Originally Posted by
Rod1
“The best way to deal with an EFATO (Engine Failure After Take-Off) is to not have the engine fail in the first place. Sounds facile but it is not as around 80% of all light aircraft engine failures are directly caused by the actions or inactions of the pilot.”
This is very true! Many pilots seem to mentally commit themselves to flying before checking the aircraft. The level of pre flight check also tends to be quite poor. However, even if you are a genius with mechanical contrivances, it is still best to assume it will fail and have your plan ready. My EFATO was caused by crank failure on a nearly new engine (28 hours from rebuild with new crank etc). There was zero warning before the failure.
Good job on successfully managing a very difficult situation
. However what you experienced was the rarest kind of engine failure. Looking at the accident statistics the
least common scenario for an engine failure was when a properly maintained engine which had sufficient uncontaminated fuel completed a normal runup and developed full smooth power with normal engine gauge indications...and then just stopped with no warning. Most engine failures are caused by insufficient/contaminated/mis-selected fuel or carb ice and are therefore completely preventable.
I find it ironic that all the flight school engine failure drills practice the event (a total engine failure without any warning) that almost never happens. I think it is also important to note that for every total engine failure my guess is there are two partial engine failures. So you need to also think about what you would want to do if the engine is still producing some horsepower but not enough to sustain level flight.
Finally another poster made a very good point about the real world challenge of pitching the nose from the climb attitude to the glide attitude. This is worth practicing the next time you go flying. From a safe altitude simply establish the aircraft in a Vx climb. When the airspeed is stabilized at the Vx value.. Smoothly but fairly quickly pull the throttle to idle. I think you will surprised at how quickly the airspeed drops and how firm you need to be to pitch the nose over to the glide attitude. This is IMO a very useful exercise because it applies to any EFATO scenario. Regardless of whether you go straight ahead, turn a bit or do the full turnback you still have to first establish the glide attitude.