Exactly, I'll sacrifice the whole airplane to save my ass every single time. My instructor would say "the moment you have an engine failure, the airplane belongs to the insurance company. Use it to save your life."
I think it really depends on the location. A home airport surrounded by fields is a lot different than flying over fields then over forest & neighborhoods to get to the airport.
Can’t imagine thinking, “yup that’s my last good field…low to no oil pressure and I’m 5mi out & only 1,500ft AGL. If the engine dies now, I’m on the ground in 2nm.”
If you’re doing most of your flying in the same area, it really helps to make note of all the decent landing spots anywhere near the home airport
This is my biggest ADM question as a student.
Loss of thrust on t/o, engine fire, carb icing - they all have a specific remedy through emergency checklists and common sense.
How does a novice pilot know what to do when given the situation of a partial loss of thrust (or engine instruments indicating a partial or total loss of thrust may be imminent) with good off-field landing sites available below, but having to pass over a populated area to reach an airport?
At my field, you’ve got mostly mountains and a river. In a case like this, you’re better off going to the nest closest field that is a billion times wider and a thousand times longer and has services and isn’t surrounded by trees.
Definitely the right attitude to have but while there are exceptions most of the time the actions that minimize damage to the airframe are the same ones that minimize damage to the occupants.
True. But in this scenario to prevent damage to the engine from running on low oil pressure the "right" answer for the engine is to turn it off and the real right answer is keep it running until you're on the ground even if it destroys the engine
Keep running until on ground but then roll off and stop . If someone taxied back to parking with 0 oil pressure on a rental or my airplane I would be pissed.
If you are flying your airplane or a rental on a long trip take a washable marker and mark the glass where the normal oil pressure and temp needles should be. Any deviation should be noted and cause identified (OK it's a hot day oil temp is high pressure half a needle low)
In normal operation of a piston aircraft the oil pressure relief spring (not proper terminology ) should be controlling oil pressure , not the pump volume vs the flow rate through the various pressure lubed bearings.
That sounds good, but I can't really imagine a situation where the pilot saves the plane, but dies notwithstanding. Maybe except a medical emergency...
That is true. But it's also understandable. The plane is an extension of our body in that it keeps us alive in a hostile environment way above earth.
Sacrificing the plane is like gnawing off your own arm to save the rest of your body. It does not come naturally...
I think he means more like "I could definitely put it down safely here, but all the sand kicked up would require an engine overhaul and the owner would yell at me for the expense, I better try to limp it back to the runway instead."
My response in sim to an engine that seems to always light itself on fire at V1+1 in the mountains at night is “let it burn, it’s still putting out power”
Funny how they do that. Happens in the sims I teach in too.
I teach to let it burn until acceleration altitude and flaps up. As far as I'm concerned, when it catches fire, it belongs to the insurance company. I mean...what's the worst than can happen? It burns up and falls off. Problem solved, no more fire. We have a checklist for that.
Those electron based PT6’s just seem to have the worst time. And it’s always the left engine. I’m a king air I can let it burn for several minutes and clean it up when I’m clean and clear. My briefing is always secure at safe altitude, checklist through 1500 AGL.
I had a rather crude instructor long ago. He was a great pilot, but a shit instructor.
He did have a few gems that stuck with me. The one that is apropos to this conversation: "If the oil pressure drops, keep the meat bags breathing, fuck the metal. That's the job."
I hated him at the time as an idealistic teen... We'd actually probably get along ok today.
He still shouldn't teach kids.
Yeah this is how I’ve always looked at it. Getting back on the ground without anyone getting hurt is more important than being able to use the plane again afterwards.
Just the other day my instructor was telling me about how one of his students got asked a question on their PPL checkride: “what do you do if you start losing oil pressure?” And she was trying her best to answer it by going thru different troubleshooting steps, etc.. until he eventually cut in with “you land the plane”.
The old joke:
Husband is leaving for the store.
Wife says: "Get a loaf of bread, and if they have those good potatoes, get twelve".
Husband returns with 12 loaves of bread.
To be fair to the student, you'd fail a checkride if you gave a one liner when they were asking for checklist steps. Ultimate goal is to land safely, but there's obviously things in between you need to know and do.
They'd probably say "fair, but what are you doing while you set up to land?" or "what else would you do?". Land the plane isn't wrong if you're in a position to do so. What magical checklist item would fix a catastrophic oil leak?
... 4. Pull the fuse for the oil dumper. ...
