Engine Failure

[tweed0099]

Have you ever lost your engine?

This is my story...

July 24th 2010

It was a typical VFR flight out of Destin (DTS) like I’ve done time and time again. I got there about 9AM to do the mission planning and took off around 11AM. We were headed to Orlando (ORL) for a surprise birthday party. I preflighted the C-172 N53456, called to open our flight plan, then talked to Eglin clearance to receive flight following enroute. Just prior to takeoff I did the normal checklists and the engine run-up was fine with both mags working normally. We flew down the coast at about 1000’ taking in the scenery for approximately 5 miles. We then started our climb to 9500’. Approximately 30 miles East of DTS and passing 3800’ the engine went from about 2400RPM to 1000RPM. It was as if the throttle linkage had disconnected and the engine went to idle. I was on the radio with flight watch getting a weather update when it happened. I told them to standby and maintained aircraft control by immediately trading airspeed for altitude. We were at about 90-95 KIAS when the engine went to idle so I pitched for 65 KIAS (best glide) and we were able to get to almost 4000’. I then began to analyze the situation as we descended quickly. After trouble shooting as much as I could, I pushed the throttle in and pulled it out looking for a response. I pulled the carb heat hoping that it would remedy the idle engine. In the limited amount of time that I had I tried every feasible solution; unfortunately, there was nothing I could do to keep the C-172 from descending. I spun the Garmin 430 and saw that the closest airfield was 12 miles away. Too far! With only a few minutes to spare, I realized that I had to make a decision quickly. Below me was the ocean, the beach and a busy road. At my 9 O’clock, I saw Shark’s Tooth golf course and it was my only realistic option. I then turned the aircraft toward the golf course and maneuvered for high key; my safest option was to land on the golf course. I had just checked in with Tyndall approach a few minutes prior so I declared an emergency with them and squawked 7700 with a flash. I hit high key at 2000’ while analyzing the golf course for the safest option for the passengers on board as well as any civilians on the ground. What ended up being the 18th hole had a cart on it so I chose the hole next to it. I hit low key at around 1300’. I then maneuvered to clear the tall trees on the south side of hole 17 while milking my flaps down. As soon as I cleared the huge trees I pushed over to try and use as much fairway as possible. After landing and rolling to a stop I made sure everyone was okay and I contacted emergency response along with the FAA.

Here is a link to the official story and a video just a few minutes after. I'm interested to hear your thoughts and stories of your own. Praise God we're all alive and even the plane was left undamaged.

Story
Pilot makes emergency landing on 17th Hole at Shark's Tooth | tooth, landing, 17th - News - The News Herald (http://www.newsherald.com/articles/tooth-85649-landing-17th.html)

Video
YouTube - Girl survives emergency airplane landing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCgXBcNFn9k)

God bless,
Tony<><

[Flyingmac]

Tony. I'm glad you are all unhurt, but while you're thanking God for the happy outcome, would you mind asking Him why he messed with your engine in the first place?

[Kanu]

Congrats on a successful outcome!

I always understood a throttle cable break to be spring loaded to full throttle on carb engines, could be and probably am wrong though. Did you ever find out the cause?

[Pace]

Had one in almost a brand new Seneca 4 Twin a few years back. Both engines had covered 100 hrs. I was at Grosse weight on an above standard day.

The takeoff was normal until at 200 feet in the climb there was a serious vibration and yaw.

I estimated the bad engine was still producing some power maybe 30-40 percent and equally realised that if I feathered and shut it down i would go one way and one way only DOWN.

I kept the thing going one hand poised on the prop lever in case there was a big bang :ugh:

Once up at circuit hight I levelled and then shut the engine down as by then it was a bag of nails.

Continental examined the unit and eventually admitted over torque of the rocker shafts at manufacture which had resulted in three rocker shafts shearing. They replaced the unit with a complete brand new engine within days.

Initially they claimed over boost on takeoff but luckely for me a PAX had filmed the complete takeoff with all the relevant engine instruments visible and well within limits.

Now I question the training for engine failure in light twins and wonder whether a pitch for level flight isnt a better option even a few hundred feet up.

Tony congrats on pulling off a good landing in a limited area

Pace

[Fuji Abound]

I've had ten or so engine failures in light single engine airplanes over the years.


If you have had that many you really should be worrying about your operating procedures, the aircraft you accept commanding, and the maintenance shops used.


Every takeoff, every cruise path, every approach to landing should be conducted knowing that you may not have use of your powerplant. This can happen at any time, and one must develop the mentality that it's never a matter of whether the motor might fail. It's always a matter of when it will fail. It will, and if you fly long enough, you'll experience this. Many pilots seem incredulous when it does happen, as they operate under the belief that it won't happen to them. Think of it this way: you always have a 50% chance, at least, that it will happen. Either it will, or it won't. Don't ever take a chance that it won't....because enough of those will/won't moments will eventually land on the side of will. Plan accordingly.


Complete Newspaper twaddle. I know many pilots who are very high hour instructors who have never had an engine failure, one or two who are even retired and never had a single one in their career. Engine failures do and will occurr, I agree, and there is some sense in the rest of your post. I have had one engine failure in £550K aircraft that was six months old - but fortunately it was a twin, so didnt matter. :) However flying, particularly singles, is an excercise in risk assessment. There are those who will never fly over the sea, those that will never fly over the sea without survival suits, those that will never flying over the sea without a raft and those that accept the risk and have none of these. You can therefore plan for a failure that for the owner operator who trusts his maintenance to a reliable shop, properly preflights every trip, and nips in the bud any obvious problems, will almost certainly never come any more or less than being stopped at the lights and the lorry behinds brakes fail and hits you at 50 mph.

[englishal]

I'd have landed at the 19th hole and sunk a few afterwards !!! Well done.

[Pace]

but fortunately it was a twin, so didnt matter.

Fuji

I am sure you are referring to a failure in level cruise regarding your own failure as a failure in climbout is a very serious situation and one which statistically you are more likely to die from than a failure in a single.

I do not have a lot of trust in the reliability of piston engines!!! or the quality control at Continental a few years back. I have had two full failures and numerous partial but then I averaged 300 hrs per year while many knock out 10 to 20 hrs a year.

Pace

[W2k]

Although my own experience is far too small to comment on such matters on my own behalf, I have had a number of very experienced flying instructors and while they took great care in teaching me proper engine-out procedures, they also told me that an engine-out is not a matter of "when", but rather something a fair percentage of private pilots never actually experience themselves. Granted all we fly is PA-28's and the engines on those don't really give up easily.

I think the real risk on engine failure is often overstated by those who fly a lot of different aircraft types, since you're bound to run into some of the more unreliable ones eventually :}

That said, I for one always bring lifevests (and a raft, if available) when over sea and always keep a look-out for nice open fields to land in. Murphy's law and all that. :ok:

[Jan Olieslagers]

@tweed0099: congrats for remembering your training, making good decisions AND working them out. I can only hope I'll do as good as you did, when my turn comes.
But you puzzle me linguistically: what do you mean by "hitting high key" and "hitting low key" ?

As for twins vs. singles: didn't I hear a rumour as to twin-engined planes being deadlier than singles?

As for thanking God: when all goes nicely as planned - as it luckily does, most of the times, for most of us - :
-) a stupid pilot will say it was just a normal flight
-) a non-stupid religious pilot will thank God
-) a non-stupid non-religious pilot will hope to have the same good luck on the flight home
When things go wrong, matters are much simpler: ALL the blame is on Mr. Murphy, or perhaps on the weather. None on the pilot(s), of course.

[jxc]

Well done on the landing

I am sure you could have pancaked it onto a tree that a certain uk guy swears by :E

And I agree with 2nd post about god

[Fuji Abound]

Actually, no. My operating procedures are quite sound. The failures occurred over many thousands of hours amid many hundreds of airplanes, in various parts of the world, and involved maintenance performed by rental facilities, schools, charter companies, corporate departments, repair stations, private individuals, and government operators. They occurred during skydiving operations, crop dusting, flight instruction, charter, back country operations, firefighting operations, during flight test, and other entirely unrelated scenarios.

You have made my exact point withour realising, which was why I was concerned about the message your earlier post conveyed.

I wouldnt command an aircraft in these circumtances or with maintenance performed by some of these individuals. If your career is to be believed, then unfortunately you dont have the same luxury as I, and most private pilots and some commercial, in deciding what you will command. If that is the case your post is hardly representative to most of us. In that much your poor record is more believable. As a friend and instructor of mine very recently told me when we were discussing this subject (and who almost certainly has many more hours than you, but very much keeps his own council) the trick is knowing when to refuse to a fly an aircraft - which he has done on many occasions. Wise words indeed that you may find would reduce the chances of your suffering yet another engine failure, albeit would not eliminate the risk.

I was asked to take an aircraft in for its annual last month. I had never flown the aircraft before, although I did know the owners. A walk around revealed enough, albiet relatively minor issues to give me cause for concern, further investigation revealed other issues that I am not going to go into - suffice to say I never flew the aircraft.

Pace

Yes, it was in the cruise. While I agree an engine failure in the climb out is a serious matter, I am almost equally mindful of the failure in a descent particularly in IMC. Engines throttled back , the failure goes unnoticed or isnt noticeable, power is applied for whatever reason .. .. ..

[Pace]

And I agree with 2nd post about god

He was given an experience to learn from with a happy outcome what more does he want ;)

Pace

[Spitfireace]

@Jan Olieslagers

High Key & Low Key are techniques used as part of standard PFL training.

Read this (http://www.lynehamaviation.co.uk/documents/ex17-PFL.pdf)for more information:

[BEagle]

Very well done, tweed0099!

And at least golf courses do have one worthwhile use - as potential emergency landing areas for light aircraft....:\

(I'm with Mark Twain and Jeremy Clarkson as regards golf!)

