There was a good article by Barry Schiff last year in AOPA Pilot about
this. I went out and tried it in my 182. I had originally thought that
you would need a healthy shove forward on the controls to keep from
stalling. This is not the case, the plane will simply nose down to
maintain the trimmed airspeed. I need 200 feet to complete a 180 and
another 150 feet to get back to the departure runway. That is only
using a 45 degree bank, the article shows that 60 degrees is optimal.



Roger Tracy wrote:

This is a good thing to test at altitude and know ahead of time. There's
going to be a certain height AGL that you just can't get turned around.
You should know what that is for your plane.


"Harold" wrote in message
...

If a small single engine plane can out-climb its engine-out glide ratio

from

take off through the top of climb point, wouldn't it follow that it can
always theoretically make it back to the departure airport in the event of
engine failure ? Assuming straight out departure, no wind, and the

altitude

loss in the 180 turnback is offset by the runway portion you didn't use.

If

my best glide is 85 KTAS and it loses 700 fpm at that speed, shouldn't I

be

guaranteed I can make it back if I climb at 84 KTAS and 701 fpm ?