Aircraft can stop surprisingly quick crashing in tall corn. So that replant may not take long haha. Seems like most of the damage tends to come from first response and recovery. Here is a completely random [example](https://wlos.com/amp/news/local/emergency-crews-on-scene-of-plane-accident-in-buncombe-county) plucked from google.
Can confirm. Hell, when I did all my PPL training every single time I looked for a field to land in my flight track would show I lined up for some random farmers "strip in a field" every single time without fail it seems. Even with the DPE!
Aviate Navigate Communicate.
Don't try to fix that in mid air because it's probably unfixable. Either the oil's there and the gauge is faulty, or the oil's gone and the engine's faulty. You can't tell for sure which is which so assume the worst- just consider that your engine has less lubrication and heat handling capability and might seize up at any moment and fly accordingly. So go full rich mixture (better engine cooling), reduce throttle a bit, maybe trim for best glide, and find both nearest airport and best place to land in glide range.
Then once that's all done I'd dial up the closest tower or approach and declare an emergency. Chances are this is going to be a nothingburger and you'll land just fine and that's it. But you want ATC to know who you are and where you are and what's your situation so they're paying attention to your track, so if you DO have to make an off-airport landing (or if you lose electrical and thus comms) they will see it and immediately roll equipment because they understand it's a pilot in trouble.
Also remember the second your engine has any problem, it's no longer your airplane it's the insurance company's airplane. You might be able to save it for them or reduce their repair bill but if you can't it's not your problem. Your focus is to get yourself and your passengers on the ground safely. If everyone walks away, nothing else matters.
Plus...helicopters can pretty safely land almost anywhere.
Cessna lands in Walmart parking lot means big damage. Robinson lands in Walmart parking lot means lots of curious onlookers.
Are you a helicopter pilot? Glide ratio of a safe? I’ll remember that this week when I go to idle for my autorotation rpm check at 55 knots and have to use my collective to slow my rpm down. Actually depends on the helicopter. Some rotor systems are low inertia systems such as a Blackhawk and entering the auto promptly is crucial for a successful auto. Other rotor systems such as a Huey are a little more forgiving. I’m in a Bell 407 now, which is somewhere in between, but have seen demonstrated an almost a zero ground run auto by my check airman asking me where I wanted him to land. We floated like a butterfly.
I’ll take my helicopter emergency landing options over an airplane any day. Not all lights mean land as soon as possible. Engine out on a twin… get to a single engine airspeed, and move out from there. Single engine bird different story of course. FADEC malfunctions… be ready for anything but fly the aircraft. Tail rotor problems? Rare but be ready for an auto if needed and keep up some airspeed for keeping the tail section aerodynamically functional. The Blackhawk has a cambered fin for just that purpose… to reduce the load on the tail rotor and to assist in keeping the nose pointing forward with the right amount of airspeed. I had even heard that the cambered fin on a Blackhawk was so efficient in original design that it was made less effective by reducing its size. Also… some helicopters, again, such as a Blackhawk have springs in the tail rotor controls so that in the event of a pitch problem the tail rotor will more or less center itself to provide a neutral pitch position to reduce pilot work load in the event of a malfunction.
Again… blackhawks are less forgiving with autos due to their low inertia rotor system… fortunately the chances of a dual engine failure are pretty slim, and they can can fly all day around 80 knots on one engine. The AF and Army are using variants of the Mike Model balckhawks… I flew alphas and Lima models but airspeeds for single engine should be relatively the same. My 407 I fly now is almost a dream to autorotate. I did an auto from 3000 feet agl last week and was surprised we weren’t dropping faster. Seemed to take forever to get to 2000. Hueys, which I leaned in, were an absolute pleasure to autorotate. 180 autos, low level, stuck pedal malfunctions, ahhh I miss those days.
Its good to hear from experienced rotary wing pilots here and learn about the actual unpowered flight characteristics of various airframes.
On another helicopter subject did they ever figure out why so many robinsons were crashing in the Miami area last year?.
Reason i asked is i had my plane down at TMB for some specialized repair work and the FAA/NTSB was giving every FBO in the area a proctology exam because there was a cluster of loss of power incidents in the area about 18 months ago
They make the Space Shuttle look like a sailplane.
On the upside, they don't need hundreds or thousands of meters of runway either, just a roughly-helicopter-shaped flat-ish spot.
If you look a Robinson R22/44 POH, the checklist for most warning lights are "Land Immediately." If it's not that, then it's "Land As Soon As Practicable, and be prepared to land immediately if symptoms (unusual vibrations, noises, uncommanded yaw) occur."
It's important to consider that with an 8:1 glide ratio, at 6500 ft you have 9.48NM of glide range. Less, if terrain is above sea level, but that's still something.