[Fuji Abound]

Perhaps you'll be another one of the masses, and hopefully it won't be a painful lesson to learn.

I hope so too, thank you. :)

I hope your next is equally painless, but, more importantly, I shall hope your last, was your last.

Tweed0099

Sorry, to be drawn into the aside, but well done for a job very well done; a most interesting post.

[Pilot DAR]

In 6000 hours, 4 complete engine failures to the ground, 2 preventative shutdowns in twins, 5 power losses, 2 governor failures, and some other unrelated electrical, control, hydraulic and landing gear failures. Always landed safely though, and working hard to keep that record!

[Ryan5252]

High Key & Low Key are techniques used as part of standard PFL training.

It was my understanding this was preliminarily a UK thing? A descendant of Military terms crossing over into civvy aviation, as so often happens?

[Cows getting bigger]

One total failure (stupid Theirlet FADEC twin that decided to do it's own thing) and three partial in a little over 2500hrs.

For what it's worth, I think we should always plan for a failure as those first few seconds can make an awful lot of difference. Going through the Oh F***, what now?" at 400ft in a climbing attitude is probably going to lower the odds of survival. :sad:

[hatzflyer]

Haven't had one for 5weeks now ( and that was only partial ) must be getting better.

( The above IS tongue in cheek but true , bringing my total to 30, mainly whilst testing aircraft).

What's really interesting is that 6 years ago I took a BFR with a low time instructor ( who had never had a real engine failure) and he refused to sign me out because he was not happy with my PFL !:bored:

[IO540]

bringing my total to 30, mainly whilst testing aircraft

I think this record has already been done to death in some other forum but if I had 3 never mind 30 engine failures I would give up flying and take up knitting.

For a moment I thought you must be flight testing lawn mowers but actually my £600 Husquarna is not that bad - only one engine failure in 10 years.

There seem to be some sections of the GA scene where massive engine failure rates are indeed common, and readily accepted. I don't fly behind a Rotax but only in recent years have they elevated themselves from that category. This is (to me) completely unacceptable because it makes a plane totally useless for going anywhere, due to the risk of coming down in water, in a forest, on a mountain, and even if I carried a parachute, what about passengers? They have a reasonable expectation of some kind of safety.

The MTBF of the certified Lyco/Conti engines is of the order of 50k-100k hours and the vast majority of pilots will never get a failure in their flying lifetime.

Sure you train for a forced landing, and you do the usual escape routes (a life raft, etc) but with an MTBF of say 1k-2k hours (probably about the mark for the Thielerts) GA would totally cease to have any value for going anywhere.

[englishal]

A couple of things I'd like to know about this incident:

1) What caused the EF..did the engine let go or was the engine still fine and it was a fuel issue (carb / throttle linkage etc..)

2) Who was the chick in the video !

I suppose a lot of it depends what you fly. If you "test fly" aeroplanes you have to assume that you will have more failures. If you fly aeroplanes that are home made, you have to assume you will have more failures (someone I know landed short and nosed over in his homebuilt because the throttle jammed at idle on landing and he didn't make the runway).

[Fuji Abound]

Which was my point earlier.

Anyone who is suffering way above the expected rate of engine failures for sure needs to be asking why. There may be good reasons, including flying a "load of junk" for various reasons, including it is your job to do so, but otherwise I would be very suspicious of your operating procedures or your maintenance facility.

Even in the notoriously unreliable DA40s fitted with Theilerts the number of total engine failures in flight are a miniscule percentage of the total hours flown.

If you know the high rate you have experienced is due to such factors at least dont suggest others are temeracious in expecting their experience to be very difference.

[Katamarino]

490 hours, one engine failure. Hoping for no more of course, although I *am* flying a Thielert Diamond next week...:eek:

[Jan Olieslagers]

If you know the high rate you have experienced is due to such factors at least dont suggest others are temeracious in expecting their experience to be very difference.

However high or low one's rate of in-flight engine failures, one should ALWAYS be prepared to handle one. At least, that's what this newbie pilot was taught, and I'll stick to it until proven wrong.

What IS the "normal" rate of such failures? When I experienced my own, suggestions were "one occurence per 10.000 hours of flight" - sustained by the local pilot of legend, who had some 40.000 hours logged, and did suffer exactly 4 engine failures.

[Fuji Abound]

Jan

I have not suggested in this thread we shouldnt be prepared for an engine failure.

Clearly engines fail, and clearly you might be "unlucky" and have your one in 4,000 hours failure in your first 100 hours.

However, as with so much in aviation, engine failure is just another risk we assess and take a view on.

One view is never fly a single. There are other views. Dont fly over rough terrain, dont fly over a low undercast, dont fly over water, particularly rough water, dont fly up mountain passes especially if there is only one way out and a fire raging at the same end. :)

In other words there are lots of things many do in a single which are patently unsafe if you take into account that the engine could fail at any moment. You would for example almost certainly never fly on a dark night.

I guess that sums up the problem I had with Guppy's post and some others on here. You can end up fly around being permanently obsessed that the engine is about to fail on you, whereas in fact you would be far better off assessing the risk in the first place and then making certain you had a strategy to deal with the risk whilst being confident you could enact that strategy. Do you drive on the road expecting a blow out at every moment? Do you expect the U/J to collapse on you as you are going around a bend. I have actually had both happen to me, but I didnt expect either. In fact a blow out on a motorway at 70+ mph is probably more dangerous than an engine failure in most situations.

I recall many many years ago a flight with an RAF fast jet pilot, training captain and a string of experiences and flying time very few will ever achieve. We flew along the wet side of some sea cliffs about cliff top high. The view was glorious, the experience brilliant. Fresh out of training I inevitably asked where he would go if the engine suddenly quit. He gave a wry smile, pointed out we would never make it over the cliffs so the choice was easy - we would land straight ahead in the drink. He said, if it happens we will deal with it. In short he had a plan, knew instantly what course of action he would take, knew that there was a higher than average risk running low level along those cliffs, but felt the rewards outweighed the risk. The plan was simple but effective, the risk of losing control of the aircraft almost nil, but more than a degree of injury risk involved with the final ditching.

So in my view I think it is far more important to decide what level of risk we are willing to accept. Having made that decision we should ensure we have a strategy for dealing with an engine failure but beyond that not obssess about something happening that with luck we may never experience.

Realistically the point about being a private pilot and flying 20, 30 or 40 hours a year as many do is that your skill levels will never be comparable with those flying 1,000 hours a year, or having a sim session every six months. I would rather see that pilot ahev the strategy in place to reduce the risk of an engine failure in the first instance, then have a clear understanding of when you are placing yourself in a high risk situation, and, finally, having a strategy for dealing with a failure that is good enough for that pilot's flying skills.

In sailing we teach various techniques for recovering a MOB. A MOB is every bit as life threatening for the man in the water as an engine failure. We teach a recovery that isnt elegant, but will work in most circumstances and for most helms and crews even if their handling skills are somewhat ham fisted. Why? Simply, because it was realised some while back that although there are "better" ways of recovering a MOB they are only "better" in experienced hands and many of those helms and crews involved simply do not have the experience necessary.


Knowing that one must choose to put the fuselage between tree-trunks in order to let the wings take the impact, for example, may save your life


and you see for these reasons that is why I think comments such as this are just so far fetched, but often trotted out by pilots whose flying "careers" are at best suspect. There is obviously some thruth in the comment but the fact of the matter is for most low time private pilots the priorities are keep control of the aircraft at all cost, dont try and do anything fancy, make sure the aircraft is as fire and exit safe as possible before you land, and whatever else you do land the aircraft without stalling. If you then just happen to see two trees rushing towards you that have popped up in the middle of your landing area with a gap that is just wide enough to fit the fusealage through and not the wings and you are running straight ahead along the ground and actually have the control of the sliding aircraft and the thought time to do something about it by all means go through the middle - otherwise leave it to Harrison and the special effects guys in the movies. :} Sadly real life and the movies are often some way apart. :)

[Molesworth 1]

High Key & Low Key are techniques used as part of standard PFL training.



Never heard of this in my life .. and I did all my training in Surrey!

[mad_jock]

thats cause there is nothing high key about surrey.

It is one method of teaching PFL's don't worry about it you haven't missed out on anything.

[Pace]

Fuji

Flying is not about when everything is going right but about handling things when they go wrong. I am not just talking about mechanical but equally electrical, weather nav etc.

Full engine failures are probably fairly rare failures which create a problem with the engine are not.

Turbochargers, fuel flow problems etc etc etc. I can remember flying a Seneca Five which was brand new for a non pilot private owner.

The engine had a habit of cutting out with no warning and did so completely in IMC near Dublin. Luckely it restarted.

On landing she ran like a sewing machine, was checked numerous times by the engineers, given a clean bill of health only to play her silly games once again.
Piper had to almost change the whole fuel system to finally sort it!!!
I have had a large piece of exhaust manifold detach We found the piece lying at the bottom of the engine cowl.
2 complete engine failures and numerous engine, electrical, fuel, nav heating etc problems.

My point is to be aware of things going wrong not just engine failures and making the correct decisions to put them right. A crash is usually a culmination of bad descisions or judgements.

To go flying expecting everything to run like clockwork is something which is lovely to have but very often one problem or another will rear its ugly head.
A complete engine failure is just one possible and yes they do happen.

I take your point on accepting risk. Flying at night or over fog banks is a high risk activity especially in a single. Take that risk and its russian roulette!

Pilots like Guppy have a mass of hard experience in the most difficult of circumstances which test man and machine which pilots like you or I dont have so I always lend an ear to what they say ;) Even if the response can be sharp at times :E

Pace

[Fuji Abound]

Pace

I agree with everything in your post.

One hears of very few engine failures that occur instantly and without any warning or previous neglect.

