CTLS down in Greenville, TX

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[3Dreaming]

There are lots of experts on this site. They have extensive education, training, and experience. That doesn't make them immune to mistakes or mean they have all the answers. I think you don't understand the meaning of expert. My doctor is an expert in his field. I would hope my CFI was an expert in his.

Or, just to expand on this thought, what is your profession? Are you an expert in your chosen field? If so, why? I would say you might be an expert in your chosen field if you have sufficient education, training, and experience in that field. If people come to you for your opinions and for help and advice, you might be an expert. That doesn't mean you never make a mistake or know all the answers.

It just seems strange to me, because most people who are regarded as experts don't make the proclamation for themselves. It is bestowed upon them by their piers.

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[3Dreaming]

You mean peers. Do you have an opinion on the original post that started this tread? Or, do you have an opinion on the wisdom of shutting down your engine to practice emergency landings? I didn't think so. Some of you people just sit back and take pot shots at people who are not afraid to express opinions or take positions.

If you have multiple ratings, years of issue free flying, lots of hours of issue free flying, 100 percent student passing rate, and are not an expert, you should turn in your license, something is wrong.

I know I'm no expert on spelling or grammar. I'm sorry you feel I'm just setting back and taking pot shots. I did type a post last night from my tablet at home stating my opinion on the subject, but looking back through the thread it seems to be lost in the nether world of electrons.

With my 35 years of flying and over 7500 hours of flight time, and 100% student pass rate I still don't consider myself to be an expert. Others may regard me as an expert and that is fine, but I have never proclaimed it for myself.

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[roger lee]

Boy are we way out of hand. Deep breath time.
I love a good debate, but not when we get to close to the fringes.

I just brought this subject up for some good discussion and debate. I thought Jeffery that tried to land on that grass field did an excellent job, but Murphy's Law stepped in to foil his nice landing. It happens to the best.
No one is being forced to practice their gliding and landing skills. It is food for thought. The time to learn how to handle an emergency is before it happens. The only way to see how you handle a serious emergency is to train like you play. Panic kills and many a good pilot panics when the engine dies and there is no really great place to land.

Ed and I do come from a background of lots of dead stick landings and they became fun and you played with them constantly.
I used to sponsor a Fly-In back in the early 1980's with Ultralights. One of the competitions was a full dead stick spot landing. You had to kill the engine on final. Some of these guys were so good at the glide and landing that you weren't even in the top 4 if you were over 6' away from the line.

It all boils down to what you are comfortable doing.

If you like to train this way by all means have fun and if you don't like to train this way by all means have fun.

We are only sharing ideas and there are many styles of flying technique and many times no one way is best. If it works for you you're good to go.

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[designrs]

Back to the incident that started the thread. Looking at the photos and seeing what appears to indicate that the plane that went end-over-end... that could possibly mean that it nosed over on back, continued end-over-end, broke the tail, nosed over again, and ended on the back. If so, that's quite a bit of momentum! Given a +/- 35 knot flap down stall speed, wouldn't the plane have had to have been carrying significantly more speed? Goal in off-field landing is minimum "no stall / safe speed" to reduce impact?

The pilot & passenger walked away, so very good for that.

Hypothetically speaking, general thoughts on off-field landings, not about this specific incident:
1) a tailwind would increase grounds speed and impact forces substantially, if an upwind landing was not possible.
2) a "perfect spot" could still have unseen hazards like hidden holes and other obstructions
3) get that speed off as much as safely possible for the unknown!

Further comments from the more experienced?

[CharlieTango]

Getting that speed off is primary. If your normal landings are full stall you will have a far better chance of pulling it off than if you normally fly it on.

[Nomore767]

Many posters seem to be mixing apples and oranges.

Sure practicing dead stick landings will develop a skill set of some kind. I've seen a couple of videos on-line of dead stick landings, one is Fast Eddie's the other done from considerable altitude in an RV12. Both times though, the pilot has obviously done it before and in any case has assured himself that he has plenty of margin for error, and, in the case of the RV12, started the engine again on the runway to taxi in, so there was the comfort factor in his case.
Problem is, in the real world the dead-stick/engine-out situation is likely to come at the worst time, when you don't expect it and with poor options. So, apart from the ability to practice perfect glide technique to my mind the risks outweigh the benefit. In fact maybe these practice landings develop a kind of over-confidence. The Champ pilot's main peeve was not rolling out perfectly at the pumps. Nice trick, but in the real world walking away from an undamaged plane with self and passenger safe would be the best outcome.

In the same vein as a dead-stick landing, why not shut off the electrics, do a non-comm procedure to a towered field? Follow the light signals? Run the fuel tank dry and then do a dead-stick? They're all emergencies of a type.
The answer is that the 'dead-stick- practice is really pretty safe, as in..the pilot doing it is about 100% assured of the outcome…otherwise they wouldn't do it. I would argue in the case of a real dead-stick situation the landing and roll-out are anything but 'assured' As in the CTLS case…the landing was safe, but the roll-out caused the tip-over and totaled the airplane. If this had been a practice dead-stick…the pilot wouldn't look good at all, especially if there had been injuries or worse.

At the airline, our philosophy was 'fly today, like we'll be at an FAA hearing tomorrow explaining our actions.' A somewhat sobering prospect.