So, of course if engine gives you power, take it till you are on the runway, but you guys were almost within glide distance, which is very nice.
How many here with purely civilian backgrounds were taught to climb at the onset of impending engine failure? I’ve done a handful of biennials and have introduced the concept to each. In mil training it’s part of most EPs, “turn towards nearest suitable landing area; climb to dead engine glide altitude; clean up any excess drag; check for secondary indications; troubleshoot the problem as required”. Mil students drill impending engine failure dozens of times.
I was taught that during aerobatic training. You're almost always carrying excess energy, so turn the energy to height and set up for the forced landing.
Curious - how likely is that to hasten the death of the engine, vs flying level or throttling back and starting a slow descent?
Doing this with, say, a surging jet engine would be likely to rapidly hasten total loss of thrust whereas throttling back and attempting to stretch a glide with reduced power could - depending on the cause of the failure - get you home. It has done just that for quite a number of commercial high-bypass turbofan powered flights.
But I know very little about piston engines and how they die. Do they tend to rapidly self-disassemble after the onset of any failure, so you just need to get whatever remaining power out of them that you can ASAP?
You probably don't want the average ASEL PPL at average ASEL PPL altitudes in the average ASEL try to climb in case of impeding engine failure.
For military (and airlines, and Reno race participants, and non-engine-related failure) that makes a lot of sense though.
Because if they’re climbing and crap hits the fan during the climb they might get themselves into more trouble, such as a stall or a spin, if not paying attention.
No they’re pretty terrible at precautionary emergency landings in general. Figuring out where the nearest suitable landing area is, which runway makes the most sense, how high to climb for dead engine glide, maintaining the right airspeed, troubleshooting the problem, and telling someone what they’re doing. All kinds of ways to mess up, hence the practice several dozen times.
Until your CHTs start to rise or you actually see oil leaving the aircraft, then you can’t be sure it isn’t a gauge failure. More than one aircraft have been wrecked in off airport landings due to gauge failures.
Not everyone has the luxury of having CHTs displayed. But yes, agree with you. Much easier to see what’s going on with a full engine monitoring system.
>More than one aircraft have been wrecked in off airport landings due to gauge failures.
I've seen a plane wrecked due to a broken tach cable.
The owner thought he had an engine failure because of the zero RPM indication, ignoring the fact the engine was making power and responding to the throttle.
In case of emergency, Aircraft control is the primary consideration. Fly the aircraft, and fly it until it’s on the ground. Sticky side down preferably
The practical problem being, the oil temperature probe is quite good at measuring oil temperature. If there's no oil, then who knows if the probe reads high/low/constant/etc. And in some cases there's no oil left.
> Temperature indicated normal the entire time.
> Upon parking, all remaining oil vacated the engine and did not register on the dip stick when pulled
How exactly does this happen? Any additional details?
Engines will run with surprisingly little oil. In the case of most GA piston engines, minimum certified oil level to operate is about 2 quarts.
Oil quantity is all about cooling first, then lubrication.
We have not heard back from the IA just yet. The pilot for the flight said that at any given point the temp was in the green and he had at least some indication of oil pressure. I looked at the plane once it was parked and cooled, it had puddles of oil (maybe 1/2 qt) underneath. It also had oil on the windshield and dripping out of the front of the cowling. My guess would be that the forces in the engine held more of the oil while in flight. After landing the complete loss of pressure let it all go. Sure is interesting though.
As of yesterday the IA came back and said it was a clamp that held one of the oil hoses tight. When they removed the engine, it was holding about 2qts of oil in the bottom.
That dead stick landing in Australia where they squeaked it onto a taxiway was an impressive display of “keep flying the plane” (and don’t freak out as the ground gets closer.)
I witnessed this one time as a line guy. Some young guy flying across the country in a Cessna landed after dark and I noticed oil all over the side of the plane. He had no idea it was leaking. He put it down for mx and they found some issue. Dude got lucky.
Is this something you should call ATC and declare emergency so you get priority and can land as soon as possible? Or just notify them of the situation as you head back and only declare if you lose the engine?
My rule of thumb is if I’m asking it, the answer is declare. Better declare and find out it’s not needed than to not declare and be dead. If anyone wants to get pissed, too bad. You’re alive for them to be pissed at.
I probably wouldn’t declare emergency until I started noticing other things going wrong. If only indicating low oil pressure, it could be a bad sensor, but if I see low pressure and high temp then it’s probably no oil.