In fact the engine failure I had almost fell into this category, albeit I suspect that I could have continued on the engine for maybe 10 minutes if it had been a single, before it cooked itself. In that much it certainly did not fall into an instant failure category and there would have been more than enough time to get on the gorund with some power. Clearly yours was similiar in so far as the engine started and continued to run.

I have had a few rough running engines for various reasons and any of these with hindsight could have stopped but I had warning.

Yes, as you say Mr Guppy clearly has a wealth of experience from all over the world in the most testing enviroments so I have no doubt we may have something to learn from his exploits. I shall look forward to reading his future posts.

[dublinpilot]

The engine had a habit of cutting out with no warning and did so completely in IMC near Dublin. Luckely it restarted.


Oi !!! I resent that! :}

What's wrong with a few days in Dublin? :}


Yes, I know what you meant ;)

[Pace]

What's wrong with a few days in Dublin?

Dublin Pilot

Took a twin into Dublin Main first time in 3 years a month back got charges for 240 Euros :sad: Same friendly bunch but yikes!!! a few days there and the bill would be massive.

Oh well have to pay a visit to the nice blond lady at weston instead ;)

Pace

[dublinpilot]

Unfortunately it's the handling charges that make Dublin International so expensive. When we used to be based there, we didn't have any handling charges (and parking was an annual arrangement).

That just left landing fees (well movement charge) which could be as little as €0.50c! depending on the time of the date, and day of the week.

More normal would have been about €9 for a take off and landings, so not expensive. Unfortunately the handling agents know how to charge :(

On the other hand, as you say, Vanessa is lovely in every sense :ok:

[Spitfireace]

Mad_Jock,

Do you remember anything about "Constant Aspect Forced Landing'?

Jeremy Pratt covers it in Exercise 16.

Or check this. (http://www.pprune.org/flying-instructors-examiners/14027-constant-aspect-procedure.html)

[mad_jock]

Yes I do and it is one of the methods I teach depending if its a high wing or a low wing aircraft I am teaching in.

I have 1000 hours instructing under my belt.

It is one of 4 methods I can teach BTW depending on what the policy of the school is, what aircraft type I am in and also what works for the student.

Personally I don't go for it myself prefering to teach the get it to a base point how ever you like or low key as you would call it. And the the low wing types get taught constant aspect and the high wings get taught a more square base then finals.

[Spitfireace]

Sorry Mad_Jock, That was directed at Molesworth not you.:confused:

[Fuji Abound]

The loss occurred over a dark, remote area.


Well you were a complete prat performing the tests after dark over a remote area. Ask for trouble and as sure as hell you WILL find it.

As I said before you need to review your operating procedures and you would have far less problems.

[englishal]

Interestingly NTSB statistics (GA only) show that there are roughly 430 engine failure accidents per year in the US GA fleet of about 150,000. This equates to 0.2%. To normalise that against number of hours flown, it works out at 1 per 50,000 flight hours or something like that. Of those about a quater are "non mechanical" i.e. the likes of fuel or some other reason. About 14% of engine failures result in a fatality (1 per 357000 flight hours).

So I'm guessing that some sorts of flying are more hazardous than others - test flying being one example.

Guppy can you point me to the NTSB report if it was in the USA please? I'd be interested to read it but couldn't find it. Thanks.

[Fuji Abound]

Englishal

By the time you eliminate failures due to fuel and reasons that could easily have been prevented, partial failures, a raft of failures that could have been forseen and prevented (it never ceases to amaze me how many people are aware of issues that could result in engine problems and yet continue to fly - low oil pressure etc) and failures in higher risk circumstances (test flghts and the like) I am assuming that statistically an engine failure of 1:100,000 hours is made typical. Clearly I am not "typical" but at least stats like that are a comfort. :)

I am aware that huge numbers of PPLs never even make it to 2,000 hours so the vast majority are going to be very unlucky to see an engine failure in their entire "career" not only as part of the flying they do but also as part of the flying of all of their friends.

[IO540]

Totally agree with the 3 posts above :ok:

And if I had 3 engine failures in my TT of 1200hrs I would have given up flying and would now be sitting on Shoreham beach waiting for the wind to get up :)

430 engine failure accidents per year in the US GA fleet of about 150,000. This equates to 0.2%.and as you suggest this is across a huge spectrum of "maintenance practices" and "operating practices".

If one adopts "best practice" - whatever that means in the individual case but certainly it means not letting your mags go past 500hrs and not running your engine on condition if the compressions suggest the rings are only just hanging in there but are still legal and hey it only uses 1 litre oil per hour which is within Lyco's limits so it must be OK, etc - then your chances will quite obviously be better than the 0.2%.

One improves them further by flying with fuel in the tanks ;)

Sure one needs to be able to do a forced landing but there are time windows when it just isn't possible and you take your chances. A lot of approaches to airports are firmly in that category...... The rest of the time, you are carrying a life raft, and flying high enough to be able to glide somewhere.

[XX621]

Fascinating thread. Guppy, your posts really are very interesting to read. You should write a blog or something, if you don't already.

I had my first engine failure, well, loss of power, about two weeks ago. Engine decided to quit in a descent at idle at altitude. Fortunately my hand moved to the fuel pump switch and switched it on before the rest of me had fully realised what had happened. Power restored immediately. Bit of a non-event really, but it was my first taste of a potentially big problem in 335 hours, and it has come at a good time for me. I was beginning to have faith in aero engines!

I flew with a sub 100hr PPL recently. He chose to fly a very long final over water to a runway on the coast. When I asked him why, he replied "my instructor used to do it". When I asked him the obvious potential gotcha, he replied "I don't give a sh1t about the engine failing. If your times up, your times up". He's doing an ATPL, so if you ever hear a bang followed by a similar comment over the PA, you may remember this post.:eek:

[IO540]

Better to never leave the UK mainland then.

What was the diagnosis? If it was the engine driven fuel pump, how many hours did it fail at?

[XX621]

IO540: Not sure how many the hours the engine pump specifcally has, the engine only has 520 hours since last overhaul - but is running on condition due calendar time. Interestingly, I double checked the POH which states fuel pump on for "Descent" so have amended my checks accordingly of course, but it shouldn't cut at idle with pump off. Only a matter of time before someone forgets the pump and powers down to idle on finals....

Absolutely no problems at any other power setting, it's a IO360-D with CSU prop by the way.

Engineers suspected fouled plugs and nozzles...so had them cleaned, but problem remains, although not as easy to reproduce on the ground as before.

[Fuji Abound]

but problem remains, although not as easy to reproduce on the ground as before.


What problem remains? The engine quitting on you?

Have you looked in the log book to see if the engine driven fuel pump was replaced overhauled when the engine was overhauled. When was the electric pump overhauled? It will all be in the engine log book.

Why do you continue to fly an aircraft with a known problem?

I am not trying to be awkward, but this was my very point earlier, if you ask for trouble you bet you will find it.

FWIW I would no more test an aircraft's pressurisation at night over hostile terrain than I would continue to fly an aircraft with a known problem that could result in the engine quitting. The reason you have an electric pump is so, when the mechanical pump quits, you have a backup. If you know or suspect the mechanical pump could be faulty you have just defeated the intention of the designer in specifying a backup electric pump.

It flies

Please save us. I dont think you will get anything either new or which could not be found from doing a little research on Google. :)

[IO540]

If the engine driven fuel pump is not 100% then you could be looking at a big problem. It will be either a diaphragm pump or a gear pump, and a suspected fault in either of those is an immediate grounding and a stripdown of the pump. Plus a check of the oil filter etc for bits of metal.

[XX621]

Fuji: Calm down :) I found your post almost bit accusatory to be honest! I'm not some dodgy flyboy wideboy flying a dodgy plane around looking for trouble! I have two young kids for starters!

Lets not turn this into a slanging match, did I say I was flying the aircraft around knowing the engine pump (if it is that) was not 100%?

I would very much welcome any advice you and IO have to offer, seriously...perhaps if I PM you all the details? I'm interfacing with two AMOs to get the bottom of the problem, but its a tightrope between rational problem identification and repair and being ripped off chasing expensive geese. As I'm sure you both have experience of!

[Fuji Abound]

XX621

Sorry, I didnt mean to imply you were and was generally concerned that you said the problem was not so easy to reproduce on the ground from which I (perhaps wrongly) assumed you had reproduced the problem in the air.

You are welcome to PM me and I will offer any help I can with pleasure.

[Fuji Abound]

Do you suppose the failure wouldn't have occurred if it had been over a deeply populated, urban area, and in the daylight? How idiotic.


So lets just be clear. You flight tested a 421 at night over remote terrain after an annual inspection knowing there had been problems with the pressurisation system and, at the same time, intended to give instructional training to a pilot who had never flown the aircraft before at night and during a flight test. I would very much like to see that NTSB report - perhaps you would like to provide the link?

As I said before look for trouble, and sure as hell you will find it - and you did :). I dont need 100,000 or even 500 hours to arrive at that conclusion.

As to your repeated references to your own vast experience you may well wish to review the Tenerife KLM accident and take care to make sure your experience has not made you infallible.

Anyway rather than beat about the bush you have probably guessed I think you are a troll, and if you are not, well, I think you look for trouble, so dont worry I will not be flying with you any time soon. :}

I have genuinely enjoyed the stories however, and I shall look forward to some more, please keep them coming.

[IO540]

I am 50/50 on whether Guppy is a very experienced FSX pilot, or a real pilot. If you read pprune for enough years, you will be able to deliver all the right stories. My main PPL instructor was a brilliant story teller, but I did eventually suss that he was a total fake (fake ATPL, fake IR, fake type ratings in a TBM and a PC12, fake TBM TRI/TRE, countless fake trips across the world in PA46s, etc). He eventually (and suddenly) vanished, following some "happenings" at the school where he was a CFI. He was a real CFI though - but a UK "CFI" is a fake qualification anyway; a one man band running a school out of a shed is automatically a "CFI" of that school.

