Practicing the impossible turn

[58Skylane]

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

Well said!

[Grassstrippilot]

Excellent post Mark.

[MarkGrubb]

As someone pointed out, getting a glider rating, even a "slam-bam, thank you Ma'am" 2-day add-on, would greatly increase every pilot's knowledge and experience base and thus add a big handful of tools to your flying toolbox. I would go so far as to consider it a requisite for serious "backcountry" and other stick and rudder types of flying. There is no more fundamental form of aviation and the change it will affect in your thought processes is immeasurably valuable. Energy management, coordination, aggressive maneuvering, and the other seat-of-the-pants flying skills that safe and efficient backcountry flying demands are the everyday stuff of soaring.

[MarkGrubb]

One last valuable item:

A crucial mental device / procedure for any departure and one I require both of myself and of my students:

1) Pretakeoff: A verbalized (out loud and explicit) plan of action for all points in the takeoff

2) During takeoff and departure: An ongoing nonstop verbal (out loud and explicit) monolog of what is to be done should the engine quit/rope break until pattern altitude is reached.

These prevent the pilot from being caught behind the thinking curve when it goes bad. I have had rope breaks occur with students who were doing this correctly and instead of shock, surprise, and delay, there was a sense of calmness and deliberacy; "yep, there went the rope, here is what I am going to do...."

[soyAnarchisto]

I've been thinking this as well. I was wondering if this is more valuable than aeorbatic training - it seems to me that it would be.

'Greg

As someone pointed out, getting a glider rating, even a "slam-bam, thank you Ma'am" 2-day add-on, would greatly increase every pilot's knowledge and experience base and thus add a big handful of tools to your flying toolbox. I would go so far as to consider it a requisite for serious "backcountry" and other stick and rudder types of flying. There is no more fundamental form of aviation and the change it will affect in your thought processes is immeasurably valuable. Energy management, coordination, aggressive maneuvering, and the other seat-of-the-pants flying skills that safe and efficient backcountry flying demands are the everyday stuff of soaring.

[GumpAir]

And...

It's not just the take-off phase of flight. Landing, enroute, daytime, night time, everything working, everything breaking, you always gotta have that "What If?" conversation churning away in the back of your mind. Pilots do it. Cops do it. Soldiers do it. Most people who play in dangerous places do it.

Secondly...

You THEN have to be of a mindset to implement that "What If" plan immediately if that "What If" actually happens. Playing that scene in your mind over and over sure makes it easier to do it for real, if/when that time comes.

Gump

[Cary]

I think one of the most difficult things is to get beyond the "Nah, this can't be happening" stage. When I lost my engine 8 years ago, I saw the oil pressure bottoming out, but I couldn't quite bring myself to believe that it was happening. It had to be the gauge. Then when it was obvious it was the oil pressure, my thought wasn't to find a place now to land, it was "Maybe I can make it back to the airport if I baby it by reducing power." It wasn't until it actually threw the rod that my focus went to, "Do what is necessary NOW to get on the ground safely." Well, first it was the traditional "aw sh*t!"

From that point on, I did everything exactly right, the way I'd been taught over and over during primary training 31 years earlier. Well, not quite. The road I first picked and was approaching had power poles close to it, so thinking I might clip a wing, I decided to change to a different landing spot. I had already dropped 20 flaps and was turning base for the road when I realized it, and now I had to get over the power lines I was facing. So I dropped the nose to gain speed and raised the flaps again, popped up over the power lines, and then pulled 40 flaps to land. Later when I drove the road, though, it would have been an impossibly rough landing, even if I hadn't clipped a wing on the power poles.

Maybe some things, like the tow line breaking on the sailplane, are so obvious that the "Nah, this can't be happening" stage is very short. But other things, like a rough running engine, or even an engine quitting, take a little while to sink in, no matter how well a pilot is trained. The time that it takes for the pilot to really recognize the problem to be as serious as it is, is probably what leads many of the turns to be actually impossible.

Cary

[GumpAir]

The time that it takes for the pilot to really recognize the problem to be as serious as it is, is probably what leads many of the turns to be actually impossible.

Exactly.

Gump

[Zzz]

The only glider ops fatality that occurred within my sphere of attention (Palamino Valley, NV) was a tow rope prerelease at low altitude, he went for the 180, cartwheeled, dead. I don't remember the details, this would have been around 2003/2004.

Self edit: Looked up the accident, turns out it was 2005. My details were partly correct. I have no smartass remarks to make. Shit happens. I know that runway though, there's nothing around it except sagebrush. Landing ahead with scratches on the belly would have been preferable to taking a dirt nap. Unfortunately, I think he reacted rather than thinking.

http://dms.ntsb.gov/aviation/AccidentRe ... 120000.pdf

[skypony]

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!!

