Several years ago in the Wide World of Flying video series (Volume 5, Number
18), captain Barry Schiff did a segment about this very topic. He
recommended practicing a 360 turn at altitude, with 45 degree bank at best
glide speed. In a climb, reduce power to idle, wait a few seconds to
simulate the time it takes for reality to soak in, then get the nose down to
establish glide speed. After rolling out level from the 360, pull up in a
landing flare to arrest the descent and see how much altitude was lost. In
a 172, if you really nail it you can lose 500 feet. 700 feet or more can
result if you don't do it just right.

Kevin Davidson


"Bryan Martin" wrote in message
...
In a "normal landing" you start a half mile to a mile to one side of the
runway and only require about 180 degrees of turn. In a turn back maneuver
after takeoff, you are nearly directly off the end of the runway. Turning
back to the runway from this position requires far more than 180 degrees
of
turn. So calling it a 180 degree turn back can be misleading. 180 degrees
of
turn will usually put you well to one side of the runway so you must
continue turning until you are headed back towards the runway and then
turn
back the opposite direction to line up with it. This maneuver requires
closer to 360 degrees of turn than 180 and you will lose altitude faster
while turning than when flying wings level. So before you attempt a turn
back, you need to know how much altitude you will need for a 360 degree
turn.

If you are taking off from an airport with more than one runway, you might
consider if it would be easier to turn back to a different runway than the
one you took off from. One time during a BFR, my instructor pulled the
throttle at about 500' after takeoff from runway 6 at Midland Barstow. He
expected me to attempt to return to land on runway 24. He was kind of
surprised when I just made a gentle 240 degree left turn and rolled out
lined up with runway 18 with altitude to spare. I just looked back and
realized it would be much easier to get to 18 than 24, the wind was
blowing
us that way anyway.
--
Bryan Martin


in article , Highflyer at wrote on
2/4/06 11:14 PM:


It seems to me that when I learned to fly the normal landing was a
"power
off" landing. You always cut the power on the downwind leg heading away
from the airport and from the end of the runway. Then, after a little
while, you proceeded to make a 180 degree turn back to the airport and
landed. This was done with the engine cut to idle. Sometimes, they cut
even beyond idle and quit completely! :-) It was called a normal
landing
and you were supposed to do all of them that way.

Clearly there is some altitude and distance from the end of the runway
where
a "turnback" type maneuver is no problem at all, and actually closely
approximates the normal landing of my youth. Equally clearly there is
also
some altitude and distance from the end of the runway where such a
"turnback" maneuver is clearly impossible. Obviously the trick is
knowing
exactly where in the range between A and B that you are at the moment
the
engine quits and behaving accordingly. Most flight instructors cop out
totally and just say "Go straight ahead."

Personally, I have had engine failures on "takeoff" where straight ahead
was
best. I have had engine failures on "takeoff" where "turnback" was
best.
And I even had ONE engine failure on "takeoff" where neither "turnback"
nor
"straight ahead" would work and I had to do something creative! :-)

Highflyer
Highflight Aviation Services
Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY )