OK, this is going to sound really silly, but I'm not a pilot,
If planes glide so well, then how come they crash?
It would seem reasonable, that if they glide, and they have an engine
failure etc. that they'd glide them in, not leave smoking craters like the
news tends to show.
Am I missing something here?

A few disparate points to help you understand the situation better:

- Little planes tend to glide a lot better than big planes.

- Where you lose your engine is important. A little plane losing its engine
over Iowa might make the local newspaper, but everyone will walk away. The
same engine failure over downtown Chicago is going to make national news.

- Smoking holes are created when planes glide into something -- hard. No
matter how well you can glide, sooner or later Mother Earth reaches up to
smite you. If there is a big building or mountain in the way when you run
out of glide, well...

- Smoking holes happen when a pilot allows the plane to slow to a speed at
which the wing no longer creates lift. This is the "stall" speed. A
wing/plane that is stalled takes on the flight characteristics of a load of
sand, and comes down in a hurry, creating a smoking crater.

Hope this helps.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"