Don't Turn Back!
By Doug Rozendaal

In response to the RV-List thread on turning back to the airport in the event of an engine failure after Take Off I have assembled this editorial. To save bandwidth I am posting this here. I had an engine failure during a low approach and it resulted in an off airport landing. I will share some details of that debacle where it might make the reading more interesting.

One of the most terrifying prospects in any airplane is an engine failure after take off. By definition we are near the airport and these are often found in populated areas offering few alternatives for landing. In the (good) old days pilots landed their plane nearly anywhere. Today, most pilots today have never landed an airplane on anything other than an airport. This has undoubtedly contributed to the improvement in safety we have seen over the years. Unfortunately, because of this we have deep in our psyche is a desire to land only at airports. If we practiced off airport landings, to a full stop, we might have less apprehension about an off airport landing. (just kidding, sort of)

When the engine quits after take off, or any other emergency occurs we respond. AC 61-21A, the "Flight Training Handbook," a.k.a. the Blue Book you must memorize to be a flight instructor, quotes a NTSB study that identified factors which interfere with the prompt and proper response to an emergency.

1. Reluctance to Accept the Emergency. This can't be happening to me. This is a bad dream. I will wake up and it will be all over. Wrong.

2. Desire to Save the Aircraft. My guess this is a really big interference for builders. Remember preserve your assets in this order, Skin, Tin, Ticket. (I stole that from someone but can't remember who or where)

3. Undue Concern about Getting Hurt. If you fly your airplane to the ground before you hit something your chances of survival are really high. If you stall spin you have ZERO chance for survival.

This all seems quite terminal and depressing, but fear not, the answers lie in AC 61-XX "The Fundamentals of Instruction," a.k.a. the hated and much maligned red book. The solution to this interference is instruction. When an emergency occurs your first response will most likely be one of the above. In my accident it was #2, and I had an overwhelming desire was to turn back to the airport. These are called normal responses to stress. There is another entire chapter on abnormal responses to stress. Some are quite humorous, however if you displayed any of these in your training it is the responsibility of a "professional flight instructor" to help you pursue another line of work. If you have been properly trained, the red book says, you will quickly put aside these thoughts and take proper action.

Before we have a forced landing at the worst possible time lets discuss them in general. Prudent pilots plan for worst. This involves having a "plan B" in mind at all times. That includes forced landing sites. Obviously the higher we are the less time we need to spend considering sites. Conversely on takeoff often our options are quite limited. In this scenario, plan B is to sacrifice the airplane to save our skin.

No matter how high or low you are it still comes down to landing with out power. If given a choice of landing sites, when you get down near the ground you need to use an approach that you have practiced. The trick is to do a short field, soft field, dead-stick, accuracy landing. No big deal right? When was the last time you practiced that?

The choices are:

1. The Overhead 360. This is a military pattern and altitude permitting, the preferred method. I involves flying over the desired point of landing flying a 360 deg turn and landing out of it. The "blue book" says this should be started at 2000 ft above the ground. In a T-6 it takes 3000 ft.

2. The 180 Approach. This involves flying abeam you desired touch down point and flying a descending turn to it. The blue book says a 1000 ft here.

3. The 90 Approach pick a point on the 45 deg line and turn to it. Interpolation would indicate that 500 ft would be the number here.

All of these methods allow you to increase or decrease the radius of turn to burn up excess altitude.

You notice we did not discuss the straight in approach. Let's look at some problems with the straight in approach. All of the approaches are turns you notice. Since you have no throttle, by changing the radius of the turn you increase or decrease distance to the landing point. In the straight-in you can S-turn if you are high but if you are low you are screwed. A straight in truly is the last resort. Then why is it the first thing we are supposed to do? It is about training. If you are at 100 ft when the engine quits you don't have any time to think. You must put aside the normal responses and resort to your training. Your training must be to lower the nose and land straight ahead.

Do not chastise yourself for you initial response to turn back. I did that! I was mad at myself for wanting to turn back. The training finally kicked in and I lowered the nose and went to work solving problems. I had little altitude so I chose the 90 deg approach to get headed into the wind and landed the airplane. Unfortunately it was in a soft soybean field and I went about 60 ft and nosed over. Then the fun began.