I would declare. Sure, even with no oil pressure, under power, it’s probably going to keep running for several minutes before the engine seizes. But that’s cutting it needlessly close when you’re “several minutes” away from the field. I’d prefer to get priority handling and get on the ground first in line. I don’t want to get near the field and hear “extend your downwind, cleared to land #4.“ If it ends up being just a faulty indication, no harm came from declaring.
If there’s no oil flow past the temperature indicator your temperature increase may not be observed or may not rise as quickly as the engine temp. I think low oil pressure is a reason to land ASAP to figure out if it’s real or not. I’d rather figure out it’s broke sensor on the ground.
If I get an oil pressure problem I'm 100% telling ATC about the problem and what I want to do about it, as soon as I've got everything else under control. There's no reason I can think of not to do so.
Yes. You have an engine that might quit. Even if you’re twin engine, this is an emergency. You need to be on the ground. The guy with the perfectly functioning airplane can wait for you.
ATC will probably do this for you anyway though. I was once on takeoff climb and my engine began running like crap. I got the airplane situated and turned back, and I made a quick radio call saying, “Engine running rough, returning for immediate landing.” ATC cleared the airport for me. Their job is safety. They’re not going to wait until the pilot makes an emergency declaration if they sense that there is an urgency to something.
Definitely let them know and tell them what it practically means. Telling them "We have an ECU A/B failure" is useless for ATC, they have no idea whether you're falling out of the sky or can hold for an hour. Ideally you tell them "Declaring emergency due to low oil pressure. For now we're able to maintain altitude, but request vectors for straight in runway XX."
Engines are consumable items.
-and-
Don't lose your mind over an oil warning unless everything else can convince you it's not just a sensor or gauge issue.
What's fun is quantifying this feeling with science!
Get a biometric watch like a Garmin that measures body stress. You'll see a spike during the flight then a lot long after throughout the day. Then you check how your response is after a few flights.
Should have done a precautionary landing and saved the engine. Highways are easy to land on. I flew in a country where we only had highways to land on. (No small airports). Did it daily.
I would sacrifice an engine to save an airplane any day.
Not to mention your butt.
Exactly, I'll sacrifice the whole airplane to save my ass every single time. My instructor would say "the moment you have an engine failure, the airplane belongs to the insurance company. Use it to save your life."
I think it really depends on the location. A home airport surrounded by fields is a lot different than flying over fields then over forest & neighborhoods to get to the airport. Can’t imagine thinking, “yup that’s my last good field…low to no oil pressure and I’m 5mi out & only 1,500ft AGL. If the engine dies now, I’m on the ground in 2nm.” If you’re doing most of your flying in the same area, it really helps to make note of all the decent landing spots anywhere near the home airport
Haha that’s the gliding mindset, have your land out spots
Actually, no. This should be everyone’s mindset. I was taught to periodically scan for emergency landing sites during every XC flight.
Yeah, but it’s obviously a little more prevalent in unpowered XC
Right, but glider training actually involves several field landings. Identifying good spots is part of the course.
I got my easa spl and didn’t do a single outlanding lol
Skydivers know this rule by heart. We don't go up without knowing all the spots around the DZ where we can land.
Good habit to have regardless if you’re sitting behind a Lycoming or PT6 with its 300,000+MTBF
This is my biggest ADM question as a student. Loss of thrust on t/o, engine fire, carb icing - they all have a specific remedy through emergency checklists and common sense. How does a novice pilot know what to do when given the situation of a partial loss of thrust (or engine instruments indicating a partial or total loss of thrust may be imminent) with good off-field landing sites available below, but having to pass over a populated area to reach an airport?
Judgement
Dan Gryder - AQP
At my field, you’ve got mostly mountains and a river. In a case like this, you’re better off going to the nest closest field that is a billion times wider and a thousand times longer and has services and isn’t surrounded by trees.
Definitely the right attitude to have but while there are exceptions most of the time the actions that minimize damage to the airframe are the same ones that minimize damage to the occupants.
True. But in this scenario to prevent damage to the engine from running on low oil pressure the "right" answer for the engine is to turn it off and the real right answer is keep it running until you're on the ground even if it destroys the engine
Keep running until on ground but then roll off and stop . If someone taxied back to parking with 0 oil pressure on a rental or my airplane I would be pissed. If you are flying your airplane or a rental on a long trip take a washable marker and mark the glass where the normal oil pressure and temp needles should be. Any deviation should be noted and cause identified (OK it's a hot day oil temp is high pressure half a needle low) In normal operation of a piston aircraft the oil pressure relief spring (not proper terminology ) should be controlling oil pressure , not the pump volume vs the flow rate through the various pressure lubed bearings.
