I don't see a problem in practicing this, but would add a couple of points. If the engine stops making power, and is windmilling, it will produce much more drag than if it were stopped. So having the engine at idle is sort of a mid point in terms of L/D, a bit better glide with engine idling, but still worse than if the prop were stopped.

In practical terms, if a power failure with prop still windmillng occurs when fairly low, it's probably not wise to pull up slow enough to stop the prop, which in some aircraft won't stop until almost at stall. But if high and you need to maximize your glide ratio, then slowing enough to stop the prop and then going to best glide speed is something to consider.

In reference to turning down wind, ATK said, " . . . Not to mention the wind being up your ass pushing you down." Absent wind gradient, turning down wind has no negative aerodynamic effect on the aircraft. Remember your instructor probably said something like, "Consider the airplane is flying in a box of moving air, except for ground track and ground speed, aerodynamically speaking, there is no difference between turning in still or turning in moving air."

But, ATK is most correct in that wind gradient with altitude will make a big difference if the plane is ascending or descending! If climbing into an increasing headwind, the dynamic affect is just like climbing into lift or rising air, in that while maintaining airspeed, climb rate at first increases while ground speed decreases. Unfortunately, the opposite occurs when turning off the wind, with the apparent wind decreasing as the aircraft descends into an increasing tailwind component - - the bottom can feel like it's dropping out from under you - - and it is. This is why when towing gliders with a crosswind, it is wise veer off downwind on the climbout, so in the event of a rope break, the glider will be turning into the wind and will thus have an easier time lining up with the runway for a downwind landing - - with those long wings you don't want to be making steep alignment turns close to the ground.

If the aircraft has retractable gear, leave the gear up and configure for best glide speed. Don't put the gear down until short final or until you have the runway made. I know of a very experienced Mooney pilot who retracted the gear early on take off (as is common with Mooney drivers as the gear cycles quickly). Then he had a power failure, and while still on runway heading dropped the gear . . . then started a turn back. He stalled during the turn and augered into an orchard. Survived, but with serious head and leg injuries. The lesson, keep the airplane clean, you don't need the extra drag.

Bet I get some disagreement on this post . . . the whole drag thng with prop windmilling vs. stopped almost usually sparks disagreement. So I'll end with, a windmilling prop has almost the same effective flat plate area as its entire swept arc, whie a stopped prop presents only its actual surface flat plate area. Consider a helicopter during auto rotation, not a good glider for sure, but a whole lot better than if the rotor blades were stopped.

bumper

GumpAir wrote:

Zane wrote:What should be taught in my opinion,is thinking outside the box and practicing quick deductive exercises to get the plane on the ground as intact as possible, which might mean some pretty unorthodox spots.

Amen....

Gump

+1

I think you're shaving just a little too close with your practices for my comfort. Remember that although every one of your returns was successful, your engine continued to run; you don't really know what would have happened had it quit, so you need a greater margin of safety. In my view, a much greater margin.

One of the first things drilled into me as a budding CFI many long years ago was not to turn a practice emergency into a real one. So I don't like practicing this or any other emergency maneuver so close to the ground that it could become a disaster, without a safe "plan B". For instance, when teaching emergency off-airport landings, make sure that if the engine doesn't power up, you can actually land on the proposed emergency landing strip.

I have also practiced the impossible turn multiple times, and I'm confident that in my airplane, whether light or at full gross, I can easily return if the failure occurs at 650' AGL, even taking into account my likely indecision when it happens--every one of my returns took 460', to turn 220 to the left and then 40 to the right and flare over the road I was using as my mock runway. But I would not practice it by climbing to 650' AGL and chopping the throttle, and I most certainly would not climb to only 460'. Instead, I began the "take-off" at an altitude of 1000' AGL, giving me plenty of room if I screwed up.

I really enjoy your videos and your efforts to improve your skills, but many times I think you're taking chances that you shouldn't take and needn't take in order to improve.

Cary

Thanks. Initially the plan was to do this at 2,000ft AGL.
First we went to 3,000ft and tried all kinds of power off extreme turns, the CFI was amazed that my plane wouldnt stall (Sportsmans and VGs) so He decided to do it low, demonstrated it a few times and then was my turn.
Yes it was intense!!

Time to slow down now I think, I do think in 2.5 years I have improved a lot, but some scary moments too.