But he was a good instructor. The best instructor I ever had (at the PPL level). He taught me what the trim wheel does (it sets the speed; all the engine does is control the rate of climb - how many pilots actually know that?) and that watching the speedo on final is going to dramatically improve one's life expectancy. I just had to quietly smile when he said that if too many planes tune into a VOR (yes I don't mean a DME) it stops working.

Guppy is quite possibly real, but I think his vast range of exploits has gone to his head. He would more effectively pass on his wisdom if he was less patronising. The way he is going he should expect a job offer from the CAA any time soon. As a consolation prize he could have a retirement job editing GASIL/GASCO ;)

XX621 - feel free to email me if you want to pass anything by me. I don't know the IO360 but I might give you some ideas, or ask around people who might know. Having done the rounds of engine stuff a bit, in the UK, I now think there is precious sod all engine debugging expertise over here. I was once ripped off 1400 euros (AOG) for a replacement starter motor (listed at US$400 but that's a side issue) but the company, JAR145 et cetc etc with EASA Design Authority etc etc etc did not know enough to determine it was a duff battery. Now, I carry a voltmeter in my toolbox ;) A friend with a turbo engine spent ~6 months messing around with everybody and their dog trying to find out what was wrong with the waste gate controller; I think it was by luck that it was finally fixed.

But if I had an unexplained stoppage, apparently cured by the electric pump, I would not fly until the whole fuel system is stripped and inspected, and I mean all the pipes, and tanks. After all, they still haven't actually found what did in BA038 :)

If you have the EDM700 data, does it show the stoppage, as a loss of EGTs? Once, in the descent into Antwerp, ~ 8000ft, heavily leaned, I had a "hesitation" for a few secs showing itself as a sudden loss of IAS; I went to max power and it went away. The EGTs always looked fine. Upon landing, my friend and I took the cowlings off and checked everything visually, check for fuel leaks (with the pump running), etc. Found nothing. Did extra long power checks, took off and climbed at Vx into strong headwind, but it never happened again. The EDM data showed nothing! Certainly no interruption of combustion (unless it was only seconds). I now think it may have been a brief downdraught and with the autopilot holding a constant -VS, given the very low power setting that would have done it. So I think it was my imagination but it was a little worrying at the time.

[XX621]

Fuji/IO540 - thanks very much. I will PM you both giving full details. I could use a second opinion on things.

[IO540]

Mr Guppy - still waiting for the NTSB report URL.

[Fuji Abound]

Over time, perhaps a couple of decades, the tension on the plexiglass combined with the flexing during pressurization in exactly the right manner to cause the windscreen to fail.


Hmm so lets see no NTSB report of what after all amounts to a very serious failure, no incident report to enable others to be aware of the problem, no AD to give ntoice to other engineers that the aircraft could have a serious issue. Infact it would seem nothing to avert perhaps another crew killing themselves and their passengers when suffering the same failure at FL285. Notwithstanding the FAA saw fit to review the incident and commend the crew.

It is a great story however.

[24Carrot]

I'll be waiting for your book of memoirs. Those whopping 1,200 hours of spellbinding experience will make for magical reading.As it happens the bits I've read about, (through another forum), make very good reading.

[IO540]

was not a NTSB reportable event

Yeah, right, a big piece comes off a 421 (a little homebuilt machine operated under the Experimantal regime, never used for anything of relevance like paying passenger carriage; not even approved for IFR) sucking off a piece of the instrument panel with it, and no SB, no AD... nuffink.

Makes one look up in awe at the wonder boys (and girls, too) inside our very own EASA, who rightly regard the FAA, and all those who fly under it (myself included) as a load of cowboys.

Quite right too (spoken with the correct RAF public school accent (http://www.yaelf.com/rp.shtml)).

I am off to log my flight of this morning - a 3.5 minute taxi to the pumps and a 3.5 minute taxi back to parking. It was for the purpose of a flight, so I can log it (the flight was cancelled due to cloud at 2000ft). I need to log everything I can get my hands on. One day I might even make 5 figures and then I might feature in one of Mr Guppy's postings.

[englishal]

What aspect of the event do you find to be reportable under NTSB 830?
That all depends on whether it were a Civil aircraft or Public aircraft. If it were civil, of course it would be reportable. If Public (i.e. us government) then depending on certain conditions, it wouldn't be reportable.

Not knowing who operated the aeroplane, we can't possibly tell if it was reportable.

(a) Initial notification and later reporting of aircraft incidents and accidents and certain other occurrences in the operation of aircraft, wherever they occur, when they involve civil aircraft of the United States; when they involve certain public aircraft, as specified in this part, wherever they occur; and when they involve foreign civil aircraft where the events occur in the United States, its territories, or its possessions.


Public aircraft means an aircraft used only for the United States Government, or an aircraft owned and operated (except for commercial purposes) or exclusively leased for at least 90 continuous days by a government other than the United States Government, including a State, the District of Columbia, a territory or possession of the United States, or a political subdivision of that government. “Public aircraft” does not include a government-owned aircraft transporting property for commercial purposes and does not include a government-owned aircraft transporting passengers other than: transporting (for other than commercial purposes) crewmembers or other persons aboard the aircraft whose presence is required to perform, or is associated with the performance of, a governmental function such as firefighting, search and rescue, law enforcement, aeronautical research, or biological or geological resource management; or transporting (for other than commercial purposes) persons aboard the aircraft if the aircraft is operated by the Armed Forces or an intelligence agency of the United States......

Aircraft accident means an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, and in which any person suffers death or serious injury, or in which the aircraft receives substantial damage.

The operator of any civil aircraft, or any public aircraft not operated by the Armed Forces or an intelligence agency of the United States, or any foreign aircraft shall immediately, and by the most expeditious means available, notify the nearest National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) office1 when:

(a) An aircraft accident or any of the following listed serious incidents occur...

[Big Pistons Forever]

Flying is all about managing risks. Obviously there is a risk that the engine in a single engine aircraft could suddenly stop, but there are also many other risks during a typical flight. The secret is of course to reduce the risks as far as practicable. To do this one must first understand both the probability of an adverse occurance and its consequence. IMO ab initio flight training does not do a very good job in this area. It assigns a far higher probability to the engine failure scenario than is warrented , but more critically allmost all the training has to do with actions after the engine failures. If you examine the actual engine failure statistics you will find that over 80% of the light aircraft engine failures were directly caused by the actions or inactions of the pilot.

The least likely event is having a engine which had a normal run up
is showing normal engines guage indications, has sufficent uncontaminated fuel supply from a a properly selected tank, and is not showing signs of carb ice ...... just suddenly stop. Or even more simply if you want to greatly reduced the risk of engine failure do a few sinple things on every flight

Before flying

1) make sure there is no water in the fuel

2) do not take off if the runup is abnormal

and, In flight

1) plan every flight with at least an hour of fuel in reserve using book fuel flows plus 10 %

2) monitor your engine instruments regularly thoughout the flight and be especially vigilent for the signs that carb ice is forming.

If you do these things and are flying one of the simpler trainers or tourers the chance you will experience an engine failure in your PPL flying lifetime is effectively zero.

If you are going to have a non fatal accident it will most likely be a loss of control on takeoff or landing caused by skills fade, and if you are going to have a fatal accident it will probably be due to flying in poor weather.

So looking at it from a purely statistical approach it would seem the best way to reduce the risk of you having an accident is to regularly practice takeoff and landings to maintain your aircraft control skills and not to push the weather. While you do not want to ignore the possibility of an engine failure especially the most dangerous scenario, an engine failure right after takeoff, you also IMO should not ascribe more importance to this particualar emergency than it warrents.

[IO540]

Getting more and more vague, one notices...

Very good.

[englishal]

it wasn't considered "substantial damage for the purposes of NTSB 830, and wasn't an accident
Ah ok, I see....I just would have thought that something like a large hole and bits dangling out of the aeroplane would have been of interest to the NTSB in case it happened to some other poor bugger.

[IO540]

The problem with posting NTSB or whatever reports is that they contain the tail number, which one can look up on the FAA database (not to mention google) and one thing leads to another.... all very undesirable ;)

[mcgoo]

You are only required to report the following under NTSB 830 for aircraft under 12,500lbs:

1) Flight control system malfunction or failure; (2) Inability of any required flight crewmember to perform normal flight duties as a result of injury or illness; (3) Failure of structural components of a turbine engine excluding compressor and turbine blades and vanes; (4) In-flight fire; or (5) Aircraft collide in flight; (6) Damage to property, other than the aircraft, estimated to exceed $25,000 for repair (including materials and labor) or fair market value in the event of total loss, whichever is less.

[douglas.lindsay]

NTSB statistics (GA only) show that there are roughly 430 engine failure accidents per year in the US GA fleet of about 150,000. This equates to 0.2%. To normalise that against number of hours flown, it works out at 1 per 50,000 flight hours or something like that.

Apologies for referring so far back (this thread has been growing fast), but here's a question I was pondering the other day while reading "The Killing Zone"... Presumably not every engine failure leads to an accident, as I assume all that PFL training I've done (and I like to practice it every so often, even now that I'm licensed to kill myself :)) gives me half a chance of actually landing the plane without damage.

So I'm guessing that actual incidences of engine failure are quite a bit higher than that... anybody care to guess how frequent?

[20driver]

SN_3 Guppy - Looking at the NTSB form 830

2. Substantial Damage - means damage or failure which adversely affects the structural strength, performance or flight characteristics of the aircraft, and which would normally require major repair or replacement of the affected component

Your incident certainly involves substantial damage. I find it very hard to believe the FAA would not have consider this to be the case. Performance and flight characteristics were adversely affected by your own account. The damage would be a major repair. Enough to write the plane off I suspect.

Something does not pass the smell check here.


