Just curious

Wanted to know if you guys occasionally practice, at a safe altitude
with not too many passengers on board, stuff that *might* come in handy
should something dreadful happens - for example, shutting off an engine
or both and trying to judge, from the aircraft's rate of descent and
distance covered between two altitudes, how far ahead it can possibly
reach before reaching the ground, etc. Just to get a feel of things
real-time.

Or is all of this restricted strictly to simulators?
Ramapriya

I've taken my Cherokee 180 up to see how much altitude I lose during a 180
degree power off turn. A 210 degree power off turn. Now if I lose my engine
on takeoff, I know how high I need to even think about an about face to the
runway.

"Ramapriya" wrote in message
ups.com...
Wanted to know if you guys occasionally practice, at a safe altitude
with not too many passengers on board, stuff that *might* come in handy
should something dreadful happens - for example, shutting off an engine
or both and trying to judge, from the aircraft's rate of descent and
distance covered between two altitudes, how far ahead it can possibly
reach before reaching the ground, etc. Just to get a feel of things
real-time.

Or is all of this restricted strictly to simulators?
Ramapriya

Actually there are known distances for all of those situations, which are
published in the handbook for each aircraft, and we in turn must have them
memorized.

And we do in fact train in exactly that way to get a 'feel' for what those
numbers actually are in real time, although shutting the engine down
completely is forbidden in most cases, powering down to as close to zero
thrust as the engine will go gives you the same result.


"Ramapriya" wrote in message
ups.com...
Wanted to know if you guys occasionally practice, at a safe altitude
with not too many passengers on board, stuff that *might* come in handy
should something dreadful happens - for example, shutting off an engine
or both and trying to judge, from the aircraft's rate of descent and
distance covered between two altitudes, how far ahead it can possibly
reach before reaching the ground, etc. Just to get a feel of things
real-time.

Or is all of this restricted strictly to simulators?
Ramapriya

"Ramapriya" wrote in message
ups.com...
Wanted to know if you guys occasionally practice, at a safe altitude
with not too many passengers on board, stuff that *might* come in
handy
should something dreadful happens - for example, shutting off an
engine
or both and trying to judge, from the aircraft's rate of descent and
distance covered between two altitudes, how far ahead it can possibly
reach before reaching the ground, etc. Just to get a feel of things
real-time.

Or is all of this restricted strictly to simulators?
Ramapriya



A practice maneuver at altitude which is NOT dangerous, and which few
pilots are even acquainted with, is finding their airplane's maximum
bank angle, and speed for it, at full throttle. This depends on both
weight and altitude, but two or three examples of each should be
sufficient.

The reason this is important is that at greater bank angles and/or at
smaller airspeeds, their airplane is on the back side of the power curve
and, should they pull back on the stick because their airplane is
descending, their airplane will descend FASTER.

It's a little complicated -- probably too complicated for average Joe
Pilot -- but quite important for mountain pilots who would like to
survive.

John Lowry, PhD
Flight Physics

"Thomas J. Paladino Jr." wrote
although shutting the engine down completely is forbidden
in most cases,

Hmmmm... where does it say that? I do it all the time.

Bob Moore
ATP CFI

"Ramapriya" wrote in message
ups.com...
Wanted to know if you guys occasionally practice, at a safe altitude
with not too many passengers on board, stuff that *might* come in handy
should something dreadful happens

You seem to have this impression that all airplanes are like big airliners.
You have got to do some flying in a small plane to disabuse yourself of
these notions.

There are few simulators for small airplanes. Student pilots must practice,
in the air, all manner of emergencies, including engine failures.

Bob Moore wrote:
"Thomas J. Paladino Jr." wrote
although shutting the engine down completely is forbidden
in most cases,

Hmmmm... where does it say that? I do it all the time.

I believe the poster is thinking of air carriers not GA. So, in the
case of 135/121, it would be forbidden to shut down an engine "just to
do it".

-Robert

For the big airliners, it's cheaper to do in simulators. However, if
you ever sat in one of those things, you'd really hvae to keep
reminding yourself its just a simulation. These things are so real, its
easy to forget it. If paying passengers are not on board (what we call
part 135 or 121 operations) we can and do go up in planes and practice
things like shutting down one engine, slowing the plane below minimum
flying speed, making very steep turns, go arounds, etc. The smaller the
airplanes, the more likely these are done in real airplanes (because of
the cost of the simulator vs the cost of flying the plane for
non-revenue).

-Robert

I tried to train my multiengine students to look at engine failure as an
annoyance, not a catastrophe. They had the knowledge and ability to fly the
airplane safely on one engine. Single-engine is another story, of course.

Bob Gardner

"Ramapriya" wrote in message
ups.com...
Wanted to know if you guys occasionally practice, at a safe altitude
with not too many passengers on board, stuff that *might* come in handy
should something dreadful happens - for example, shutting off an engine
or both and trying to judge, from the aircraft's rate of descent and
distance covered between two altitudes, how far ahead it can possibly
reach before reaching the ground, etc. Just to get a feel of things
real-time.

Or is all of this restricted strictly to simulators?
Ramapriya

Mandatory training for commercial pilot students. Basically done in
Private training as well.

"Ramapriya" wrote in message
ups.com...
Wanted to know if you guys occasionally practice, at a safe altitude
with not too many passengers on board, stuff that *might* come in handy
should something dreadful happens - for example, shutting off an engine
or both and trying to judge, from the aircraft's rate of descent and
distance covered between two altitudes, how far ahead it can possibly
reach before reaching the ground, etc. Just to get a feel of things
real-time.

Or is all of this restricted strictly to simulators?
Ramapriya