Forced Landing?

[revilo_rehsif]

After the excellent FAILED? thread, i thought i would like to start a similar one up about forced landings, i have read a lot about them but i still feel that, a lot more could be learnt from receiving a personal account of one. not an essay just; what aircraft?, what went wrong?, what happened?.

I must stress that this is not here to slap peoples wrists, just merely to learn from their past experiences, just like the original thread.

I am sure many people would appreciate this, and i think that a lot could be learnt. :ok:

[Flock1]

I'll post one of my experiences with a forced landing.

The episode described below took place just before my skills test. I was flying with my instructor (Jon) and he's just pulled the power....

I trimmed for seventy knots, trying to locate a suitable field below me. Partly because there were so many to choose from, I dawdled in picking one out. Jon tried to hurry me, so I plumbed for a long field on my left hand side. I was just about to start my turn, when Jon asked me about the wind. “Where’s it coming from?” he asked.
“Erm…from the west?” I offered.
“From the west? Didn’t you look at the windsock when we took off?”
“Yeah – but I can’t remember which way it was pointing.”
“Well look at the wind arrow on your chart…you did draw one didn’t you?”
“Er...no…I forgot.”
“For God’s sake! This could be a life or death situation! You need to think about where the wind is coming from. You wouldn’t want to land in a field with a tailwind would you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I would be going to fast, and might overshoot the end.”
“Alleluia!” Jon remarked. “There is something going on in that head of yours!”
Perhaps because I was so bothered about choosing a field which would give me a landing into wind, or perhaps because my mind was attempting to work out where the wind was actually coming from, I ended up dawdling far too much for Jon’s liking. He told me that he had control, and as he was climbing away, he informed me that my dismal demonstration of a PFL would have resulted in a fail in my skills test.
Whilst I sat there in shame and turmoil, Jon told me that he would demonstrate one for me, and that I was to watch very carefully. When he had finished his impressive demonstration of how a PFL should have been carried out, he told me that in the test, the examiner would give me two chances to get one right. Jon told me that he believed that I could do it – given those parameters, and so we headed back to the airfield.

I passed my skills test.


Flock1.

[Cutoff]

I have just been through all this again for a CPL skill test, one thing that I learned to do, if you have the height, say 2500' or more is of course to trim for best glide but also at the same time turn downwind too, then look for a decent field coming the other way, takes away one of the pressures.

Worked for me anyway (there is a danger that you miss a farm strip straight ahead of course), but you will not fail cos you did not pick the farmstrip, you will fail if you land with a tailwind.

[SoundBarrier]

Hmm, good topic me thinks, learning from others experiences is a good thing. Not that mine is much to learn from...

Aircraft: C182
Fuel: 5Hrs
Flight Planned 1.5 hours
Crew: 1 (me!)
Pax : 3
Baggage: about 20kg
Problem: Engine Faliure


Details

Flying from A to B 9000' amsl with mixture leaned accordingly the weather started to close in below and I decided to decend below the cloud (still a fair 3000' AGL).

Micture rich and carb heat hot I proceeded to decend through a good gap in the cloud and things looked and sounded fine. Once below the cloud I open the throttle to resume the cruise to which the engine responded with a surge, not once, not twice but three times and the engine died. Boy did that wake me up!

At this point I thought many obsenities but followed through my training and did my checks, changing tanks, checking carb heat etc, and the restart failed. Damn!

After a passenger brief and well placed for my chosen field the second restart succeeded. This I had never thought would happen and was rather unprepared to now have a running engine. I decided to stay near the field for the next 15 mins and all seemed well. I then continued on my flight for another 20 mins landing safely.

Post incident found that the float in the carberettor had a pinhole in it.

[bar shaker]

Field Selection Guide (http://www.field-landings.co.uk/dates.html)

I post this up each year, to help new flyers and to remind the rest of us of what we may be landing in. Some of it is quite sobering.

This thread seems a good home for it.

Its written by glider pilots but is just as relevant to powered aircraft. Its a superb site and I hope people find it useful.

[tonker]

To all thoses who were taught to pitch up on encountering an engine failure, and who aren't test pilots or instructors who do spend most days in light aircraft please read this interesting article.

It is about the Aussies experience of teaching the turnback with an EFATO but is relevant to the above situation.

Good luck and regards

http://www.auf.asn.au/magazine/turnback.html