IO-540's has written a lot if stuff that is incredibly useful to anyone who wants to use GA for a practical purposes. I'm guessing that includes a lot of people in this forum

Good practical advice from Big Pistons. I have looked through NTSB reports for years and almost every report involving engine issues was caused by fuel mis management or flying a plane that belonged on the ground. Anyone who takes a plane out from MX and heads in IMC or night is playing the odds. I love the ones that include lines like "unidentified liquid stains noted on the ground under the plane that had not flown for X months"

Single engine - if you fail on takeoff get the nose over very fast and take what comes straight ahead. The odds are trying to maneuver is a going to make it worse. If you have altitude flying the airplane all the way down means you are likely to walk away. Energy is a function of velocity squared, so controlling the speed is what counts. Trying to finesse a crash, I guess if you have enough practice it makes sense.

There are a lot of things that might happen to you flying GA. Operating a well maintained plane with some reasonable caution on fuel means engine failure is far down your list of potential problems.

Back to the OP - what was the cause of the failure?

20 driver

Also - what do people think of helmets and airbags?

[youngskywalker]

1200 hours or 12000 hours, it means very little, all pretty meaningless. It's what you do with those hours that count. I have a mate with barely 1500 tt but a large chunk of those on fast jets, worth far more than 12000 spent looking out the window while the autopilot flies.

The point I'm making is that if IO540 has 1200 hours then he's doing far better than the majority of private flyers and going places where most will never even attempt.

[vee-tail-1]

IO 540 and Fuji Abound are one of the main reasons I come to this forum. :ok:

[Contacttower]

Over how many hours of flight time in single engined pistons were your ten engine failures Guppy? I'm just curious to compare your experience with that of others here.

[IO540]

I'm guessing that actual incidences of engine failure are quite a bit higher than that... anybody care to guess how frequent?If you are speaking of engine stoppages where it never restarted:

Without doubt that is true for twins, where an enroute engine failure should be a non-event and would not be reported unless somebody wants to drag someone's nose through the dirt to draw attention to bad maintenance**. EFATOs often kill everyone aboard (they require good pilot currency) which helps to swell up the fatal accident stats for twins (another factor is the typically more demanding mission profiles flown in twins).

It may also be true for singles. I am certainly aware of cases (years ago) where somebody landed a school plane in a field, an instructor went to retrieve it, and flew it back, and no fault was found or reported. Maybe carb heat, who knows? But this would be very rare, because fields landings are not easy to cover up.

It has been suggested that engine failures are more common in twins than in singles; reasons offered have been a) more vibration, due to the engine being less rigidly mounted on the wing spars than on a single's firewall; b) longer control cable runs; c) longer fuel pipe runs; d) a pilot of a twin will be less aware of something "funny" with the engine because it is further away, so a fault can develop unnoticed; e) some twin owners, particularly some commercial operators, definitely have a less critical attitude to maintenance, running on condition, etc because they have a spare engine. The last one is controversial but enough twin owners have made this very clear that I don't doubt it for a moment ;)

Diamond went to avgas for their US sales of the DA40 but they continued to sell the Thielert DA42 out there. Go figure, as they say...

** Early on in my TB20 ownership, I had loads of problems with autopilot failures. (Actually they continued but got a lot less bad). One failure which happened with me not present, with the pilot who was an instructor (the fake-ATP one I referred to in previous postings) reporting that the aircraft was nearly inverted within seconds, was something I wanted to MOR. I was discouraged from doing this by various people, him included, on the grounds that a MOR will stick like the proverbial to a blanket. I am now less than 100% sure this incident actually happened (for reasons too long winded to go into here) but I did contact the CAA and they weren't too bothered about it.

[englishal]

You are only required to report the following under NTSB 830 for aircraft under 12,500lbs:

1) Flight control system malfunction or failure; (2) Inability of any required flight crewmember to perform normal flight duties as a result of injury or illness; (3) Failure of structural components of a turbine engine excluding compressor and turbine blades and vanes; (4) In-flight fire; or (5) Aircraft collide in flight; (6) Damage to property, other than the aircraft, estimated to exceed $25,000 for repair (including materials and labor) or fair market value in the event of total loss, whichever is less.

Not quite...You are also required to report any "accident" in addition to the above and the definition of an accident is:

Aircraft accident means an occurrence associated with the operation of an aircraft which takes place between the time any person boards the aircraft with the intention of flight and all such persons have disembarked, and in which any person suffers death or serious injury, or in which the aircraft receives substantial damage.

Substantial damage means damage or failure which adversely affects the structural strength, performance, or flight characteristics of the aircraft, and which would normally require major repair or replacement of the affected component. Engine failure or damage limited to an engine if only one engine fails or is damaged, bent fairings or cowling, dented skin, small punctured holes in the skin or fabric, ground damage to rotor or propeller blades, and damage to landing gear, wheels, tires, flaps, engine accessories, brakes, or wingtips are not considered “substantial damage” for the purpose of this part.

I guess in their wisdom that the FAA decided that

A large, jagged hole was left with most of the windscreen gone, and the interior trim, headliner, and plastics pulled apart and dangling. The glareshield and top of the instrument panel were outside the cockpit, in front of us.

...was not "substantial damage"...though of course we weren't there and it may have not been as bad as I imagine from this description....

[Fuji Abound]

IO 540 and Fuji Abound are one of the main reasons I come to this forum.


I am flattered - thank you. There are a great many posters on here I enjoy reading, yours included.


1200 hours or 12000 hours, it means very little, all pretty meaningless.


To be fair to Guppy he has a point. In reality hours count. In reality variety and expiences count for more. I have had the pleasure of flying with guys who have a huge number of hours on a large number of types. It shows, it shows from the moment they start flying the aircraft. I enjoyed doing my multi rating and I would recommend anyone do so, even if they dont go on to fly multis. Why? Well I think it stretches your flying skills so when you fly simple singles the management of the aircraft seems very straight forward. In the same way I would recommend anyone to do some aeros. I recall when I started a big grin and a lingering thought - "I cant believe the aircraft / I could do that". I had the great pleasure of spending a few hours in a propoer commercial sim recently. Working with the guys doing engine failures, engine fires, single engine approaches to minima, cat 111 approaches with an autopilot failure etc, all provides invaluable lessons.

[20driver]

As several have stated here it is all about risk management, or maybe more ,risk evaluation.

Several years back there was an article in a flying mag were the writer was unable to find a single case of an engine failure in the pattern causing a fatality or a reportable incident\accident in the NTSB data base. I read a lot of the NTSB summaries and cannot recall a single such event myself. (Take offs excepted, we had a very sad case here of a T-210 which ingested the recently, and improperly installed, air filter on take off. The pilot was killed)

In that period there were a large number of fatalities involving maneuvering flight in the pattern, often stalls on the base to final turn.

One problem of the old mantra of stay close enough to the airport to be able to land in the case of an engine failure is you edge in too close, setting yours self up for a steep turn at low altitude and airspeed. That is a dangerous corner to be in.

In terms of smoking holes it would seem keeping a wider pattern to avoid steep turns, a known and persistent hazard, and accepting the so small it is not recorded risk of an off airport landing due to an engine failure is a good deal.

20 driver

As an aside, our local field was an Enstrom dealer and flight school for several years. After the fields owners third auto rotate into someones back yard he called a truck, had the helicopter hauled away and got out of that business line. He is still with us at 80 plus.

[IO540]

hours count

Of course every bit helps but I get suspicious when somebody throws around numbers like 18000hrs. It is almost impossible to achieve that in GA; even high end GA. You would need to have been an instructor for several decades but then your experience is probably low (due to not going anywhere).

One has to be talking about long haul airline pilots.

[Fuji Abound]

Well Mr Guppy it is certainly a good story.

There is some phraseology in your report that a pilot would not use and is a bit of a give away, but you have done a good job otherwise.

[24Carrot]

I just finished a very long day flying that concluded coming out of Afghanistan. I flew 11.4 hours today, and will fly that much again tomorrow, after getting legal minimum rest. If I were in that position, I would not give a flying f*** about what anybody on pprune thought about anything. I would be getting some sleep.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

There are thousands of pilots with 18,000 hours plus.

I retired with over 30,000 accident free hours when I turned seventy, at that time I was still actively flying in the air show circuit in Europe.

I started my commercial flying career flying a J3 Cub spraying tobacco in southern Ontario.

Now that my flying career is spooling down I am building a Piper J3 clone which will bring my career full cycle.

In between those two time periods I have lost track of what I flew but it included a lot of different machines both fixed and rotary wing.

So 18,000 hours is really not that unusual.

[IO540]

Indeed, and I know quite a few myself (some ~25k) but not many log 18k hrs in GA.

Apart from some commercial opportunities most piston GA flight is not remunerated and to log 18k hrs you will spend of the order of US$2M (two million bucks) of your own money, after tax.

A typical airline pilot who flies piston GA also will not be flying IFR GA. Most of them get plenty of IFR at work and have zero interest in hacking IFR in piston singles or twins (I know this because I have flown with a fair number of them). They prefer to fly for fun, so they fly rag and tube types, homebuilts, etc. And they don't log 18k hrs in these.

So, not impossible - just exceedingly unusual.

[Fuji Abound]

I retired with over 30,000 accident free hours


Chuck

You need to have a word with or friend Mr Guppy, his accident record over a lot less hours looks like a disaster zone. Statistically you would want to keep him as far away as possible from anything with wings.

[20driver]

You've flown a lot of hours in a range of conditions. How many engine failures have you had? If any how many were in GA or piston operations?

Despite the digressions I think it is still an interesting question, what is the likely hood of an engine failure in GA?


Thanks

20driver

[IO540]

You said you're skeptical about people who have 18,000 hours who fly general aviation, or who gained that experience in general aviation.

It's your constant reference to these hourly totals, which (except in highly unusual - in Europe - occupations) cannot have any relevance to this piston GA engine reliability debate.

what is the likely hood of an engine failure in GA?