I've been wondering about this for a few days. With all the drag of the woman way up there on the moment arm, the angle of attack would increase when the engine quit. Would there be enough elevator area to overcome the drag of the high "airbrake" and get the nose down? Maybe with that setup, it was irrecoverable, even straight ahead.

[GroundLooper]

Why did he turn back? That was my first thought when I saw this. Very sad.

[Rob]

Why did he turn back? That was my first thought when I saw this. Very sad.

It does not appear to me that he turned back at all... watch it slowed down and it appears he stalled going fwd and when it dropped the left wing he tried picking it up with aileron and aggravated the spin. Look at the right aileron immediately after the engine quit, it is not consistent with a left turn, and it never gets that way either...

[Cary]

I've watched it several times, even frame by frame, and I can't really tell whether it stalled first and then started to spin, or stalled after attempting a turn back. I guess it really doesn't matter, considering the outcome.

Cary

[RanchPilot]

I think one of the most difficult things is to get beyond the "Nah, this can't be happening" stage.

I couldn't agree with you more. I've had 3 engine out landings, 800 agl, 300 agl, and 500 agl respectively. Different birds and different situations, but the fan on the front quit turning each time, dead stop, with no prior warning. The first time, I couldn't believe how strong the urge was to stay mentally stuck on, "I can't believe this is happening to me." IMHO, the 30 seconds in the Sully example, or MarkGrubb's excellent point about not getting the nose down immediately, are a manifestation of spending those critical initial moments in disbelief (or trying to talk yourself out of the fact that things are as serious as they appear), which keeps you from being able to implement the emergency procedure you've thought about, talked about, and practiced over and over again. For most of us recreational pilots, there is always going to be a bit of a lag during which we wrap our brain around the fact that this emergency is actually happening. By practicing and thinking through these situations, my goal is to make that lag as short as possible, so I can go back to flying the plane and dealing with the situation I'm presented with. I think that knowing about this mental lag, and trying to shorten it as much as possible, helps a lot in dealing with these situations. Those few seconds may make all the difference. I emphasize this point because I was surprised at how powerful the feeling was, and it is not something anybody ever really told me in my training. Get through the incredulity as quickly as you can, so you can get back to dealing with the situation.

I also second MarkGrubb's advice about "AIRSPEED, AIRSPEED, AIRSPEED." When the real thing happened to me the first time, the subconscious urge to pull the airplane up away from the ground was surprisingly strong. I knew what airspeed I wanted, and I kept saying it out loud over and over while I was looking for a plowed field to land in. Every time I cross-checked my airspeed indicator though, I found I was bleeding off speed. Never underestimate the power of your subconscious to try and "help" you out by pulling back on the stick. AIRSPEED, AIRSPEED, AIRSPEED, then cross check, then check again. Without that, everything else becomes incidental pretty quickly.

Great thread--not just about turning back, but about training in general. Thanks to all you pros out there for sharing such quality advice with the rest of us.

[OregonMaule]

I think the stats show what you practice is what you will do when the brain goes into panic mode. That is what was drilled into us at the Fire Dept.

So practice what you want to do because most likely that's what will happen.

G'Day

[RanchPilot]

I agree with you about practice Rob. However, the thing that surprised me so much about my two little personal insights (my "denial" lag time, and my subconscious pulling up) is the fact that neither tendency ever presented itself during my regular practice of engine out procedures. I never really experienced brain lock (even when someone else was the one who pulled the throttle and said "you've lost your engine, find someplace to land"), and it always seemed pretty easy to keep the airspeed pegged while gliding to the ground in a simulated engine out.

Some things are difficult, or impossible, to simulate. Speaking for myself, anyway, these two issues didn't present themselves until the chips were down. I pass them along in case others want to start thinking about them a little sooner than I did!

[MarkGrubb]

Several heare have made some additional good points:

1) You WILL default to your lowest common denominator of training while under stress. That is why training to and practicing the appropriate response is so critical.

2) Train to get the the nose to best glide attitude in all lost/losing power emergencies. Identify this pitch attitude,commit it to memory, and train until the automatic response to lost/losing energy emergencies is to establish and maintain this attitude. Almost all aircraft will continue to fly at this pitch attitude even when in steep banks or when maneuvering aggressively.

This simple act dramatically increases your odds of survival, no matter what happens or you do next.

3) I strongly prefer "pitch attitude! pitch attitude!" over "airspeed! airspeed!" as the latter is second order data, lagging pitch changes significantly. In some aircraft, the airspeed reads poorly in uncoordinated flight. We want an optimal Angle of Attack which directly correlates to pitch attitude in most aircraft we fly.

3) Denial is Deadly. The "this cannot be happening to me" thoughts can be mimimized by developing the habit of a running commentary during flight. The anomalous event is then not denied by the mind; it becomes a logical extension of your "what if" loop.


This has been a great thread!