Yeah, you can only put your finger into the candle flame so many times before it gets burned.

Cary

Zane wrote:..... I believe the impossible turn is attempted so often because pilots are so focused on the established runway/airstrip being the only place to land. What should be taught in my opinion,is thinking outside the box and practicing quick deductive exercises to get the plane on the ground as intact as possible, which might mean some pretty unorthodox spots.

I once saw an Ercoupe stall & crash trying to make an emergency landing (no, apparently they're not stall-proof after all), on the turn to short final after flying down the entire 5000' length of a closed runway. He could have just pulled off what was left of the power, flared, & landed at any time-- but he didn't. Hard to believe but true. The only thing I can figure is that he was fixated on making the (open) runway.

One of the publications on the wall at the EDF Aeroclub when I was learning in 72-73 was Naval Aviation News, which always had a lot of good safety info in it. One issue described an incident in which a young Navy aviator made an emergency gear-up landing on a 10,000' runway after the engine of his T-28 failed. When asked why he landed gear-up, he pointed to the page in the ops manual that said for emergency landings, land with the gear up. Never mind that he had 10,000' of concrete and could have easily landed in less than 1500' of it.

Moral: Don't fixate; THINK!

Cary

just curious - what was your sharpest angle in the turn?

motoadve wrote:Thanks. Initially the plan was to do this at 2,000ft AGL.
First we went to 3,000ft and tried all kinds of power off extreme turns, the CFI was amazed that my plane wouldnt stall (Sportsmans and VGs) so He decided to do it low, demonstrated it a few times and then was my turn.
Yes it was intense!!

Time to slow down now I think, I do think in 2.5 years I have improved a lot, but some scary moments too.

Your plane won't stall? Even with power off?

I believe every plane will stall easy with power off, if you induce the stall that is.

Power on stall?? Yeah, may be hard in some or a lot of STOL equipped aircraft. My first CFI said the same ("your plane is difficult to stall!!") about my plane when it came time for me to do "power on" stalls.

I've practiced this...both high and low. Throw out some flaps in the turn and you not only decrease the turn radius, but you also lower the stall speed. You can do it all day long and never hear a peep out of the stall horn (retracting the flaps as you roll out if needed to loose the drag). Lot's of variables to consider (DA, weight, wind, proficiency, etc.) and you definitely need to know not only your plane, but also your personal abilities. I also very much agree with the previous post that said this should be something that is thought out before the mags get turned on...in other words, you've considered the above factors prior to take off, along with the departure from that strip, and have weighed the option before hand.

I consider this one more tool that can be in your tool bag, but, when you go to use it for real, it shouldn't still be in the box that it came in when you bought.

Here are a few articles to add to the discussion:

http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2011/april/technique.html

http://www.aopa.org/training/articles/2011/110519impossible_turn_practice.html

Cary wrote:....When asked why he landed gear-up, he pointed to the page in the ops manual that said for emergency landings, land with the gear up. Never mind that he had 10,000' of concrete and could have easily landed in less than 1500' of it. Moral: Don't fixate; THINK!

Probably woulda got into hot water for violating the ops manual. Seems like the military trains to follow procedure, thinking not required nor desired.

Could be, but I think the water was hotter for scraping the skin off the bottom of the airplane unnecessarily.

It was after reading these 2 articles on AOPA that I decided it was long past time for me to practice the turn. I had always taken the position that rigid adherence to the "land straight ahead" doctrine was a mistake, but other than some practice experience with 90 degree turns to land on a cross runway and practice experience "losing" an engine on crosswind, plus one experience as a passenger in a 210 that lost its engine on crosswind after taking off from 19L at KRVS in which the pilot masterfully landed on cross runway 31, I'd never tried the complete "impossible turn".

Schiff makes an important comment in his article. Although there are mechanical issues that can cause loss of power on take off, he says that most often the cause is mismanagement of fuel. Things like not having the selector on the fullest tank (that was the issue on the 210 incident above); changing tanks after taxiing out, just before taking off; using the wrong boost pump setting, taxiing with the selector set to "off" and failing to turn it on before take off, etc.--all of these and others are within the pilot's control. Whether it's formal checklists or just being careful, much of the need for being able to do the impossible turn would be eliminated if pilots did their jobs mo' bettah.