I think the best order of magnitude guide is what was posted earlier by Englishal. Unless you are running particularly dubious practices, you are unlikely to get one before you finally fail your medical...

Unfortunately some people choose to interpret such a statement as saying that one should not train for one, etc. which is obviously completely wrong.

[IO540]

It's the mindset and the preparedness to address it when it does happen, that counts.Let me guess.... you are in the military???

Every second of every flight, it's 50%.OK, Now we are getting somewhere.

Now I know what line of work you are not in: statistics :ugh:

Just as well, since 87.3% of statistics are made up on the spot, and if you ran the business it would be 100%.

I have an accident-free history

:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes::O:O:O

[24Carrot]

Every second of every flight, it's 50%. Either it will continue to run, or it won't.That's 50/50 possibilities, which are different from probabilities.

For example you either are or are not a pilot. The possibilities are 50/50. The probabilities need not be.

[Fuji Abound]

My recent forced landing was not the result of choosing a poorly maintained airplane, nor the result of choosing a poorly structured operation. I had a very unusual turbine bearing failure while descending a steep, smoke-filled canyon in formation behind another airplane, to drop fire retardant on burning government structures. All the oil left the engine, and the engine continued to operate very satisfactorily, with no indication of any problem in the cockpit, until I reached the bottom of the canyon and attempted to exit.


I would love to read the rest of that story. Did there happen to be a handy airport at the bottom of the canyon or a road from which the aircraft could subsequently be recovered.

By the way you dont happen to know DFC do you?

[IO540]

DFC is the man you should marry. It would be a marriage made in heaven.

[gasax]

I'v emuch enjoyed the textual ping pong and so cannot resist joining in - a little.

With a thousand hours (all of which I have paid for!) I have had 2 partial engine failures.

The first was climbing out and the options looked pretty limited. Thankfully as the nose went down to 'best glide' speed the fuel supply refilled the carb and with a series of climbs and glides I got to 1500 ft and this allowed a sensible circuit to be flown. Mechanical fuel pump unable to pull fuel from a low tank.
In that case 'instinct' kicked in and I simply flew the aircraft.

The second time a cylinder head on the Gipsy cracked and meant the engine started to shake the aircraft to bits. In this case I did suffer from a ' is this really happening', 'surely not' period when to be honest I was well behind the aircraft. Even after sorting myself out and finding a power setting which almost maintained height I found myself in a state of disbelief. My immaculately maintained engine could not be doing this etc...

But to be fair it kept going long enough to take me out of the mountains and to a large military runway (gently descending all the way).

But Guppy's comments about disbelief and lack of preparededness do really strike a chord with me.

That incident really did change my mental model - to the point that when my ANR headset battery gave out recently I already had a field, high key and circuit, carb heat and fuel selection sorted out before I noticed what had caused the big increase in noise.....

[englishal]

Private pilots seem to have it about their head that it won't happen to them...perhaps as professionals we're all wrong. The entire industry, is wrong, of course, because of the remote possibility that something might go wrong.
I don't think that is strictly true. I think that if you dwell on the chance of a SE engine failure all the time then one would never fly anywhere past gliding rang of a landing spot. One would never fly it at night, and one would never fly over water or do anything "adventurous" like cross the north atlantic. It is good to be prepared for one and react properly if it does happen.

I prefer to increase my chances by running an engine in good condition, an engine that has been dynamically balanced along with prop, an engine which has been maintained properly, never run out of fuel and make sure I check the oil every time I take off. Proper engine monitoring also increases the odds. If then the engine lets go, then at least I know I have done my best to minimize the risk.

I have read numerous stories of high time pilots who have had many engine failures and one of the last i read was about a chap in his twin who's engine let go (BTW he had 10000's of hours). But as the story unfolded it appears the engines had done something like 2600 hrs and were being run on condition - which IMHO increases the chances of the engine failing.

The same goes for flight testing at night over the desert (Arizona?). IF something goes wrong, your chances of sucessful recovery are reduced. Obviously being in a corporate environment then there is more pressure on pilots to fly when maybe they don't want to.

I remember sitting at the end of the runway in the RHS of a King Air just after the heavens had opened up, staring into this biggest blackest sky you could imagine with Cb's forecast...and staring at the hole in the dash where the weather radar used to live, but had been removed for maintenance. Had I been flying myself in my aeroplane, I'd have taxied back and had a cup of tea, but we had no choice (it really was a matter of life or death)....so off we went. That was the second time in my short decade of flying that I was actually reasonably scared (bearing in mind ATC in the UK can't paint weather on the radar).

[Contacttower]

Private pilots seem to have it about their head that it won't happen to them...perhaps as professionals we're all wrong. The entire industry, is wrong, of course, because of the remote possibility that something might go wrong.

I don't think anyone on here goes around believing that.

I think the difference of perspective on this issue shown by different posters comes from the differing aviation backgrounds. For most of the serious private pilots on here their experience consists of usually flying a relatively small selection of light aircraft on quite a regular basis in a usually quite safe operating environment. The aircraft in question are usually the tried and tested GA designs that even in the case of the newer ones usually use engines that have proven reliability records established over thousands of hours of trouble free flying. For those who are lucky enough to own their own aircraft it will usually be maintained lovingly and kept in a dry hangar.

None of that means that these pilots aren't vigilant about engine failures; certainly whenever I line up on the runway in a twin engine failure is what I'm thinking about and when in the air in a single when not fiddling with the G1000 or whatever I'll be looking down at the countryside (and out for traffic as well obviously) thinking about which fields look the most inviting for a forced landing.

I sometimes fly IMC in a single and have occasionally at night as well although I wasn't very happy about it. There have been occasions, breaking out of cloud at 300ft on the ILS for example when yes, if I had had an engine failure 30 seconds earlier a safe landing may have been unlikely but by generally avoiding situations like that and being alert for the 90% of the time when a forced landing would be possible after an engine failure I believe I have reduced the risk to a level that I am happy with.

[IO540]

The biggest problem is that anybody who posts here saying they don't worry about an engine failure is going to get shot down in flames.

There was even one bloke who wrote somewhere that he was "terrified" every time he flew, and he regarded this as the correct attitude, and I think many would agree.

I cannot think of anything worse. If I was terrified every time I went up I would pack it in and take up cross-stitching (http://www.cross-stitching.com/).

The likelihood of an engine failure with a correctly maintained and correctly managed certified engine is very very small. They do happen, which is why one cannot disregard them, and one manages the risk by carrying a life raft, avoiding large built-up areas whenever possible, flying at a high altitude whenever possible (an IR helps a great deal there), etc.

Engine management is important, but is difficult to do correctly in the typical GA rental spamcan context, because there is no or almost no engine instrumentation, so you could be running at a very high CHT and not know it. Thankfully cylinder cracks rarely stop an engine dead. An aircraft owner can install an EDM700, read up on the matter, and never look back. It is a wonderful instrument - if your headset batteries go flat you take a look at the EGTs and if they look normal ...

Fuel management is obviously vital but again is difficult to do in the GA rental spamcan context, because of crappy fuel gauges, and a long tradition in the training system of accepting previous flights' paper log entries as evidence of fuel on board (look up G-OMAR for a super example). Again, an aircraft owner can install a fuel totaliser (the existing gauges have to be left in place) and be precise to within 1% as to his fuel status. I have done 900nm flights and landed within 1 or 2 litres of the FOB which was computed during the flight. Likewise if you suspect a loss of power, take one look at the fuel flow (displayed to 0.1 litre/hr) and if that's OK and the EGTs are OK then the engine is making the power.

The above two things probably take out the majority of engine failures. As for the rest, the best thing is to avoid using UK engine shops :)

Now I better get off pprune because, according to DFC (oops I meant Mr Guppy) I have a 50% chance of dying today.

[Wildpilot]

Guppy,

I find it some what unbelievable that certain people on here are determined to discredit your experience and try to make silly remarks about a very serious subject they clearly do not understand.

I do not have your level of experience yet but I also fly in very tough commercial environments where engine failure is always in the for front of my mind when flying around, nearly always at max gross and often only 500ft.

I learnt in the SE of the England, Redhill to be precise many years ago but have now operated in many countries as a commercial pilot. I now fly in a DHC2 on floats I have to contend with a low level turn after takeoff over rough land at least six times a day, if the engine decides to blow at this point I have seconds to react and that is why my mind is in failure escape mode whilst flying.

I think that a couple of the less professional hobby pilots on here think that means worrying about it all day, this is not the case it is just being very very aware and ready for the worst at all times, that means expecting it and having a plan.

I have had two partial engine failures in my time both meant an unstoppable descent rate, and it was planning and preparation that allowed me to put a bush strip between the ground and the plane in time.

Fuji,

Stop questioning Guppies experience, it is very obvious that he is exactly what he says he is and it only shows your lack of experience very very clearly that you cannot see it. You have realise that your flying environment is very undemanding and as a hobbyist you do not really have the experience and knowledge to judge people who fly for a living and really know about aviation. Oh by the way the guy who did my float rating had 34000hrs TT and 22000hrs on floats, so that kind of blows the you can't get those sort of hours in GA out the water.

Engines do fail and if you put the hours in the odds are one day it will be you as Guppy said "its not if its when".

I have not posted on pprune in months because its has so many complete plonkers on it, this will be my only post as nothing has changed.

Cheers

[Contacttower]

Then again, as a rule, I don't do single engine night or IFR, and my single engine mountain work generally involves operations that are done at a low enough altitude that an engine failure isn't generally expected to result in a landing. All my recent piston flying has been in environments where a forced landing is the very least of my concerns. Higher priorities were protection from small arms fire and surface to air threats.


Is that not a rather inconsistent attitude to take though? I mean you don't fly single IFR, which can be safe provided the cloudbase is high enough for you to get a reasonable look at the ground before making a forced landed, yet are prepared to fly around mountains so low that you have no chance of making a forced landing...