When I was a CFI we practiced 'engine-out landing' scenarios with the engine at idle, but the focus was on field selection, and having a really good look at the terrain, wires, ditches, wind direction, trees etc giving the engine an occasional 'rumble' to make sure we hadn't inadvertently caused an engine issue for real. More attention was paid as well to following the engine out procedure, trying to get power back, and if so making the decision to continue the engine out landing to conclusion with the help of partial power or deciding whether to return to base with reduced power and not knowing if the engine might really stop altogether in a much worse place. Not to diss spot-landing practice, engine -out, but I would argue it's of much better benefit to the student.
To my mind the benefits of this approach far outweigh the 'I wonder if I can shut down the engine and make it from here' angle. By the way, does anyone actually shut down the engine at any time and THEN try and select a landing spot or is it always from a known spot in the pattern, over the field or at considerable altitude over familiar terrain? I would argue having the engine stopped by a CFI unexpectedly (for the student) to be a much better exercise than a pre-planned dead-stick exhibition.

In my first FO position, 3 of us did pattern work at Midland Texas in a for real 727-223. We used an empty airplane of course, during a long sit time at the airport. The 727-223 wasn't an easy airplane to land well. If you flared as per normal and then increased pitch to arrest a developing sink rate, you would get a carrier landing. We trainees all proved this and the poor line crew spent some time restoring the passenger oxygen masks to the overhead panels above the passenger seats. You couldn't pull the power all the way back because you were too fast because the sink rate was high. being so light was really difficult.
It was pretty stressful to all, including the instructor and I would say the benefits were not that great. Needless to say the airline soon stopped this practice and now the entire rating is done in a full motion simulator. It took a bit of time in the 727 to be able to 'roll-it on' pulling the power back and actually pushing forward on the yoke just as you would normally flare. The result was the gear on the longer fuselage version of the 727 would rise some and reduce the 'impact' of touchdown. You had to do it just right but when you did it was a thing of beauty.
Actually, quite amazing the things that you can practice in a sim. The last thing we did on the 767 rating ride was to 'just land' visually on 'that runway' with no auto-anything and just using your judgment and skill. It was actually quite difficult after 2 weeks of CAT-3b, VOR, NDB approaches etc.

A poster asked for comments on emergency landing technique, down wind, holes etc. For me, the first thing I'm looking to do is live and not cause injury to anyone else. Then I want to live with no injury, or minimal hurt. As I feel better about the approach and have done all I can to regain power, then I begin to finesse the approach with the best field, into wind, least obstructions, no wires, no trees etc…THEN stick with the plan and not try and attempt a miracle and create a disaster at the last minute.

Most pilots have a level of 'expertise' but they may prefer to leave it to others to call them 'experts' in their fields. Murphy's Law will humble the best of us as soon as we proclaim ourselves to be an expert and we do something that brings that statement into question. On the other hand, I would think that most of us are expert enough to know our limitations and to not tempt fate.

BTW..the CTLS that was destroyed in Greenville was the first CTLS I ever flew during a checkout at another Greenville, this one in SC.

[CharlieTango]

Many posters seem to be mixing apples and oranges.

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I would argue having the engine stopped by a CFI unexpectedly (for the student) to be a much better exercise than a pre-planned dead-stick exhibition.

You are doing some 'fruit mixing' of your own. The issue isn't which method is the better exercise, of course the unexpected engine stop simulates a real emergency and is far more valuable training.

Some of us do have a feather option in our very light aircraft and can soar our planes for long distances, they may or may not be registered as motor-gliders but they are not necessarily real gliders but sometimes short-winged hard to land airplanes with a glider option. When we are soaring the Sierra wave in the Europa I am comforted by the dead stick skills even though the plan is to re-start for landing.

[Merlinspop]

At the airline, our philosophy was 'fly today, like we'll be at an FAA hearing tomorrow explaining our actions.' A somewhat sobering prospect.

Mine: "How will this read on an NTSB report?"

Actually, quite amazing the things that you can practice in a sim.

I hope these Redbird devices become more prevalent. Has anyone flown one? http://www.redbirdflightsimulations.com/

[Nomore767]

Many posters seem to be mixing apples and oranges.

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I would argue having the engine stopped by a CFI unexpectedly (for the student) to be a much better exercise than a pre-planned dead-stick exhibition.

You are doing some 'fruit mixing' of your own. The issue isn't which method is the better exercise, of course the unexpected engine stop simulates a real emergency and is far more valuable training.

Some of us do have a feather option in our very light aircraft and can soar our planes for long distances, they may or may not be registered as motor-gliders but they are not necessarily real gliders but sometimes short-winged hard to land airplanes with a glider option. When we are soaring the Sierra wave in the Europa I am comforted by the dead stick skills even though the plan is to re-start for landing.

So, really what you're saying is, you're comfortable with your confidence in being able to manage the glide characteristics of your airplane from your experience with soaring?
I get that, really. My point is…with a 'dead-stick' landing, which may have come about with running out of fuel just short of the airport, an engine-failure, or worse a fire, over a forest or swamp, at night, or just a little too far from the airport to stretch that glide and not stall…without the option of a re-start…the pilot is really trying to fly the airplane as safely as they can to point of impact.

Practicising non-powered safe glides to an assured safe landing is another thing. Yes, there will be some skill and confidence developed but to me it's not the same scenario as an emergency 'dead-stick' landing, for real.

[Nomore767]

"How will this read on an NTSB report?"

Bruce,

I agree with you.

The NTSB will issue a report for 'probable cause'. If the probable cause was the failure of the engine, or some component, or a deliberate stoppage by the pilot, which caused the pilot to make an emergency landing, and that the airplane overturned destroying the airplane, and the occupants survived, then that's the report.
If the FAA also looked at it and found that the pilot had been 'demonstrating a dead-stick landing' by stopping the engine and subsequently was unable to restart it, with the same results….what does anyone think would be the outcome?

I'd say certificate action would be highly likely. Suspension and remedial training. The remedial training, and check ride would, I'm sure, not include practice to improve dead-stick landing skills.

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