Originally Posted by
BusAirDriver
AirJing; What is your background?
Your calculation for glide-ratio shows that you are completely clueless.
Glide ratio will depend on many things, such as wind milling prop, configuration, actual atmospheric condition, air density, actual winds on the day. You generally try to land into wind, this means shortening your glide distance, you try to land as slow as possible, by extending flaps, again shortening your glide distance, I assume it was hot weather, again this will give you less lift, and shorten your glide distance. So your theory is crap, put garbage information in the computer, and you get garbage information out of it.
Why do you presume the following: "The airplane would have had a solid nose down attitude"
Well BusDriver, I've made my assessment based on an assessment of the information provided, which indicates an engine failure.
OTOH you have decided I'm clueless based on something you have just made up.
I have a PPL and have flown a C152 many times, although not for about 7 years. A C152 not being fresh in my memory, I googled it up and it has a glide ratio of about 10:1 with a windmilling prop, which I then dropped to a guess of 8:1 given I don't know what the weight or configuration of the ac was. Feel free to look that glide ratio up for yourself given you have decided I am clueless and you are the clear expert here; not that it matters because even if it was 5:1 you would still have 300 horizontal feet to work with. Given an instructor would have been PIC, I'd expect they should be able to work with that.
I also looked at cockpit photos I have from flying C152s on landings with and without flaps (the no flaps landing being on training flights). I could see plenty on the ground in both cases and certainly had I been over a beach instead of a runway, I would have been able to tell the difference between a beach full of sunbathers and a deserted beach out of some Robinson Carsoe fantasy. Then I looked at photos I had with engine-idle practice forced landings, where I saw that solid nose down attitude which you seem to think I found from FlightSim 1965.
Even the 60 feet I quoted implies very late decision making. Anybody who can pass a flying medical can make out people a lot more than 60 vertical feet and a few hundred horizontal feet away. There appeared in the after-event photos to be nothing in the way of weather which would prevent a pilot from seeing a long way.
If you have some specific knowledge you would like to share about how far you can see in a C152, you may wish to consider sharing it. Making things up hasn't worked out so well for you so far.