Now lets suppose that You are at 1000 feet and the Blue Book says it is OK to do the 180 degree approach right? Wrong, unless you are at Metropolis and there is a parallel runway off your wingtip. If you took off from the 2500 ft of grass at Dump-truck , Iowa after you do that 180 degree turn you still have another 45 to go to point at the end of the runway and then another 45 to get lined up on final. That totals 270 degrees of turn and the Blue Book says that would be around 1500 ft of altitude. Oh, but we are not done yet. Unless you have 2000 ft and can do a 270 degree turn followed by a 90 you are set up for a straight in approach. And if you end up short, most airplanes will, unless there is a 20 knot wind, you will make a downwind crash landing in the road ditch short of the airport. For downwind off-airport landings, I can't think of anywhere short of the Salt Flats where I would choose that option.

Another Tidbit of training that passed through my mind in the moments following the incident and preceding the accident was from my B-25 checkpilot, Randy Sohn's wisdom which he credits to Bevo Howard (I think) is, "Fly It to the Ground, don't Fall it to the Ground." If you hit the ground with the wings level and at the slowest possible forward speed your will probably be able to talk with the FAA about your landing. Believe it or not that is now your primary objective.

If on the other hand you chose to turnaround and put that 10 knot wind on your tailfeathers, you have increased your landing speed from 45 to 65 knots. I have long forgotten my physics but it is a 66% increase in landing speed and about 2.75 times the energy.

What's the point? Train, Practice, Take your bird up to altitude and pull the mixture. Find out how fast it comes down. Simulate that decent rate with flaps and power in the pattern. Set that configuration and don't touch it till you wipe it off to land, on the 1000 ft marks and not 1 ft short. Develop a pneumonic checklist like "Glide, Gas, Gear, Mixture, Mags, heat, Help, Harness, Prop, Canopy, and practice it.

So now you are saying even the "Defender of Don't Turn Back" turned. Yes I did, but not back, only into the wind. Would I never turn back? Yes I would. Suppose I am cruising at 8500 ft. and the fan quit. First, lower the nose and fly straight ahead. Then push nearest airport button, find it behind me and fly back. Think about it that way. Flying back to the airport, not turning back to the airport. If you can't fly back to the airport and land into the wind, Don't turn Back.

In closing, don't cut ribbons with a little airplane that doesn't have alternate air and stalls at 95 mph. If you do, and the engine quits, lower the nose (a long ways) and land straight ahead. (at least into the wind)

PS. The altitudes in the Blue Book are not for an RV It will do better. How much? It would depend. Altitude, Temperature, Gross Weight, Cruise prop, Climb prop, or C/S prop, engine compression(the reason it failed). If anyone feels compelled to set a numbers for their airplane I would demo the lowest number you are comfortable with and add at least 25% for the contingencies, 50% would be better.

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DougR@petroblend.com

Here's a very good article about the dangers of static electricity when fueling aircraft. There are some risks here discussed that I had never heard, so I found the article very useful.

From the article: Always remember these key points:

• Refuel and defuel outdoors
• Ensure electrical bonding is in place prior to removing any fuel caps
• Use only approved containers
• Use only approved filters
• When in doubt, consult your fuel supplier.

Also, it seems using a chamois to filter the fuel can greatly increase static electricity buildup.

Here is a link to the PDF: http://www.caa.govt.nz/fulltext/vector/vector_05_5_sept_oct%2005.pdf

All BMA autopilot owners CAUTION!

A VERY scary thing happened yesterday when I went out to fly 331JH. It was a beautiful morning and Jim is geting REALLY excited since there are less than 10 hours left in testing for him to take his first ride in his new 10!

I sat down and turned on the master and immediatly there was a loud squeal from the left wing tip(servo installed there) and the aft fuselage. At the same time the stick abruptly jammed to the left and aft. (Efis 1 powered by standby battery and autopilot controller powered by the main bus through a button CB) I immediatly turned off the master and found the elevator free but the ailerons jammed almost full travel to the left!

What happened was, the servos went nuts for whatever reason ( Brent spoke to larry and he cannot see how this happened, Bob and possibly Greg are coming here next week to cure our gremlins hopefully) and went full travel left and up. Now, here is where EVERYBODY should take note. Yes.... the directions and common sence says to ABSOLUTELY make sure the servos CANOT go over center, and we thought we prevented that with the aileron stops, But.........We had the servo set up with the arm pointing down. Apperently, when the servo went nuts, it pushed so hard on the pushrod going to the bellcrank, (3.5 feet or so long), it bent the pushrod sufficiently for the servo arm to travel over center and the arm to then jam itself against the upper wing skin!. Ok, so I disconnected the controller power plug and went to fly. For grins, I tried to fly with the ailerons deflected the same amount to the left as they were when the controls jammed. Nuh uhhh, I could not maintain level flight with even HALF the aileron travel as when they were jammed and full rudder. Goes without saying what would have happened if this occured inflight.

