CTLS down in Greenville, TX

[roger lee]

Gliding an aircraft without its engine isn't considered careless or reckless. I have already ask these questions at the FAA and my insurance. This question and discussion has come up on other forums years ago and just like here some were for it and some against.The ones against had never done them and all the ones for it had done them. That should shed some light on people's mind sets right there. The uncomfortable people with the operation had never done them and the people that had were now a little more self confident they could handle an engine out emergency and do it in a more calm manner. If it was careless and reckless motor gliders would fall into the same dilemma. Doing it over a busy city or an assembly would be different animal, but practicing over an open area or at a field isn't classified as either. All I ever do is ask the tower for that clearance and once given, the runway is mine. I do diving short low approaches (200' - 300') right off the end of the numbers that roll out right above the runway. Once given clearance from the tower you're good to go. I do this to simulate loss of power at take off or at low altitudes with the only landing spot at 180 degrees off the wing. There is nothing here illegal or against FAA rules. People practice full engine out landings all the time. You can see them on YouTube. Here is the dilemma again. What may look reckless to one is SOP for another. Once people do a few engine out landings they all tend to have a different view. If you have never done these then speaking against them may be a little chided in a view. I'm sure you have gotten some grief from people who have never skydived or raced a car at 150+ mph. If you haven't done it it's hard to voice a truly informed opinion. People who have done a few of these tend to be more secure about emergency landings and tend to be less vehement in their view of the operation.

Hi Eddie,
Your book says instructor and student.

[MovingOn]

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[ct4me]

Thread drift for sure...

[FastEddieB]

Thread drift for sure...

Sure, but tangentially relevant to the topic at hand - how should we practice for an event such as this?

As an instructor, I weigh heavily what the FAA recommends. If I train a student "outside the box", then I will be responsible for the consequences of that teaching. If an accident ever results, you can bet my instruction techniques would be examined with a fine toothed comb, possibly on a witness stand.

Roger pointed out that my excerpt only applies to an instructor with a student. Fine, I'll take that. Once the student leaves the nest, he or she is free to expand upon what I taught them. I don't think shutting down the engine in flight is necessarily careless or reckless, either in the legal or practical senses. But I do strongly believe that if an accident occurred due to that practice, the NTSB would be likely to include the shutting down of the engine as at least a contributing factor, if not a probable cause.

In browsing around last night, I came across Chapter 9 of the Aviation Instructor's Handbook (available online for free), titled "Risk Management". A bit long and tedious, there was still this from early on in the chapter:

Principles of Risk Management
Accept No Unnecessary Risk
Unnecessary risk is that which carries no commensurate return in terms of benefits or opportunities. Everything involves risk. The most logical choices for accomplishing an operation are those that meet all requirements with the minimum acceptable risk. The corollary to this axiom is “accept necessary risk” required to complete the operation or task successfully. Flying is impossible without risk, but unnecessary risk comes without a corresponding return...

I think Roger would argue that the "corresponding return" in this case is a pilot better equipped to deal with real emergencies, and would then qualify as a "necessary risk". I respect that point of view, but just compute the risk/reward ratio a little differently.

[roger lee]

It may not be for everyone and you need to practice in a suitable environment on on a short runway and over trees would be stupid.
If you fail to plan you plan to fail. This would be for the real life event or practice.

You are inserting extremes trying to validate its dangers. If you haven't the sense to use a runway long enough, away from trees, keep a higher than normal pattern or higher than normal approach (do it on a high approach), and plan to land farther down the runway then you have failed to plan and probably couldn't make a real engine off decision or landing anyway. Who would be so foolish to do the things you suggested. If you are afraid of a plane pulling out in front of you then you should be terrified of a mid air collision all the time. If you are worried about a plane pulling out in front of you in a glide it should also scare you with the engine running. It happens and you still fly. The other day an 84 year old was landing and he hit a 74 year old on a lawnmower. That doesn't mean I have to start looking for lawnmowers all the time.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nationa ... -1.1770221

You can't carry this out to extremes because you should never be there and should have done a better job planning. Flying, drag racing, skydiving, scuba diving ect... are all inherently dangerous so why did you do them. Many in the world think you already a risk taker. In their mind you aren't any better than me saying I practice gliding to a landing.

Practicing this over trees and on a short field is like drag racing with no helmet, fire suit, gloves or emergency procedures in place in case of an accident which we all know they have from time to time.
If you are gliding in and make such a huge mistake then you failed to plan correctly and set up the maneuver correctly. They really aren't hard to do, just in your mind and that's what training is supposed to do is give you insight.


If you don't want to practice certain maneuvers then that's okay. Flying has many aspects and many styles and some aren't for everyone. Cars kill more people per year than plane crashes, but you still drive. 40K people a year die and hundreds of thousands injured.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/02/03 ... very-year/

So see we argue from a comfort zone that fits us not necessarily from an all encompassing solid standpoint.

Tried and true.
If you fail to plan you plan to fail no matter what you do in life, just some take it to completion and not happy at 75%. Completion is striving for excellence which you may never fully attain, because you are always striving for better and 75% is mediocrity which will always be happy with itself. Our Olympians are these types of people. They were happy with mediocre they strive to be the best and demanded excellence for their performance in their sport and many of those sports are dangerous.


So why do they do them?

[MrMorden]

If the engine does not restart, your statement to the NTSB/FAA would be:

"The engine failed, I set up for an emergency landing then tried unsuccessfully for a restart."