[IO540]

Higher priorities were protection from small arms fire and surface to air threats.

You must be CIA.

I am ex Spetnatz; we may have met in Afghanistan, back in 1978.

You lot were a lot better paid.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

The best thing is that in an anonymous forum we will none of us ever know who is genuine and who isn't.



If by genuine you mean someone who posts using their true name then i guess I'm genuine.

Whenever I make a statement or express an opinion I try and make sure I can back up what I say with some facts.

[Contacttower]

All my recent piston flying has been in environments where a forced landing is the very least of my concerns. Higher priorities were protection from small arms fire and surface to air threats.

Is this in Afghanistan? Which operator is using single engine pistons out there?

[thing]

Reaper? :}

[Pilot DAR]

If by genuine you mean someone who posts using their true name then i guess I'm genuine

Yup Chuck's genuine alright! He is a great host! I went to visit him a few months back.

So now you have the confirmation that whoever Pilot DAR is, I vouch for Chuck!

Chuck, that, and a few bucks will get you coffee lotsa places!

Cheers, Jim...

[vee-tail-1]

Hmmn... Long ago when I flew as a flight engineer on Shackletons our Griffon engines were so over used that we expected an engine failure on every mission.

The usual failure mode was rough running / fluctuating oil pressure followed by a flailing con rod which could cut through the engine case and neatly sever the prop oil feed pipes which ran through the vee of the two banks of cylinders. This would cause the prop to go to fine pitch, overspeed and complete the engine's self destruction, which having caught fire would now be torn from the wing.

As a result Shack crews were hypersensitive about unusual engine indications, feathering the suspect engine in seconds in a flurry of hands on levers and buttons. The mark III Shackleton could only just maintain height on three engines so we would light up one of the two viper jets fitted in the ourboard nacelles in order to get us home. However when far out in the Atlantic or Artic sea the jet engine would use up all our fuel before reaching land, so we climbed, shut down the jet, gradually descended, lit up the jet, climbed....ad nauseum. :bored:

One day, flying a mark II Shack over the Irish sea, consternation reigned in my crew, because all four engines were running rough and the mark II Shack did not have two 'get us home' Viper jets. As a 22 year old junior flight eng I hadn't a clue as to what was wrong and suspected contaminated fuel. I recommended landing at the nearest airfield which turned out to be Shannon airport in the Republic of Ireland, and we being RAF nearly caused a diplomatic incident. :uhoh:

With hindsight perhaps that was my first taste of carb icing.

[20driver]

Maybe we should start another thread but I think is is relevant to find out peoples experience with engine failures in GA aircraft.

To develop a real picture it would be nice to know:

Total GA hours and over how many years
# Failures or suspect performance to cause a diversion
Reasons if known
Warning signs if any
Status of the plane = rental, owner operated, charter
Outcome and lessons learned?

Personally I've about 1200 hours in 9 years, 80 percent of behind an IO-540 I own with never a peep of trouble. The rest in various rentals/trainers

20driver

[Chuck Ellsworth]

I accept that point Chuck, and when posting as you do anyone can look you up.


Exactly and that has enrichened my life immensely by having met so many new friends, such as Pilot DAR who was kind enough to visit me and even gave me free advice on some structural changes I am making to my Cub project.

I started using my real name in these forums because I was in the advanced flight training business and by being open in my communications it served me well with my clients all over the world and it also keeps me from being a real prick sometimes when I get annoyed by some posters. :E:E

[hatzflyer]

I post on here at various times and useally on subjects that I have experience off. If I don't have anything to say on a subject I don't post but I can't help noticing that sometimes I read other threads and there are a few people that have an opinion on every subject.
It's also very obvious that there are a lot of nonuts that no nothing about the subjects that they post about and are quick to ridicule anyone else.
I agree with the above people that point out the failings of being anonomous.
For the record, and if anyone wants to check out the validity of any of my claims/statements on here , my name is John Cook, I fly out of Tibenham where I am well known and anything that I post can be verified.
I hereby challange some of the naysayers on here to be as honest as to their identity. :)

[Contacttower]

I was just curious Guppy to know where in the world you had been flying in a single engine piston and been concerned about small arms fire and other ground to air threats? I promise I'm not trying to wind you up, just curious. :)

[flybymike]

my name is John Cook, I fly out of Tibenham where I am well known and anything that I post can be verified.


Any one else feel like "coming out?" ;)

[thing]

Dave Wilson, glider of gliders since 1989, Silver 'C', currently 'resting' while I finish a degree. Hope to be airborne again next spring. Well, let me rephrase that, I will be airborne again by next spring.

Toying with the idea of doing a PPL but feel that it's a passing phase and I'm going to spend the 6 or so grand in a share of a mighty glass ship instead.

[IO540]

Surely, you can "come out" only if you are gay (http://www.gaypilot.org/)? :)

But seriously there is a case for not writing under one's own name. Google is everywhere these days, and uses very clever methods to identify what is a person's name, and to link it to various sites. And any smart prospective employer will google on your name, and if he finds you are posting anti-business left wing views everywhere then you won't get the job.

Closer to home, it is not possible to write anything of value on a lot of aviation stuff e.g. maintenance practices, other than under a pseudonym, because the field is ridden with so much incompetence and even malpractice.

And the CAA reads these forums; that much is clear from the speed with which they have taken some things off their website after the URL appeared in the Pprune medical forum :)

I know of a semi-private forum where full names have recently been enforced and this coincided with a rapid drop in the contributions. To be fair, it did not help that one chap (an aviation business) joined up, didn't like some past postings, and threatened to sue some people, but if people used nicknames he might not have been able to do that. That incident taught people a lesson and I can see a lot of them dropped off after that.

Many years ago, Compuserve ran a load of forums where your full name had to match the one under which the account was billed. These forums were OK up to a point but were much less useful than anything subsequently on the internet.

Here, most regulars know each other, and many have met up, but nicknames keep the search engines from adding 2 and 2.

[Flyingmac]

Surely, you can "come out" only if you are gay (http://www.gaypilot.org/)?

Watch out for my pink aeroplane.

[thing]

"But seriously there is a case for not writing under one's own name. Google is everywhere these days, and uses very clever methods to identify what is a person's name, and to link it to various sites. And any smart prospective employer will google on your name, and if he finds you are posting anti-business left wing views everywhere then you won't get the job."

Yeah but for all you know Dave Wilson might be my 'real' name for internet fora purposes.........

[douglas.lindsay]

Bit late to hide *my* name, I suppose...

6 or so grand

Good luck with that budget ;-)

[IO540]

although the pay is exceptional for those few positions

HA! We are getting nearer. Guppy worked as a mercenary in the Belgian Congo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Crisis).

I wonder if they had Customs and Avgas there. If they didn't have Customs, or if he didn't comply with the PNR requirements, it's no wonder he got fired at.

[Gertrude the Wombat]

But seriously there is a case for not writing under one's own name.
I once asked, in another place where I use my real name (nothing to do with flying), "what's my PPRuNe handle then"?

Someone came up with the answer within minutes.

So one way you could reverse the process would be to find that conversation :)

[IO540]

That phrase doesn't come up on google (in quotes). Googling on phrases (in quotes) is ever so slick.

[NazgulAir]

Flying during 36 years, 1500 hours of which : (roughly)

(a) 150 hours in club rentals (simple training/touring aircraft)
(b) 450 hours in private rentals (mostly complex aircraft, some historic)
(c) 900 hours in own private aircraft.

In general the private rentals were flown with better engine management skills so their engines would be less abused.
Mostly Lycoming engines (O320/O360, IO360, IO540), some Continentals, 100hp RRs. About 50h with Gipsy Majors.
It would be interesting to hear from people who do thousands of hours on club rentals (instructorsw maybe?) whether power/mixture abuse actually makes for more engine failures in their experience. Does the greater utilization and more frequent maintenance checks of the club rentals offset the abuse, or not?

Watch out for my pink aeroplane.
Would that be this one? Pink aeroplane car | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/maria_keays/3354434490/)

[Big Pistons Forever]

Maybe we should start another thread but I think is is relevant to find out peoples experience with engine failures in GA aircraft.

To develop a real picture it would be nice to know:

Total GA hours and over how many years
# Failures or suspect performance to cause a diversion
Reasons if known
Warning signs if any
Status of the plane = rental, owner operated, charter
Outcome and lessons learned?

Personally I've about 1200 hours in 9 years, 80 percent of behind an IO-540 I own with never a peep of trouble. The rest in various rentals/trainers

20driver


I have had 3 engine failures in piston GA type aircraft (over about 2700 hrs and 25 + yrs of flying these types of aircraft)

1) C 150(flight school dual training trip): We were climbing out on a flight to the practice area when I noticed the oil pressure was a solid needle width below the white line in the middle of the green arc of that horrible cessna no numbers oil pressure guage fitted to all light cessna singles. This was significant because on every other flight in this airplane the I had observed the oil pressure guage sitting exactly on the white line. I told the student to turn back to the airport. In the 3 minutes or so it took to get back to the runway the oil pressure slowly dropped to zero but by that time we were on short final, so I shut everything down and we made an uneverntfull landing. It turned out the oil pump drive had failed. I got a very valuable piece of advice from an old timer early in my flying career. He said he never wanted me to say an engine guage was " in the green" he wanted me to give the instrument value because the tend in the guage was a very important indicator of impending trouble. In this case it saved me from a certain of off airfield landing as if I had waited untill the oil pressure dropped to below the green arc I never would have made it back to the airport.

2) PA31 Navajo (commercial charter flight): Turbocharger and wastegate failure. The aircraft suffered a catastrophic turbo failure which also caused the waste gate to fail in the fully closed position on a shuttle climb (due to nearby high terrain) from a small airport. The engine did not stop, but would not generate useable thrust. The choice was 100 miles over the rocks single engine, or a single engine NDB circle to land to minimums. The FO and I discussed the options and chose the landing which worked out fine. As it turned out 2 other pilots had added a total of 6 litres of oil to that engine in the previous 4 hrs . They did not think this fact was worth reporting to maintainance This failure was 100% preventable as the engine gave fair warning but the previous pilots were too stupid to notice.

