A PIREP: engine-out turn-back - some practice in the haze

Dave Rogers, a professor at the USNA, Annapolis, has done a lot of
work on this problem.

See http://web.usna.navy.mil/~dfr/flying/possible.html

or Google "impossible turn."

One good idea is to add "Turnback altitude" as the last item on your
takeoff check list, and say that altitide aloud, so you have it in
mind as you climb out.

Another is to consciously note any crosswind on takeoff; make your
turn into the wind when the enngine quits.

vince norris

wrote:
Todd,

Thanks fort the additional information.

This is, sadly, a subject that has been explored in aviation since the
early days of the Wrights. No matter how many times we hammer on
pilots not to turn back to the runway, a huge proportion of them insist
on trying, even if they have never, ever practiced the maneuver (um,
lessee, I've got a full-fleged emergency, I'll try something I've never
practiced before...Doh), and a staggeringly high percentage of those
who try it, die or get seriously injured.
All the best,
Rick


The Canard community lost one of its own earlier this year due to a
turnback at low altitude. The Pilot was flight testing his craft and had
already had one engine power loss at low altitude earlier this year that
was suspected to be vapor lock. The first time he made a return to the
field from about 400 feet, and landed on-field but off runway.

The second, final time, he was a bit lower, and in trying to turn
back, ended up making a VERY steep banked turn, and hit the lone stand
of trees off the end of the runway. Based on looking at the satellite
photos of the airport, the event may have been surviveable by simply
making a shallow bank to miss the trees and land in the surrounding
pastures.

If you are going to do something like this, (low turn back) you have
to know your plane.. You have to practice it often.. and you have to
understand that there is little to no margin for error. The stuff we fly
doesnt have the glide ratio to turn back from 200 ft after the rope
breaks. The "critical" decision altitude is different for each type of
aircraft, dependent on loading and also on the weather (winds, DA, etc).
If I lost my engine in a rental prior to making my base turn (4-500
feet, depending on the pattern altitude) I would be more inclined to
look ahead than turn back.

Dave Staten

Don't turn back at these low altitudes.

One has a much better chance of surviving an off airport landing straight
ahead than the alternative, stalling in the turn and performing the 1/2 or
1/4 turn spin entry which in almost all cases results in the expiration of
the pilot as his/her head augers into the instrument panel, then the engine
compartment and finally into mother earth.

Oh yes, and anything in the back seat, i.e. the mother-in-law, gets slammed
into the back of the pilots head.

Land straight ahead, at the slowest flight possible, avoiding striking
obstacles head on, and using the wings to prove Newton's laws.


"T o d d P a t t i s t" wrote in message
...
It was seriously hazy this weekend, and with a long cross
country coming up in our 1946 Aeronca Champ, I thought it
was a good day to do some engine-out landing practice. I
was flying with full fuel, but solo. Wind was light, 3
knots or less. Field elevation was below 1000' MSL, temp
about 77 deg F/ near 100. For those not familiar with the
Champ, it's a 65 hp taildragger with a max gross of 1220
pounds. I was flying it 150 pounds under that.

After some ordinary engine-out landings from downwind and
base I began to practice engine-out turn-back from the
initial climb out on takeoff. I thought others here might
be interested in my results.

I had no trouble turning back 180 degrees from 200', just
as I do in my glider. A rapid push to get the nose down and
maintain speed, and a rapid roll to about 40 degrees of
bank. Lots of back stick pressure. I never had to let the
airspeed drop below 60 mph. By the time it was turned back,
I still had 50-75' left to make a shallow alignment turn.

There was certainly no time to waste, but with practice it
was a comfortable maneuver. Of eight attempts, I would
have been in the trees once and the bushes once. The trees
are in a line at one end of the runway, with a cut through
them in line with the runway. My first attempt I didn't go
far enough to the side during the climb out, so when I
turned, I couldn't get back through the cut.

All the other attempts in that direction I let myself slide
off to the side so I could turn back through the cut. One
time I came through the cut and had to land diagonally on
the grass adjacent the departure runway. If I wanted to
land on the same runway, with no crosswind, I needed to get
really far to the side during the climb out.

The time I would have ended in the bushes at the opposite
end occurred because I did a touch and go from the previous
attempt. That put me farther down the runway than usual, so
on the 180 reverse, although I was turned back, wings level
and aligned, I couldn't glide far enough to get back to the
runway over the bushes in the overrun.

This is not a recommendation to anyone else as to the
altitude to turn back at. This was one specific light
airplane, flown solo, using a modified departure to put me
in the best position to turn back, by a pilot who knew
exactly when the engine would "fail" and who was current in
engine out and had lots of 200' turn back practice in
gliders.

I have seen lots of other reports of heavier aircraft
practicing turn backs and estimating more than 600 - 800'
needed for success.

I watched a friend lose an engine in a very similar aircraft
at a similar height. He turned back, following a very
similar flight path to the ones described above, and hit a
dead tree.



Do not spin this aircraft. If the aircraft does enter a spin it will
return to earth without further attention on the part of the aeronaut.

(first handbook issued with the Curtis-Wright flyer)

On 2005-06-13, wrote:
In many flight test protocols, the procedure is for the pilot to wait a
full three seconds after an engine failure to take any action. The
idea is to simulate the normal reaction time for someone who is not
expecting an engine failure and goes through the mental exercise to
accept that it's happening and finally take action.

3 seconds is I don't think normal - I think it's worst case. The times
I've had engine (or other power failures in glider launches) I have
reacted in *far* less than 3 seconds - I'd estimate well under a second
(and these were for-real power failures: one time caused by a valve
sticking, but I was at 20 feet so the only action was to lower the nose,
pull the throttle and land on the runway, another was my own stupidity -
trying to take off on a nearly empty fuel tank - you've never seen
someone change tanks as quickly as then, and another, on a winch launch
in a glider where the cable let go. Since on a winch launch, you are
about 45 degrees nose up very low to the ground, waiting 3 seconds to
react would be fatal. Of course when the cable lets go it does with a
loud bang so it's pretty obvious what you need to do).

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On 2005-06-15, Dave S wrote:
The second, final time, he was a bit lower, and in trying to turn
back, ended up making a VERY steep banked turn, and hit the lone stand
of trees off the end of the runway.

It's not only altitude - it's terrain. For example, departing 08 at
Ronaldsway, I'd want a bit more altitude for thinking about turning
around - because if you come in too low, you hit a cliff (the departure
end goes off a small cliff into the sea). Most times, I'd rather ditch
and have to swim back to shore (an eminently survivable option) than
risk hitting a cliff head on (which is eminently unsurvivable).

Runway 26 is also obstructed on its departure end (lights, a low wall,
and a main road) - so I wouldn't make a minimum altitude turn back there
either.

However, at Andreas, the surrounding terrain is just fields and low
hedges. Off 11, the 'hedge' is just a border of weeds between the wheat
field off the departure end and the runway itself, so I'd be inclined to
turn around at a lower altitude there (and since it's the airfield I
most often fly from, I'm a lot more familiar with it anyway).

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

On 2005-06-13, Brian wrote:
for variables such as wind, runways and location from the runway. My
typical issue with the 200ft turn around is that I am usually lined up
with the runway going downwind with a 100 ft to spare and down wind It
can sometimes take a little effort to not go off the far end of the
runway.

In my first 200' turn back in a glider (it was a Schweizer 2-33 as well,
not noted for its performance), I managed to actually make a very tight
pattern and land into wind. It was a relatively windy day though, so I
did zip downwind at high speed (and judged it safer from my sink rate to
make a tight pattern instead of landing downwind).

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"