Cary

hotrod150 wrote:

Zane wrote:..... I believe the impossible turn is attempted so often because pilots are so focused on the established runway/airstrip being the only place to land. What should be taught in my opinion,is thinking outside the box and practicing quick deductive exercises to get the plane on the ground as intact as possible, which might mean some pretty unorthodox spots.

I once saw an Ercoupe stall & crash trying to make an emergency landing (no, apparently they're not stall-proof after all), on the turn to short final after flying down the entire 5000' length of a closed runway. He could have just pulled off what was left of the power, flared, & landed at any time-- but he didn't. Hard to believe but true. The only thing I can figure is that he was fixated on making the (open) runway.

This tragic accident graphically exemplifies the importance to override automatic responses to critical situations that don't make sense, when options more appropriate are clearly available. In this video there seems ample space all around. Trying to embed (should not be rocket science)

[youtube]http://youtu.be/DFWMBT1zDlI[/youtube]

just do this part "DFWMBT1zDlI" between the [youtube][/youtube]

robw56 wrote:just do this part "DFWMBT1zDlI" between the [youtube][/youtube]

Sorry for the heartless comment. But WTF?? Appeared to be more than enough field to land safely!!

robw56 wrote:just do this part "DFWMBT1zDlI" between the [youtube][/youtube]

Ok Thanks, for that critical piece I could not figure out.

Glider pilots routinely practice 200 +/- ft agl simulated rope break "180 degree" (usually slightly less or more than that) turns to downwind landings to proficiency as pre-solo students. I have successfully done this maneuver thousands of times with students ranging from grandmothers to 12 year old kids and a couple from real power failures in Cubs and Pawnees and a couple in gliders when the tug died or the rope broke.

It is not that big of a risk when done properly and if the PIC has adequate discipline to maintain best glide attitude up to the flair and importantly, to NOT turn back when altitude/sink/wind/windshear/terrain/skill deem it unwise.

In low performing gliders (Schweizers, Blaniks) the max wind in which we would practice this is around 15 kts. Glass gliders, slightly less, primarily due to to the loss of control post-touchdown at relatively high ground speeds; the risk of a groundloop increases dramatically with increasing tailwinds. Density altitude increases turn radius and groundspeed but has negligible practical effect on decision height in my experience at places as high as Aspen, CO (8700 ft msl + density atltiude)

The textbook established altitude for gliders to "180 back" is about 200 ft but it can be accomplished from lower altitudes by skilled pilots especially in maneuverable, higher L/D gliders. A Cub, in my experience, takes 5-600 ft. A Pawnee 800-1000 ft AGL. A C-182 is somewhere in between.

The most common pilot failure modes I have observed are: 1) "Behind the airplane"; the pilot is too slow in getting the nose down to best glide attitude and too slow in committing to the turn, 2) Overshooting the turn to final, requiring an energy wasting low altitude buttonhook maneuver, 3) Too shallow a bank, especially when turning away from the prevailing crossswind; 45 degrees is going to feel like 60 under stress 4) Getting too slow in the turn. Anything below best glide speed is draggy and within reach of an accelerated stall. 5) Quit flying the aircraft after it touches down. Rolling along at 60 kts with little to no directional control is inviting disaster. Smooth but aggressive breaking!

The immediate actionis to get the nose below the horizon, simultaneously establishing best glide attitude and rolling aggressively into a 45-ish degree bank into any prevailing crosswind. This yields the best rate of turn vs altitude loss. Flying so slow as to get stall buffet is WAY too slow and "draggy" to do this maneuver efficiently. Best glide speed is optimal and approximately equals best rate of climb speed for most light aircraft. This speed has the added benefit of good control authority and being above the accelerated stall speed related to the steep turns.

As several have stated in this thread, turning off the departure runway heading shortly after the departure climb is established is a great idea. Turning "upwind" into any crosswind helps tremendously by decreasing the over-the-ground turn radius and negating the need for a "buttonhook" maneuver to get lined up.

14 year old pilots practice this maneuver to proficiency pre-solo and I have observed several kids safely complete it "for-real". The only variables that change are the altitude required to complete the turn in that aircraft in those conditions and the skill to assess the situation and to fly the maneuver. As several have pointed out, the decision of whether this maneuver is even possible in current conditions MUST be made prior to departure. There is little time/energy margin for thinking when it goes to hell at XXXX ft agl. Action must be quick, decisive, and correctly executed.

