This is a video of a practice engine failure after takeoff. I was only in my fourth hour of flying so go easy on me. The laughs were nervous laughs I promise....... And the answer to his question "why are we flying away from the airport?" should've been "because I'm setting up for a left base to 28", rather than, "I don't know"

This is the description on Vimeo:

This is during the fourth hour of my instruction for my private pilot license. We were on climbout (RWY 21) to pattern altitude (1800 ft msl) at KPKB (elev. 859 msl) and my instructor pulled the power on me (at 1600ft msl) and forced a landing. I had read of the impossible turn, and was unclear if this was the right decision, so I decided to turn and land on RWY 28. I asked him if I made the right decision and his reply was, "we survived didn't we?" Filmed with the Nflight cam by Contour. (Sorry for poor audio)

Fixed it for you

AvidFlyer wrote:

Fixed it for you

How'd you do that? And what was I doing wrong?

When in doubt just paste the link and don't worry about the embed tags.

Thanks, Zane.

Crzyivan13 wrote:
And the answer to his question "why are we flying away from the airport?" should've been "because I'm setting up for a left base to 28", rather than, "I don't know"

I had read of the impossible turn, and was unclear if this was the right decision, so I decided to turn and land on RWY 28. I asked him if I made the right decision and his reply was, "we survived didn't we?" Filmed with the Nflight cam by Contour. (Sorry for poor audio)

Just with the video and not actually being there I don't have a good picture of the airport if it is directly behind or the distance from it in my head so I am making some assumptions here. The other way to take the remark from your instructor was to question why you did not head immediately in to a shortened turn to 28 going directly to a more mid field landing instead of extending the leg away from the airport so you could aim at the numbers as if you were in a normal pattern with power. It takes you away from the field further and wastes glide time. There will always be some initial hesitation of what is the best place to go so I keep those in the back of my mind at take off. 659 agl cut it close enough for you so the experience here should answer your own question of your chances to make the full turn back to 21, you had nothing left at touchdown with this plane from this altitude from that distance. You had just one minute to touchdown from throttle cut. This was a good choice of runway in my opinion and you are on a good road to learn from it since like the instructor said, you survived. At this point in your training it was good enough.

dirtstrip wrote:

Crzyivan13 wrote:
And the answer to his question "why are we flying away from the airport?" should've been "because I'm setting up for a left base to 28", rather than, "I don't know"

I had read of the impossible turn, and was unclear if this was the right decision, so I decided to turn and land on RWY 28. I asked him if I made the right decision and his reply was, "we survived didn't we?" Filmed with the Nflight cam by Contour. (Sorry for poor audio)

Just with the video and not actually being there I don't have a good picture of the airport if it is directly behind or the distance from it in my head so I am making some assumptions here. The other way to take the remark from your instructor was to question why you did not head immediately in to a shortened turn to 28 going directly to a more mid field landing instead of extending the leg away from the airport so you could aim at the numbers as if you were in a normal pattern with power. It takes you away from the field further and wastes glide time. There will always be some initial hesitation of what is the best place to go so I keep those in the back of my mind at take off. 659 agl cut it close enough for you so the experience here should answer your own question of your chances to make the full turn back to 21, you had nothing left at touchdown with this plane from this altitude from that distance. You had just one minute to touchdown from throttle cut. This was a good choice of runway in my opinion and you are on a good road to learn from it since like the instructor said, you survived. At this point in your training it was good enough.

Looking back on the whole thing, I personally believe that I could have made the "impossible turn" only because I had plenty of altitude. The thing is, we were so close to the airport at the time he cut the power, I felt like we were almost too high and the plane was flying so well (low, low DA plus cold temps) that I would've been at the far end of RWY 3 for touchdown. I was flying away from the airport, but to setup a turn to short base on 28. All that being said, if I had truly lost the engine I KNOW that the right thing to do is GIT UR ASS BACK TO THE AIRPORT if at all possible, no matter the runway, taxiway, grass, dirt, etc.
Thanks for commenting, Dirtstrip!!!

The title is deceptive! But good work!

I practice one of those the other days. Just do them randomly sometimes! I eneded up pulling a 180 followed by another 180. Big thing is to keep your speed up. I've read way to many accident reports on people trying to stretch the glide and then dying. commit!

I would have to say that in the emergencies I have had and the actual engine outs I have had, extra altitude was the least of my concerns. If I have plenty of altitude to make a turn back to the runway I do so NOW. This makes it a sure bet that I will make the runway. If I have to toss in a few S turns or slip it like a mofo to not over shoot the runway so be it, but atleast I was not banking on the fact that a head wind did not suddenly come out of no where and leave me 500' short of the runway on what should have been the "perfect" glide path.

