Engine failure on final

In article .com,
"Sport Pilot" wrote:


Noting you can do about requested extended downwind leg.

It depends on how extended, of course, but I will often add power and
climb on an extended downwind. (If you extend your downwind for rwy 16
at VNY long enough without climbing you'll end up landing on the 405.)
Also, you've got a lot better glide performance before you start to add
flaps. So downwind doesn't worry me nearly as much as final. If you're
on a glide path at 1.3 VS (which is usually pretty close to best glide
already) and you need power to maintain it, then if you lose that power
it seems to me that you're pretty much hosed.

rg

In article ,
Corky Scott wrote:


Can anyone cite an instance when a pilot lost his engine while on
final and landed short because of it?


Anchorage Int'l in the 80's. Piper low-wing, ran out of gas on final to
6L..ditched in the inlet, minor injury. I don't remember the exact date
but do remember the incident since I'm one of the fireman that plucked
her off the beach with a helicopter.

I can remember a couple more occuring at Merrill Field.

--
Dale L. Falk

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing
as simply messing around with airplanes.

http://home.gci.net/~sncdfalk/flying.html

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:54:38 -0500, Corky Scott
wrote in
::

Can anyone cite an instance when a pilot lost his engine while on
final and landed short because of it?

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...08X08676&key=1

Corky,
I wish I had more information but back in the late eighties I worked in
a building with several different companies in it. You get to know many
of the faces over time. I bumped into a guy at PNE that worked in the
building but I didn't know. It turns out that he was working on his
instrument rating. He mentioned that there was another pilot in his
office. I knew exactly who he was talking about because the guy walked
with a limp. The story I got, and I've got no reason to doubt it, is
that this gentleman had crashed short of an airport he was landing at
because he lost his engine on final. I was always taught to fly a
pattern so that you can make the runway if your engine quits from any
point in the pattern. In fact, I can remeber my instructors routinely
chopping power in the pattern. This was in Warriors when I started my
training and then in Cubs and 152 where I finished my trainging. When
I did my exam for my private, the examiner cut the throttle way out on
downwind and made me glide to a landing.

In my citabria, I like to cut the power when I'm abeam the numbers on
downwind and fly a tight pattern.

Dave
68 7ECA

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 00:56:22 -0800, Ron Garret
wrote:


The discussion about cutting power on final reminded me of something
I've been puzzled about for some time now.

If you fly final with some amount of power (which I gather most people
do -- I always have) that seems to guarantee that if you lose your
engine on final you will land short, and there's pretty much nothing you
can do about it. Is that true? Or have I missed something? What
should you do if you lose your engine just after turning base to final?

rg


Can anyone cite an instance when a pilot lost his engine while on
final and landed short because of it?

Thanks, Corky Scott

Ron Garret wrote:
The discussion about cutting power on final reminded me of something
I've been puzzled about for some time now.

If you fly final with some amount of power (which I gather most
people
do -- I always have) that seems to guarantee that if you lose your
engine on final you will land short, and there's pretty much nothing
you
can do about it. Is that true? Or have I missed something? What
should you do if you lose your engine just after turning base to
final?

Raise the gear. You'll glide better.

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:58:29 -0600, David Gunter
wrote:

This has happened to me repeatedly in Santa Fe


I have only flown into SAF three times and that has been in the last 4
months and EVERY time I flew in there, there were always coyotes on
the runway or taxiway. Seems like they would try and do something
about that.


Scott D

To email remove spamcatcher

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:54:38 -0500, Corky Scott
wrote:


Can anyone cite an instance when a pilot lost his engine while on
final and landed short because of it?

Here is another one that happened here last year in Colorado Springs.

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...18X00899&key=1


Scott D

To email remove spamcatcher

Ron Garret wrote:
If you fly final with some amount of power (which I gather most
people
do -- I always have) that seems to guarantee that if you lose your
engine on final you will land short, and there's pretty much nothing
you
can do about it. Is that true?

More or less. In some cases you can play tricks with retracting
gear/flaps, but usually it's not worth it.

The important question is this - other than running out of gas, what
would cause you to go from not having any engine problems at all, to
not having enough power to maintain a 3 degree glideslope (surely you
don't fly any flatter than that?) in the time it takes to fly a pattern
at the reduced power setting used in the pattern? Honestly, I can't
think of anything. And of course if you have engine problems or aren't
sure about having enough fuel, you will, I assume, fly a power-off
pattern and commit to land.

Many instructors teach power-off patterns (idle abeam the numbers). I
teach it too, but not as a normal procedure. It's simply not practical
most of the time (due to traffic). Of course if I were teaching in the
average rental (and teaching people who were going to be flying typical
rentals) I might feel differently.

Michael

Truly here. It's just habit probably because I am a glider pilot. Fact
is, when there's traffic, I follow it and otherwise conform. But most
of my landings (e.g. home 'port) are without such traffic.

I generally just can't bring myself to consciously fly out of range
after I'm in range of a safe surface. When the wind is up, I probably
slip out of range anyway.

YMMV. I fly a simple a/c with simple needs.

Larry Dighera wrote:
On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 12:41:39 GMT, "Neil Gould"
wrote in
::


As I was taught, the point of flying safely is to always have a viable
option. So, I fly tight patterns and make power-off landings as a rule. If
I make it to the pattern, I can make it to a runway, engine or no.


Truly? So when you're #5 in the pattern (which necessitates a
looooong, extended downwind leg) you just fly the pattern at 2,000'
then?

"Happy Dog" wrote in message
...

Unless you do every landing power off with room to spare, yes.

The flip-side of doing every landing power-off, particularly when training
in the pattern, is that you *may* be putting enough extra stress on the
engine to make it *more* likely that the engine will fail in a difficult
position. Hence you may be increasing the overall risk by that pattern of
behaviour.

With typical trainers, it seems unlikely that it would have much long-term
effect. But with larger engines that require more delicate handling, I'd be
very reluctant to fly power-off landings on a regular basis. The effect may
be small but so is, as Michael said, the chance of a catastrophic engine
failure during the period when your glideslope makes a difference.

I'm surprised that the only two accidents that have been cited involve IFR
flights on an approach. They may not have had a choice of glideslope.

Julian Scarfe