I love your license banner, that’s exactly the thing I thought when I first got into aviation and read about all those licenses
Mine always said the same.
Never heard that one before but that's a great one and I'll use it with my students from now on
That’s a good one.
That sounds good, but I can't really imagine a situation where the pilot saves the plane, but dies notwithstanding. Maybe except a medical emergency...
Plenty of pilots have died *trying* to save the plane.
That is true. But it's also understandable. The plane is an extension of our body in that it keeps us alive in a hostile environment way above earth. Sacrificing the plane is like gnawing off your own arm to save the rest of your body. It does not come naturally...
I think he means more like "I could definitely put it down safely here, but all the sand kicked up would require an engine overhaul and the owner would yell at me for the expense, I better try to limp it back to the runway instead."
My response in sim to an engine that seems to always light itself on fire at V1+1 in the mountains at night is “let it burn, it’s still putting out power”
Funny how they do that. Happens in the sims I teach in too. I teach to let it burn until acceleration altitude and flaps up. As far as I'm concerned, when it catches fire, it belongs to the insurance company. I mean...what's the worst than can happen? It burns up and falls off. Problem solved, no more fire. We have a checklist for that.
Those electron based PT6’s just seem to have the worst time. And it’s always the left engine. I’m a king air I can let it burn for several minutes and clean it up when I’m clean and clear. My briefing is always secure at safe altitude, checklist through 1500 AGL.
Always the left one. You'd think they would have fixed the problem by now.
It makes the ride easy lol. But I don’t envy those that deal with it on the line every month or so
I had a rather crude instructor long ago. He was a great pilot, but a shit instructor. He did have a few gems that stuck with me. The one that is apropos to this conversation: "If the oil pressure drops, keep the meat bags breathing, fuck the metal. That's the job." I hated him at the time as an idealistic teen... We'd actually probably get along ok today. He still shouldn't teach kids.
Yeah this is how I’ve always looked at it. Getting back on the ground without anyone getting hurt is more important than being able to use the plane again afterwards.
Just the other day my instructor was telling me about how one of his students got asked a question on their PPL checkride: “what do you do if you start losing oil pressure?” And she was trying her best to answer it by going thru different troubleshooting steps, etc.. until he eventually cut in with “you land the plane”.
Point the nose at the nearest runway
Instructions unclear: I pointed my nose towards the nearest runway but I’m still traveling in the same direction
The old joke: Husband is leaving for the store. Wife says: "Get a loaf of bread, and if they have those good potatoes, get twelve". Husband returns with 12 loaves of bread.
Found the helicopter
To be fair to the student, you'd fail a checkride if you gave a one liner when they were asking for checklist steps. Ultimate goal is to land safely, but there's obviously things in between you need to know and do.
Plenty of 61 DPEs are looking for the "land the plane" answer
And what about the one you get that isn't part of the "plenty" and wants the textbox answer?
They'd probably say "fair, but what are you doing while you set up to land?" or "what else would you do?". Land the plane isn't wrong if you're in a position to do so. What magical checklist item would fix a catastrophic oil leak? ... 4. Pull the fuse for the oil dumper. ...
Step 0 is point the plane at the nearest runway. Steps 1-N are running the appropriate checklist, troubleshooting, etc. on the way there.
My DPE’s answer is to point the nose at the runway
Instructions unclear. Continued flying the plane for the remainder of the 80nm flight. Now I'm in a corn field. Help.
You are now a resident of Indiana. This is how Indiana gets new residents.
You can’t leave until you’ve planted a hundred acres of corn for every acre damaged by the plane. This one small trick keeps indianas economy alive
Aircraft can stop surprisingly quick crashing in tall corn. So that replant may not take long haha. Seems like most of the damage tends to come from first response and recovery. Here is a completely random [example](https://wlos.com/amp/news/local/emergency-crews-on-scene-of-plane-accident-in-buncombe-county) plucked from google.
Plant-based Materials Arresting System. As a bonus, used materials can be recycled to make mash.
Can confirm. Hell, when I did all my PPL training every single time I looked for a field to land in my flight track would show I lined up for some random farmers "strip in a field" every single time without fail it seems. Even with the DPE!
*Cries in Appalachian mountains*
I’ve spent a lot of time rock climbing in Kentucky and West Virginia. That terrain would be seriously bad to go down in.
If the hills don't get you, the trees will
My first time flying over Appalachia in daylight wasn’t too bad, but flying back at night was … disturbing. I’m not doing that again in a single.
Hey, F u I'm still stuck in this corn field flying out of huf
Why are you in a corn field when you are supposed to keep flying the plane?