How could they prove otherwise?

I'm not comfortable trying engine out emergency landing practice, but then I barely have 100 hours. I'm not going to get on somebody else for their choice of preparing for emergency conditions in this case. Is it riskier than simulated engine out with a running engine? Yes. Is it better preparation for an actual engine out? Definitely.

I personally don't think this rises to the level of "careless and reckless," but the FAA tends to toss that charge at any accident that involves anything out of the ordinary or non-standard procedures, so I would not rule that out.

[roger lee]

Is this guy dangerous or just highly skilled.
Some may consider him a careless reckless risk taker, some just highly skilled

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uw2qPLEgKdQ


Careless risk taker or highly skilled. Stopped engine practice. Not a lawnmower in sight, no short runway and no trees on the ends of the runway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7R7jZmliGc

Dangerous and careless risk taker or highly skilled.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG3TYpb3YS4

We should all be so lucky to be this skilled and confident. In an engine out emergency who do you want behind the controls?

[CharlieTango]

If your introduction into aviation was decades ago in a foot launched hang glider then power off landings where the first skill you learned.

If you then transitioned into a 2-stroke ultra-light or fat ultra-light you had good reason to maintain your dead stick skills and there was a chance that the decision would be made for you.

The level of risk practicing dead sticks has a lot to do with gross weight, Roger's background as well as mine comes from this lower risk category.

If you then transitioned to faster heavier aircraft your interest in shutting off the motor likely diminished.

Once I started flying heavier and faster airplanes the higher risk due to the higher kinetic energy motivated me to practice at idle. The CTSW falls into this category though I have a couple of dead stick landings just to confirm the feel in the flare.

A CTSW with landing flaps has a steep glide that is tricky too judge so the practice never ends. Using throttle or landing long are failures, almost every approach requires an approach that would be long and a slip to nail the target.

Ballooning is touch call, If I have to I call off the practice and advance the throttle rather than lower the nose. If the motor is off I will lower the nose, this aspect gets little or no practice.

[FastEddieB]

If the engine does not restart, your statement to the NTSB/FAA would be:

"The engine failed, I set up for an emergency landing then tried unsuccessfully for a restart."

How could they prove otherwise?

Well, first the assumption is that lying is perfectly OK if it serves your purpose. And that supplying false information to an NTSB Investigator falls into the same category. Not preaching, but some are uncomfortable with lying in general.

But, if you were solo, it would be hard to argue with that false statement.

Unless...

They found the fuel shutoff stuck in the "OFF" position, or the ignition key similarly stuck in the "OFF" position, or...

You were not solo, and your passenger/student had a "thing" about telling the truth.

I'd just avoid being in that scenario in the first place. If and when I have another engine failure, I'll just hope that the literally thousands of simulated emergencies I've practiced over the years hold me in good stead.

My one real failure, at a couple hundred feet right after takeoff, was successfully handled, and reinforced my habit of usually using the full length of the runway - I got down and stopped on the runway remaining at Nassau.

[MrMorden]

Well, first the assumption is that lying is perfectly OK if it serves your purpose. And that supplying false information to an NTSB Investigator falls into the same category. Not preaching, but some are uncomfortable with lying in general.

But, if you were solo, it would be hard to argue with that false statement.

Unless...

I'm not really suggesting lying to the feds, just pointing out that there is no real way to determine what happened if the pilot chose to fudge the truth. There is "lying to serve your purpose" and "lying to prevent prosecution/persecution under what you might consider an unjust or unsafe regulation". It is left as an exercise for the reader to determine where that line is.

[CharlieTango]

Here is an example of an instructor teaching dead stick landings in a challenger.

the instructor then instructed the student to climb to an altitude of 1,000 feet where he was going to instruct the student to shut the engine off and do a dead stick landing.

The student flew the length of the runway just over 5,000 feet and began a turn at approximately 900 feet, the turn kept getting steeper and steeper, the instructor giving instructions to apply aileron to bring the low wing up, still the plane continued into a spiral dive, with engine power still on, the instructor gave instruction to turn the engine off, and apply rudder, aileron, and elevator, to level the plane, the student was able to get the plane out of the dive, by pulling back on the stick, but in so doing stalled the aircraft with a nose high attitude, in a steep turn. The plane stalled, dove straight towards the ground, and was ready to tuck under and become inverted. The instructor screamed into his radio for the student to apply opposite rudder and aileron and to pull back on the stick, as the plane was doing approximately 80 mph, and was now less than 150 feet in the air.

The student at the point that the plane was ready to become inverted pulled back on the stick leveled the plane, and the instructor talked him into a landing into a plowed field, with one wing still flying low, as if side slipping, and the plane turning.

http://www.ultralightnews.com/safety_bu ... ailure.htm

[Jim Stewart]

I almost hyperventilated just reading that...

[MovingOn]

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[MrMorden]

You guys do whatever you want. Personally, I will continue to abide by the rules and follow prescribed techniques and methods. I have been able to do this for 50+ years with absolutely no issues. Flying is not the time or place to demonstrate creativity or machismo. I believe I am 100 percent an expert pilot and just as skilled as most others, not 75 percent as implied above. Shutting down an engine while flying a single engine airplane is poor judgement and stupid.

This is just a discussion, you don't have to take it personally.

[MovingOn]

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