On 3/26/2011 10:41 AM, Andy wrote:
On Mar 25, 1:48 pm, wrote:
Yes, a 500 ft engine out on takeoff in a light plane is more like a
125 ft rope break. Now do a 180 turn around to land.

Try to simulate this emergency some time if you have power license or
a friend to fly with. Just be prepared to see how fast the ground
comes up.

I have maintained for a long time that power pilot training for engine
failure had the priorities wrong. Power pilots are taught to set best
glide speed first. All this does is waste time and altitude going away
from the landing place if a turn back is the only option.

One year, when I was active as an airplane CFI, I trained 3 different
pilots in engine out turn back. All were able to turn back, and be in
position to land, when power loss was simulated 400ft above the runway
at Vy. The aircraft used were a PA28-180 and a Grumman AA5A. The
better pilots did it so well they had loads of altitude to burn after
getting lined up to land.

With the right technique 400agl power loss in these aircraft was
similar to 200ft rope break in a glider.

The right technique of course was to do just what we teach in
gliders. Immediate 45 deg banked turn, into the wind if any. Speed
in the turn not best glide speed but the minimum speed that gives a
safe stall margin. In most airplanes that is much slower than best
glide speed.

The initial training was performed about 1500 agl using a road as a
simulated runway. Only when the technique was mastered was an actual
low altitude turn back performed.

Andy

Andy's hands-on experience supports a (several, actually) thought(s) the
skeptical engineer in me has mulled ever since gaining sufficient experience
and knowledge to be able to.

Teaching (of anything) is an inexact process, while teaching of a demonstrable
physical skill (e.g. piloting) requires - for all practical purposes -
creation of defined methodologies, the goal generally being infusing the
student with sufficient knowledge and abilities to continue 'self-training'
throughout the rest of their applied learning activities. So far so good...

However, when it comes to teaching of certain 'immediately' life-threatening
emergency aviation-related procedures (rope breaks, engine loss, etc.), where
one 'sets the bar' for 'acceptably safe' is arguably statistically important
to future accident rates. My growing suspicion has been the bar for light,
single-piston-engined GA may well be set 'too high (above the ground, I mean)'
when it comes to defining safe turn-around altitude(s) above ground. Sort of
the equivalent of adults setting/permitting expectations of kids in school
'too low.' Or, maybe focusing on the wrong thing (a magic height, say) rather
than some more fundamentally important metric (e.g. what it takes as a pilot
to effect a safe, minimal-altitude-loss 'teardrop reversal').

While fully recognizing the aero-perfomance differences between (say) any
Bonanza and a Taylorcraft BC-12, how much sense does it make to set the
'safe-180-height' for both the same? More to the point - since review of NTSB
accident data yields a drearily consistent litany of unfortunately-terminated
engine-loss incidents - maybe it would make more training sense to 'set the
bar' as an airframe-dependent, outcome-based, training exercise designed more
to inculcate in student-pilots (not to mention instructors, and eventually to
the entire pilot base) the concept of obtaining maximum-performance,
minimum-altitude-loss turnarounds, as distinct from some 'magical universal
turnaround height'. That latter may well be a poor choice of teaching metric
simply because the training often (in my observation) tends to morph into
'rote memorization of some universal safety height', when almost certainly
universality of numbers is *way* too crude a metric.

In any event, my (non-CFIG-based) personal bias has long been to try to
highlight fundamental underlying concepts to any 'teachable moment', whether
aviation-related or not. Works for me!

Meanwhile, mental review of one's own ideas and applicable skill-sets is
probably never a waste of time. What Tom Knauff too-gently euphemizes as 'The
Silly Season' is well underway in the U.S. as spring advances here, and the
honest among sailplane pilots will place the underlying responsibility for the
vast majority of sailplane accidents and incidents squarely where it belongs,
on Joe PIC.

Let's have fun, but wisely, thoughtfully and (presumably, more) safely!

Bob - none of my gliders ever bent themselves - W.