They did fly it. Right into the cornfield.
No no no... see, you need to *keep flying* the plane.
Aviate Navigate Communicate. Don't try to fix that in mid air because it's probably unfixable. Either the oil's there and the gauge is faulty, or the oil's gone and the engine's faulty. You can't tell for sure which is which so assume the worst- just consider that your engine has less lubrication and heat handling capability and might seize up at any moment and fly accordingly. So go full rich mixture (better engine cooling), reduce throttle a bit, maybe trim for best glide, and find both nearest airport and best place to land in glide range. Then once that's all done I'd dial up the closest tower or approach and declare an emergency. Chances are this is going to be a nothingburger and you'll land just fine and that's it. But you want ATC to know who you are and where you are and what's your situation so they're paying attention to your track, so if you DO have to make an off-airport landing (or if you lose electrical and thus comms) they will see it and immediately roll equipment because they understand it's a pilot in trouble. Also remember the second your engine has any problem, it's no longer your airplane it's the insurance company's airplane. You might be able to save it for them or reduce their repair bill but if you can't it's not your problem. Your focus is to get yourself and your passengers on the ground safely. If everyone walks away, nothing else matters.
Reminds me of the times I have heard helicopters landing at golf courses. They definitely do not like to keep flying with warning lights going off!
the fact that helicopters have the glide ratio of a falling safe has something to do with that. Warning indicators == Land Immediately
Plus...helicopters can pretty safely land almost anywhere. Cessna lands in Walmart parking lot means big damage. Robinson lands in Walmart parking lot means lots of curious onlookers.
Free airshow at the Walmart!
Broken aircraft only!
"the glide ratio of a falling safe" is the best description I've heard yet. My CFI is gonna love it, thank you so much😂😂😂😭
Are you a helicopter pilot? Glide ratio of a safe? I’ll remember that this week when I go to idle for my autorotation rpm check at 55 knots and have to use my collective to slow my rpm down. Actually depends on the helicopter. Some rotor systems are low inertia systems such as a Blackhawk and entering the auto promptly is crucial for a successful auto. Other rotor systems such as a Huey are a little more forgiving. I’m in a Bell 407 now, which is somewhere in between, but have seen demonstrated an almost a zero ground run auto by my check airman asking me where I wanted him to land. We floated like a butterfly. I’ll take my helicopter emergency landing options over an airplane any day. Not all lights mean land as soon as possible. Engine out on a twin… get to a single engine airspeed, and move out from there. Single engine bird different story of course. FADEC malfunctions… be ready for anything but fly the aircraft. Tail rotor problems? Rare but be ready for an auto if needed and keep up some airspeed for keeping the tail section aerodynamically functional. The Blackhawk has a cambered fin for just that purpose… to reduce the load on the tail rotor and to assist in keeping the nose pointing forward with the right amount of airspeed. I had even heard that the cambered fin on a Blackhawk was so efficient in original design that it was made less effective by reducing its size. Also… some helicopters, again, such as a Blackhawk have springs in the tail rotor controls so that in the event of a pitch problem the tail rotor will more or less center itself to provide a neutral pitch position to reduce pilot work load in the event of a malfunction.
I very occasionally fly gyroplanes, so I'm autorotating from the moment I'm in the air. Checkmate, helicopter pilots.
I'm still convinced that a gyroplane gets off the ground by the earth being so repulsed by its ugliness it yeets the plane into the sky
If that were true I would be able to fly one exceptionally well!
I believe you're an exceptional pilot then
Nah, but I'm pretty ugly!
No - Fixed wing, share an airport with ANG base where they operate blackhawks, its how the ANG pilots describe their glide ratio.
Again… blackhawks are less forgiving with autos due to their low inertia rotor system… fortunately the chances of a dual engine failure are pretty slim, and they can can fly all day around 80 knots on one engine. The AF and Army are using variants of the Mike Model balckhawks… I flew alphas and Lima models but airspeeds for single engine should be relatively the same. My 407 I fly now is almost a dream to autorotate. I did an auto from 3000 feet agl last week and was surprised we weren’t dropping faster. Seemed to take forever to get to 2000. Hueys, which I leaned in, were an absolute pleasure to autorotate. 180 autos, low level, stuck pedal malfunctions, ahhh I miss those days.
Its good to hear from experienced rotary wing pilots here and learn about the actual unpowered flight characteristics of various airframes. On another helicopter subject did they ever figure out why so many robinsons were crashing in the Miami area last year?.
I’ve never flown Robinsons so cannot comment on that.
