next day after displacing the air in the fuel tanks, which had caused the problem, too much air in them.

courierguy wrote:I'm always amazed to hear a guy making a radio call when having an inflight emergency, like a dead stick landing, what a un needed distraction! .

Probably wise though to let any other traffic know that they shouldn't expect you to yield as you have right of way based on emergency status. It's not the first thing I would do but it takes 5 seconds once you're sorted out on your plan. It might mean that other aircraft keep their distance until you're down. That's probably not as big a concern where you fly as it is for me.

Edit: Missed the 500 feet detail. Agreed, no time to talk. Though I'd prob tell old Bob to get the pickup and come get me.

Zzz wrote:

courierguy wrote:I'm always amazed to hear a guy making a radio call when having an inflight emergency, like a dead stick landing, what a un needed distraction! .

Probably wise though to let any other traffic know that they shouldn't expect you to yield as you have right of way based on emergency status. It's not the first thing I would do but it takes 5 seconds once you're sorted out on your plan. It might mean that other aircraft keep their distance until you're down. That's probably not as big a concern where you fly as it is for me.

Yeah, that would be my concern as well. I was taught the ABCDs of emergencies as the rote checklist.

Airspeed
Best field
Checklist (engine restart or whatever might be appropriate)
Declare an emergency
Secure the airplane (open the doors, shut off electrics)

So, to courrier's point, radio work is pretty far down the list. But if I do make it that far down the list and I'm still in the air, I'll be making a call.

I think courierguy was talking about the low level engine failure, which is a much different event. It is a six second deal, and no you don't have time for radio or checklist. It is also seldom taught. I again compliment these guys for teaching it.

qmdv wrote:How many have actually done one with no fire in the engine.

Tim

I have over 500 dead sticks most landing back where I started from.d

Glidergeek wrote:

qmdv wrote:How many have actually done one with no fire in the engine.

Tim

I have over 500 dead sticks most landing back where I started from.d

"We are fortunate here in Southern California to have many dry lakes available on which to practice dead sticks. Think Edwards AFB where the space shuttle landed."

Careful most are real wet now

Glidergeek,

Does gravity thrust and slats work similar to power/pitch?

10 engine outs? Contact, you are one unlucky dude....(knocking wood like crazy right now)

There was one other like me. He put an ad in Trade-a-Plane every year: "Ag seat wanted. I fly junk. phone number." We poor boys had to fly what we could find cheap. But then, I had two engine failures in pipeline planes.

rw2 wrote:

Zzz wrote:

courierguy wrote:I'm always amazed to hear a guy making a radio call when having an inflight emergency, like a dead stick landing, what a un needed distraction! .

Probably wise though to let any other traffic know that they shouldn't expect you to yield as you have right of way based on emergency status. It's not the first thing I would do but it takes 5 seconds once you're sorted out on your plan. It might mean that other aircraft keep their distance until you're down. That's probably not as big a concern where you fly as it is for me.

Yeah, that would be my concern as well. I was taught the ABCDs of emergencies as the rote checklist.

Airspeed
Best field
Checklist (engine restart or whatever might be appropriate)
Declare an emergency
Secure the airplane (open the doors, shut off electrics)



So, to courrier's point, radio work is pretty far down the list. But if I do make it that far down the list and I'm still in the air, I'll be making a call.

I totally agree with you guys, I guess I was thinking of the very low level type engine outs, in my case I was on the ground stopped in about 45 seconds, or less. I also didn't mess with the fuel (no reason to, both tanks were always ON, fool with the mags, or anything else, I just flew the plane to the field immediately below me! Now that I think about it, ALL my for real deadstick landings (mostly ultralights and only one in a kit plane) have been real low altitude so no time to consider anything other then flying the plane. I will keep it in mind, use the radio and let others know, THAT makes perfect sense.

When I do deadstick ridge soaring, I give a lot of thought to where and how to go if the re start doesn't happen, but that's a whole different deal and I have the luxury of time and altitude. At least that activity keeps me current in how the plane flies (damn good) with the prop stopped. So no excuse if I blow a deadstick landing!

Moved to dead stick landing thread

contactflying wrote:Glidergeek,

Does gravity thrust and slats work similar to power/pitch?

Push the stick to go faster, pull to go slower. The spoiler handle works like the throttle, pull to come down, leave closed to stay up
Every take off ends with a forced landing

When's the next event Lil John? May need floats

qmdv wrote:How many have actually done one with no fire in the engine.

Tim

Not counting the ones where there was no engine installed in the aircraft, and not counting ones where I put out the fire just for practice, I have only two "actuals". But both still involved making a decision to put out the fire (one literally).

First time was in the "Newhall Pass" just north of Van Nuys, CA in an RV-3A homebuilt, approximately 3500 MSL and about 2200 AGL, climbing at approximately 100 MPH IAS The spinner cone came off and took a good size chunk off the end of the prop. The vibration and thrashing were bad enough that it seemed certain that the engine was about to file divorce papers from the airframe. The mags were shut off, and the airplane was landed in a man-made river wash without damage.

Second time was at Stead airport about 15 seconds after takeoff, trying to qualify for a race. Someone had put two of the oil control rings in upside down, and it threw all the oil out the breather and onto a hot engine, creating an airplane full of smoke and probably a little oil fire, judging by the heat damage on the bottom of my boots afterward. A very stupid, arrogant young pilot let this go on for several seconds too long before shutting the mags off passing pylon 3. This was at just under 200 MPH IAS, 5100 MSL but only about 20 or 25 AGL. (There was enough energy left in the airplane to glide around the remaining three pylons and roll through the finish line, but I was disqualified for being on the ground when I passed the finish line... like I said, stupid and arrogant)