Practice is Good! Buffet and Stall horns in the turn are Bad!

Mark,

Thank you for posting that. I have avoided this thread because both the glider pilot and the ag pilot in me told me motoadve's biggest mistake in this post was the name.... 'Practicing an exercise in energy management' would have been far more fitting, and may have also earned him a few less lashings...

Having said that, I can think of many 'friendlier' ways to polish up his energy management skills ( a glider rating being a great example) and I am certain his engine would thank him for it too

MY personal belief is the guys who drill the 'always land ahead' mantra are just painting another corner into the box... and I agree with Zanes post in doing whatever it takes, regardless of how un orthodox it may appear, to bring the plane back down in one piece.

Since the Tiger moth is nose high and initiating his turn at 175' AGL, I can't see the relevance here, unless it is just to point out that there is such thing as too soon. Kudos to motoadve for at least wanting to know where exactly 'too soon' is. Although I will say again, I believe there are better ways to achieve that...

For all the 'straight aheaders' in the crowd, if Capt. Sully landed straight ahead there would have been a larger mess to mop up However, for motoadve, if you think your exercise is going to give you a big edge in this situation you might find this interesting, specially the last sentence:

In his book "Fly by Wire," William Langewiesche said that the NTSB ran a simulation at Airbus facilities in Toulouse,
France, to duplicate the flight operated by Sullenberger and Skiles. Wrote Langewiesche:

"In the setup there were two important differences from the actual flight. First, the starting point was the location
of the bird strike itself, not the location where Sullenberger came out of his turn. Second, the pilots knew the
game in advance."

When the four pilots participating in the simulation responded immediately to the loss
of power from the bird strike, all four were able to return safely to LaGuardia.

But in recognition that it wasn't reasonable to expect a pilot to assess the situation and react instantly, the
NTSB imposed a 30-second delay before simulator pilots could turn back to LaGuardia, Langewiesche added, "and every
one of them crashed."

Take care, Rob

exodus wrote:

I walked up to the Super Cub, the only one available for a refresher before bringing my step dad's home from Sidney Neb.
It had sprayer booms and a tank still mounted. It did not fly like any Cub I remember. When you cut the power it had rapid speed decay and did not float to the landing. By now you're going WTF does this have to do..? So back to the video. This pilot got two surprises and the first was only the engine out. The second was being in climb out attitude with a high amount of extra drag that caused instant speed decay to stall. Nose down should be his first action, not thinking about setting up turn arounds or best glide. Its a meaningless number with this much abnormal drag unless you practice departure - engine out- stall emergencies with a live person standing up there.

I have had four engine outs at low altitude. One with the Flaglor Scooter losing a jug and landing crosswind on a gravel road, two in 582/CH701 one of these was airlock in a fuel line at tank switching, one in a Simonini/CH701 from loss of vacuum in a pulse line to the Mikuni. This last one was with the newspaper editor as a passenger at low altitude for a house photo. That one I did a 180 downwind and a second 180 upwind into the 20 mph headwind to land short of a fence in a tall grass CRP field. Here is my recommended order of out of box response.
1. Out loud say "Shit, Not again"
2. Nose down and fly the plane. This thing does not float with 8:1 ratio. (Airspeed Airspeed Airspeed)
3. Shut out passenger screams and tell them you don't need the engine to land.
4. Screaming stops.
5. Pick the spot
4. Land
5. When she says that wasn't so bad..
6. Convince her this does not need to be in the paper.

One more thing that struck me in this thread...

motoadve, I know you didn't mean it in a literal sense, or at least I hope so... but please don't preach the mantra 'my plane doesn't stall' !!! you hear this in cub circles all the time when someone 'discovers' VG's , and it is a trap, and a bogus crock of merde...

Your plane will stall just fine, you are having a hard time making it stall because you modded the wing greatly but left the tail alone, consequently limiting it's ability to stall the wing. By saying it won't stall you are just setting yourself up for a big surprise when you actually get it to cut loose, and surprises are not good when already have your hands full...

Look at it this way, if your plane didn't stall, what's keeping it on the ground right now?

Take care, Rob