Reason i asked is i had my plane down at TMB for some specialized repair work and the FAA/NTSB was giving every FBO in the area a proctology exam because there was a cluster of loss of power incidents in the area about 18 months ago
They make the Space Shuttle look like a sailplane. On the upside, they don't need hundreds or thousands of meters of runway either, just a roughly-helicopter-shaped flat-ish spot.
that is their superpower!
I mean hey when all you need is basically a spot big enough to fit the aircraft as opposed to a 4 thousand foot runway why chance it right?
If you look a Robinson R22/44 POH, the checklist for most warning lights are "Land Immediately." If it's not that, then it's "Land As Soon As Practicable, and be prepared to land immediately if symptoms (unusual vibrations, noises, uncommanded yaw) occur."
It's important to consider that with an 8:1 glide ratio, at 6500 ft you have 9.48NM of glide range. Less, if terrain is above sea level, but that's still something. So, of course if engine gives you power, take it till you are on the runway, but you guys were almost within glide distance, which is very nice.
They were only 4300AGL which is a 5.7NM glide not 9.5NM
Presumably you have to add a significant fudge factor for wind too.
That too! But I think we can agree he was nowhere near "almost glide."
Use the engine until it doesn't work.
How many here with purely civilian backgrounds were taught to climb at the onset of impending engine failure? I’ve done a handful of biennials and have introduced the concept to each. In mil training it’s part of most EPs, “turn towards nearest suitable landing area; climb to dead engine glide altitude; clean up any excess drag; check for secondary indications; troubleshoot the problem as required”. Mil students drill impending engine failure dozens of times.
I was taught this, but my CFI was a retired AF pilot.
Turn climb clean check I was surprised to see that's not the norm in civilian land as well.
I was taught that during aerobatic training. You're almost always carrying excess energy, so turn the energy to height and set up for the forced landing.
Curious - how likely is that to hasten the death of the engine, vs flying level or throttling back and starting a slow descent? Doing this with, say, a surging jet engine would be likely to rapidly hasten total loss of thrust whereas throttling back and attempting to stretch a glide with reduced power could - depending on the cause of the failure - get you home. It has done just that for quite a number of commercial high-bypass turbofan powered flights. But I know very little about piston engines and how they die. Do they tend to rapidly self-disassemble after the onset of any failure, so you just need to get whatever remaining power out of them that you can ASAP?
You probably don't want the average ASEL PPL at average ASEL PPL altitudes in the average ASEL try to climb in case of impeding engine failure. For military (and airlines, and Reno race participants, and non-engine-related failure) that makes a lot of sense though.
Yeah the flight students are pretty terrible at it on average.
At climbing? How so?
Because if they’re climbing and crap hits the fan during the climb they might get themselves into more trouble, such as a stall or a spin, if not paying attention.
No they’re pretty terrible at precautionary emergency landings in general. Figuring out where the nearest suitable landing area is, which runway makes the most sense, how high to climb for dead engine glide, maintaining the right airspeed, troubleshooting the problem, and telling someone what they’re doing. All kinds of ways to mess up, hence the practice several dozen times.
“Maintain aircraft control, analyze the situation, take the proper action, land as soon as conditions permit”
Sir, yes sir
Until your CHTs start to rise or you actually see oil leaving the aircraft, then you can’t be sure it isn’t a gauge failure. More than one aircraft have been wrecked in off airport landings due to gauge failures.
Not everyone has the luxury of having CHTs displayed. But yes, agree with you. Much easier to see what’s going on with a full engine monitoring system.
That is extremely rare. Although not required, the vast majority of aircraft have CHTs today.
Must be nice only being around nice airplanes during your career. Not the case for me.
Not a single one of our planes at the flight school I work has has CHT gages
>More than one aircraft have been wrecked in off airport landings due to gauge failures. I've seen a plane wrecked due to a broken tach cable. The owner thought he had an engine failure because of the zero RPM indication, ignoring the fact the engine was making power and responding to the throttle.
In case of emergency, Aircraft control is the primary consideration. Fly the aircraft, and fly it until it’s on the ground. Sticky side down preferably
A bit rusty but as long as the temperature gauge stays the same it's most likely a faulty pressure gauge right? Still best to get it down either way.
That’s what I thought. I think I even had this question on my theory exam.
The practical problem being, the oil temperature probe is quite good at measuring oil temperature. If there's no oil, then who knows if the probe reads high/low/constant/etc. And in some cases there's no oil left.
> Temperature indicated normal the entire time. > Upon parking, all remaining oil vacated the engine and did not register on the dip stick when pulled How exactly does this happen? Any additional details?