I recommend that unless your servos can travel 360 degrees without jamming your controls or you have hard stops on your servos, that you consider pulling the breaker until further inspection.

Questions or comments, please call or write....With BMA coming next week we will keep everybody posted so we can all learn and be safe from this.

Glen 561 - 670 - 6095

Be careful with your autopilot installations - try to imagine failures that "can't happen".

Deadstick Technique for RV Pilots

This article deals with some of the lessons learned from my forced landing on Jan. 22/05 and will hopefully be of use to other RV pilots. Comments from other RV pilots with similar experiences or input is welcome.

Observations

1. The descent rate, glide ratio and apparent glide angle are different with no power as opposed to simulated idle power. The glide ratio is dependent on weight and propeller drag. Our calculated glide ratio with the engine out at gross weight is only around 6.75-7.5 to 1. It is logical to assume that propeller drag may be higher with 3 blade as opposed to two blade props. On controllable pitch props, the glide may be extended by going to full coarse if loss of oil pressure or electrics does not prevent this. Going to WOT if you remember may also extend the glide.

2. Testing on our aircraft shows that best glide airspeed is somewhere around 80-85 knots. Your aircraft may be different. It is worth testing at idle power to find out. Check your VSI at different airspeeds and calculate the glide ratio. Velocity divided by descent rate = glide ratio. VSI in ft./min., airspeed in miles per hour needs to be converted to ft./min. by multiplying by 88. For example, 80 mph X 88= 7040 feet per minute. If your VSI reads 1000 fpm, 7040 divided by 1000= 7.04. For working in knots, multiply your airspeed by 1.15.

3. With the small aspect ratio on the typical RV, induced drag in turns at low airspeed is relatively high. In other words, turns with no engine power will require that you lower the nose to maintain airspeed. This increases the descent rate appreciably. I would therefore recommend that you don't make any major turns at low altitude. If you must turn to avoid obstacles, keep your bank angles to less than 30 degrees, USE THAT RUDDER for heading changes and watch the ASI like a hawk. NEVER let the ASI drop below 80 knots/ 85 mph.

4. If you have plenty of altitude, you MAY have time to switch to 121.5 and transmit a Mayday after checking fuel, swiches and engine controls. You MAY NOT have time. You may not have electrical power for the radios as in our case. FLY THE AIRCRAFT FIRST! Things can happen fast in a real engine out situation. Inattention to flying by switching radios and other distractions can use up precious decision making time. Calling Mayday is less important than surviving the forced landing. Watch that ASI.

5. In my incident, I thought I had plenty of altitude 2-3 miles out to make the runway. It was very deceiving and I ended up WELL short. Plan to arrive MUCH higher than you think. You can always side slip or use full flaps (if you have electrics or manual flaps) to lose altitude when you are very close to the field. You can't gain back what you have already lost. Unless you are at least 3000 feet AGL, I would not recommend a standard forced landing pattern as I think with the RV glide characteristics, it is very likely that you will use up all your altitude in the turns and end up too short. Pick the best area and aim for it. You cannot see the obstacles or even judge the terrain very well from 2-3000 feet up anyway. Watch that ASI and keep saying in your head- don't stall, don't stall!

6. The pitch attitude during the glide may not look too bad at 500 or 1000 feet above the ground but as you get down to 100-200 feet, it will look downright scary. Absolutely resist the temptation to pull back on the stick when this hits you. It will be a very powerful urge at low altitude to arrest the descent rate. You MUST maintain 80-85 all the way down to the flare. If you pull back at 100 feet, speed will fall off, descent rate will increase and you will either stall and be killed or hit even harder as you will not have enough energy to complete a flare. Another way of looking at this is that 1000 fpm is 16.6 feet per second. That is a hard hit if you can't flare. At 60 knots, the descent rate may be as high as 20+ feet per second. Fly the aircraft right down to 20-25 feet at 80-85 before starting the flare. Elevator authority will be reduced with no power so the flare will take longer to execute and speed will bleed off faster with no residual idle thrust from the prop. Get the aircraft into ground effect and let the speed bleed off until you touch down.

We all hope that we never experience an engine failure but it can happen to anyone. Practice your procedures and get to know how your aircraft handles at idle power. If possible, practice approaches at idle power from a ways out on your normal runway. Without adjusting power except for safety, see if you can touch down where you anticipated. Practice side slipping to lose altiude on some of your approaches. Knowing how the aircraft feels and responds may save your life sometime. If you always land with partial or full flaps, do some landings clean as an RV flys quite differently. Don't become complacent about your ability to force land your aircraft as it WILL be different from any training scenerio when you really do lose all power.

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