A little word of advice.. The fan rarely stops turning in cruise at a comfortable altitude. My failures have always been in climbout (except the last one and at that point I was cruising too damn low for it have made much difference).

The first actual engine out I only survived do to the floats I was using, not do to my stellar skills as a relatively new pilot. Fly the FN plane. emergency procedures and check lists are cool and all, but fly the damn plane! When mine quit it was a loud backfire and sudden stoppage of the prop as I was 75' AGL and climbing hard to clear the trees. my emergency training that the instructor had beat into me kicked in just like yours did... carb heat, mags, fuel tank... shit windshield full of dirt boom.. I should have been flying that plane not keeping my head in the fn cockpit trying for a restart that looking back on it now was not gonna happen and would not have done any good anyways. As I was at minimum airspeed (really hanging it on the prop) when it quit I pretty much rotated around the wingtips and nosed it straight in. Had I not had 16 big airbags under my ass I would have been planted in that field forever and not typing this right now.

All in all your worked out good, but you were one gust of wind away from not making the runway. That being said, dont be hard on yourself, you are not going to know it all inside of 4 hrs and it will be MANY MANY MANY more hours and years of learning ahead of you (I learn something new damn near every flight, but mainly its a lesson of what I shouldn't do next time) lol.

Practicing engine out while training is most likely the best part of ingraining good headwork in a new pilot. You need to keep practicing it all along your flying life. Engines do quit, usually in the landing pattern. The main reason for this is, engines tend to quit, statistically, right after power changes, normally at power reductions. So they quit at takeoff when you reduce from max to climb power, or when you pull power to land. Cruise failures tend to be related to fuel starvation, either mismanaged or not enough of it. Landing pattern failures that are not mechanical tend to be carb ice, or this time of year fuel icing from water.

So what does this tell you. Don't reduce your power until you can make a safe landing, either ahead or back to the runway. Play with your safety pilot, what if games. Try to make a simulated engine out from each point in the pattern. Do it at an isolated no traffic runway. See how stuff works out. Then when it happens, you can make an educated decision, quickly. Do not do long drawn out box patterns. When you reduce power to land, you should be able to glide to touchdown, there are lots of way to shed altitude, few to gain it without power.

Glad it worked out well for you, now you know the fan can stop at any time. Did for me in October, and it worked out.

My first instructor had an "engine out" exercise every single lesson, sometimes several during a lesson. It got so that I chewed him out for wasting our time and my money with all those engine outs--and his response was "someday you'll thank me". I haven't been able to locate him, but since my real engine out (threw a rod through the top of the case) at low altitude 8 years and 10 months ago, I have thanked him on each forum I've been on--thanks, Dick Sharp--your training made all the difference (along with some help from JC, who was undoubtedly riding with me!).

Some thoughts:

*If you're near the airport, don't fly away from it--turn toward it. Don't even think about a normal pattern--a descending spiral to land may be the best option.
*Most airports (obviously not back country types, but most used for training) have a lot of flat area around them, which will be better than trees or buildings. You may not be able to do a 180 back to the runway, but you can turn to stay within the airport's flatter areas.
*Do NOT try to figure out why the engine quit until you've first decided what you're going to do to get on the ground. Even if you're way high when it quits, you still need to first fly the airplane.
*When the engine quits during take-off, the rest of the runway may very well be a good option, along with intersecting runways, taxiways, perimeter roads--and that's a good reason to climb out at Vx so that you have altitude to use to maneuver.
*If the engine quits during climb-out, push the nose over immediately to maintain airspeed. Without power, a climb attitude will deteriorate the airspeed remarkably quickly.
*Make your decision what to do quickly--but not so quick that you forget to fly the airplane.
*Once you've decided what you're going to do, where you're going to land, and how to get there, and you're doing what's necessary to get there, then check the fuel selector to make sure it's on the correct tank, and switch on the boost pump (if appropriate). If the engine restarts, great, but if it doesn't, you're already well into your landing process.

Cary

Sorry for the deceptive title!!! Good marketing on my part i guess. Thanks to all for the tips guys. Much appreciated!

Hello,
Airplane engines don't just quit near an airport. Streching a glide trying to make it back to an airport can be fatal. "FLY THE AIRPLANE AND KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE CLOSEST LANDING SPOT YOU CAN WALK AWAY FROM"(me).

This Cessna 206's engine ate itself as I was flying south of Helmer, Idaho a few years ago. I didn't scratch the airplane, and am very lucky of the outcome. If it had quit in other areas along my route of flight I might not be here.

Most of the CFI applicants I see for checkrides these days forget to fly the airplane during a simulated engine failure, and are completely focused on checklist items. The majority of CFI applicants have never even practiced off airport engine failures. Just something to think about. Thanks for listening.

James

That's on BIG drain plug you got there!! Glad everything worked out.