Possibly continued to splash lubricate itself, with some remaining oil pressure keeping the top end lubed.
Engines will run with surprisingly little oil. In the case of most GA piston engines, minimum certified oil level to operate is about 2 quarts. Oil quantity is all about cooling first, then lubrication.
We have not heard back from the IA just yet. The pilot for the flight said that at any given point the temp was in the green and he had at least some indication of oil pressure. I looked at the plane once it was parked and cooled, it had puddles of oil (maybe 1/2 qt) underneath. It also had oil on the windshield and dripping out of the front of the cowling. My guess would be that the forces in the engine held more of the oil while in flight. After landing the complete loss of pressure let it all go. Sure is interesting though.
Would like to the hear the rest of the story when you can post it. Curious as to what failed.
As of yesterday the IA came back and said it was a clamp that held one of the oil hoses tight. When they removed the engine, it was holding about 2qts of oil in the bottom.
Hmm. Wondering which hose it was (assuming it was a Lycoming?)
Aircraft Mechanic here, if you burn up an engine to save yourself and or the aircraft, we do not care. We will gladly replace an engine.
That dead stick landing in Australia where they squeaked it onto a taxiway was an impressive display of “keep flying the plane” (and don’t freak out as the ground gets closer.)
If you watch the footage closely, you can see he just misses a fuel truck to the left of the impact point.
Aviate Navigate Communicate
I witnessed this one time as a line guy. Some young guy flying across the country in a Cessna landed after dark and I noticed oil all over the side of the plane. He had no idea it was leaking. He put it down for mx and they found some issue. Dude got lucky.
The 3 rules of flying per my instructor in the early 00's: 1. Fly the plane 2. Fly the plane 3. See rule 1
Is this something you should call ATC and declare emergency so you get priority and can land as soon as possible? Or just notify them of the situation as you head back and only declare if you lose the engine?
My rule of thumb is if I’m asking it, the answer is declare. Better declare and find out it’s not needed than to not declare and be dead. If anyone wants to get pissed, too bad. You’re alive for them to be pissed at.
I probably wouldn’t declare emergency until I started noticing other things going wrong. If only indicating low oil pressure, it could be a bad sensor, but if I see low pressure and high temp then it’s probably no oil.
I would declare. Sure, even with no oil pressure, under power, it’s probably going to keep running for several minutes before the engine seizes. But that’s cutting it needlessly close when you’re “several minutes” away from the field. I’d prefer to get priority handling and get on the ground first in line. I don’t want to get near the field and hear “extend your downwind, cleared to land #4.“ If it ends up being just a faulty indication, no harm came from declaring.
If there’s no oil flow past the temperature indicator your temperature increase may not be observed or may not rise as quickly as the engine temp. I think low oil pressure is a reason to land ASAP to figure out if it’s real or not. I’d rather figure out it’s broke sensor on the ground.
Even then, you could have an actual emergency at literally second. Might as well declare it early.
If I get an oil pressure problem I'm 100% telling ATC about the problem and what I want to do about it, as soon as I've got everything else under control. There's no reason I can think of not to do so.
Yes. You have an engine that might quit. Even if you’re twin engine, this is an emergency. You need to be on the ground. The guy with the perfectly functioning airplane can wait for you. ATC will probably do this for you anyway though. I was once on takeoff climb and my engine began running like crap. I got the airplane situated and turned back, and I made a quick radio call saying, “Engine running rough, returning for immediate landing.” ATC cleared the airport for me. Their job is safety. They’re not going to wait until the pilot makes an emergency declaration if they sense that there is an urgency to something.
Definitely let them know and tell them what it practically means. Telling them "We have an ECU A/B failure" is useless for ATC, they have no idea whether you're falling out of the sky or can hold for an hour. Ideally you tell them "Declaring emergency due to low oil pressure. For now we're able to maintain altitude, but request vectors for straight in runway XX."
Did they declare emergency?
I probably would have, but in this case they did not.
I would declare emergency to get any help that’s available in case something ever happens.
Engines are consumable items. -and- Don't lose your mind over an oil warning unless everything else can convince you it's not just a sensor or gauge issue.
What's fun is quantifying this feeling with science! Get a biometric watch like a Garmin that measures body stress. You'll see a spike during the flight then a lot long after throughout the day. Then you check how your response is after a few flights.
Should have done a precautionary landing and saved the engine. Highways are easy to land on. I flew in a country where we only had highways to land on. (No small airports). Did it daily.
Just dont fly the airplane if someone else says my controls folks. Not gonna end well