3) Twin Commanche(privately owned and operated): Just as I had gotten established on the GS on an ILS approach the left engine ran down. Since the aircraft was stable on the approach I just feathered the engine rather then trying to figure out why it had failed, and continued the approach to an uneventfull landing. After landing it turned out the left main fuel tank as dry. When I had taken off the mains were at 1/4 and the aux tanks were full. As soon as I leveled off I switched to the aux tanks and remembered that the fuel selector felt "odd" . When I did my descent checks at the destination and swiched back to the mains and was surprised that the left aux fuel guage stilled showed full but ignored it because the left main stilled showed 1/4. It turned out the selector mechanism cabling had failed and the left side never switched to the aux tank. The engine stopped when the tank ran dry, although the gauge stilled showed the same 1/4 full as it had indicated at takeoff. In retrospect there were signs something was wrong yet I did not clue in. There was plenty of fuel on the right side so I could have kept the engine running with crossfeed. Again a preventable engine failure with pre failure warning signs

[NazgulAir]

BPF -- OK, I didn't mention my engine failure due to fuel starvation. That had been more pilot error than engine failure :\.
We also sometimes run a tip tank dry. The engine doesn't exactly fail then, doesn't it?:hmm:

[thing]

'Good luck with that budget ;-)'

Dunno, 1/4 share would give me a 24K glider, probably get into something pretty decent for that. I don't mean a Nimby 4 or Ash 26 obviously.

[douglas.lindsay]

1/4 share would give me a 24K glider

I meant good luck getting a PPL for 6k (I hear that it can be done in some places, but I think they're pretty few and far between). I do a bit of gliding too, and it's always a shock to compare the costs of the two!

If you do manage to stretch to an Ash26, though, bring it up to Portmoak some day and show it off ;)

[thing]

Ah sorry, didn't understand your banter. Actually the local service club here in Lincoln do training for £100 an hour in a 152 so 6K seems pretty reasonable for PPL and rest of stuff. Maybe if you did it in min hours (do you still get credits for silver C? Can't remember now) there might even be a night rating in there as well. I'm ex avionics engineer so not exactly a stranger to the fanned glider. At least I should be good at power off landings.........(why do they call them forced landings, it's just a landing :confused:)

Orf to Orstralia in a minute on the quite wondrous A380 so I'll be off here for a couple of months.

[douglas.lindsay]

Yep, not a bad price you've got there. Enjoy the 380 experience too, I'm dead curious to know what they're like inside!

[Wildpilot]

Well I said I was always in failure escape mode and today the old Beaver suddenly dropped from 2200rpm after toff to 1900rpm and I noticed it at max gross. Climbed straight ahead along the river just in case the floats needed to get wet suddenly and made sure I had plenty of room between me and the ground before making my turn over land.

It certainly can happen at any time but I fly expecting it so like today, no great shock. Meant a landing and cowls off to sort out the problem which turned out to be quite minor. But bobbing around in the sea trying to remove cowls etc is not fun!
:ok:

[thing]

HI Douglas, just found that they have free internet at Changi airport...waiting for the connection to Brisbane at the moment. A380 top deck is the place to be, lot quieter than downstairs, although downstairs is pretty quiet too. Uncannily quiet at take off, bit eery really, you tend to associate take off with roaring noises but not so the 380. Very nice inside, SIA entertainment system is top class, just watched Iron Man II and Kickass on the way out. (You can judge my cultural level for yourself :}). However I did have a nap listening to Chopin which kind of balances it out. Anyway, fly safe, I'm off to get the A330 to Bris now.

[NazgulAir]

I thought this thread was about engine failures?

There may be another factor that may contribute to engine problems: the use of Mogas. Has the rising cost of Avgas and increased Mogas usage affected the engine failure rate?

[IO540]

It may be so but only a tiny fraction of "normal" GA uses mogas. The vast majority of airports do not even sell mogas.

The use of mogas would correlate strongly with the use of non-certified engines, which in turn will make any comparisons meaningless.

Once you get away from the certified engine scene, there is a huge variation in engine reliability.

[glorygal]

I spoke to two guys I know with thousands of GA SEP hours. One, with 3,000 hours, has never had an engine failure (and he's an instructor, ref previous comments about the reliability of flying school rentals) and the other with 6,000 hours (private flying) has had one engine failure. The latter also commented that engines rarely just stop, there is usually a warning that all is not well (gauges, strange noises etc). And hopefully the pilot is paying attention and spots the warning signs before the thing goes bang... :}

[20driver]

Apart from those dodging small arms fire and navigating burning canyons there seems to be few pilots with direct involvement with engine failures in a GA setting.
Those posted, which were helpful thank you, fuel management is a key issue and knowing your engines regular performance is another.
That pretty much mirrors the NTSB information I've read.

Still wondering in the case of the OP what they cause was. A search of the NTSB database did not reveal any reports which surprised me.

20driver

[IO540]

Hanging around in the vicinity of some maintenance shops, the only catastrophically failed engines I have seen personally were on twins.

All were old engines - not that I believe this means a huge amount in itself, because one of them, with a broken conrod sticking out of the crankcase, had come out of a (UK) overhaul shop hours earlier.

Fuel exhaustion / mismanagement incidents are far more common.

[24Carrot]

Apart from those dodging small arms fire and navigating burning canyons there seems to be few pilots with direct involvement with engine failures in a GA setting. Or perhaps just few posting on pprune.

I know two GA pilots who had power failures and crashes with AAIB reports. Although pilot error was not the cause in either case, neither brings it up in conversation, (I first learned from spouses), and I doubt they posted about it on pprune.

FWIW both (helicopters) had a recently maintained drive part fail, not the actual engine.

[IO540]

Helis, I gather from a heli pilot I know, suffer a lot more because the engines are worked very hard but get inadequate cooling air.

OTOH they can land with autorotation almost anywhere.

And helis have hundreds of life-critical parts.

[24Carrot]

OTOH they can land with autorotation almost anywhere.Indeed, and that is what saved them both, despite the non-ideal landing sites.

[tweed0099]

Jan Olieslagers

As to "High Key" and "Low Key"

I've had the privilege and honor in my life to both fly civilian and military. In my early civilian flying days when being taught the emergency procedure for engine failure it was always....Land in a field. More of a TLAR (that looks about right) approach. Now yes you pitched for the best glide and basically picked out a field and orbited above it until you landed. That that sounds like a good plan, but where exactly should you be in that orbit above the field?

In military training I've learn a specific ELP(Emergency Landing pattern).Think of "High Key" as and an actual point you fly through in the sky. Like a huge ring in the sky that you are trying to fly through directly abeam your intended point of landing. If you're in the right seat that would be to the left of your intended point of landing if in the left seat to the right of the intended point of landing. This way you can always keep in sight where you're landing. Now this may be different for every aircraft, but what worked great for the C-172 at 2200lbs is 2,000'

"Low Key" is like a base leg to final, which is approximately 1000' feet for a C-172 at 2200lbs.

You are then looking to be approximately 500' rolling out on final and then you S turn or slip the aircraft to lose any extra altitude if you have any.

The issue with TLAR and just orbiting over the field is what if you're too high or what if you're too low? Will you know if you are? If there are 150' trees you have to miss (which I had) will you make it?

Knowing exactly where to be and what altitude to be at will let you know that you're on a good glide profile and will help increase your chances for a safe landing.

Here is a blank ELP (emergency landing pattern) diagram. I recommend taking what ever aircraft you will be flying and climb up above your home airport to about 4,000' AGL and orbit at best glide to see what your actual numbers will be for an entire 360 orbit and then add a bit of altitude to that for safe measure. This will be your "High key" and "Low Key" numbers.

http://www.tpub.com/content/aviation2/P-330_wch5/P-330_wch50154im.jpg

Hope this helps.

God bless,
Tony<><

P.S. 4 days after my engine failure my wife and I found out we are going to be parents!!!! Super excited!!!

[tweed0099]

englishal,

1) I believe the FAA ruled it as carb ice....I'm still learning, but I just don't understand yet how you could get carb ice at 2400RPM in a climb at 3800'.

2) As to the beautiful girl. She was a friend in town and had never been up in a small aircraft before. Needless to say she wouldn't go up after that. However, her husband was ready to go up that night and wants to be a military aviator.

God bless,
Tony<><

[flybymike]

P.S. 4 days after my engine failure my wife and I found out we are going to be parents!!!! Super excited!!!

Presumably you fell on top of her some time during the landing...

[Jan Olieslagers]

Tony,
Thanks for the extensive description - and congratulations with your upcoming parentship!
I think I understand your explanation, and will certainly try to take the exercise whenever I can again afford to go flying.
One thing still unclear, though: all the altitudes you describe are indeed altitudes, they are read on the altimeter. However we need to know heights AGL - but in an out landing we can only estimate the elevation.

[englishal]

englishal,

1) I believe the FAA ruled it as carb ice....I'm still learning, but I just don't understand yet how you could get carb ice at 2400RPM in a climb at 3800'.

2) As to the beautiful girl. She was a friend in town and had never been up in a small aircraft before. Needless to say she wouldn't go up after that. However, her husband was ready to go up that night and wants to be a military aviator.
Thanks Tony, good job :ok:

[tweed0099]

Tony,
Thanks for the extensive description - and congratulations with your upcoming parentship!
I think I understand your explanation, and will certainly try to take the exercise whenever I can again afford to go flying.
One thing still unclear, though: all the altitudes you describe are indeed altitudes, they are read on the altimeter. However we need to know heights AGL - but in an out landing we can only estimate the elevation.


As to the exact AGL altitudes you're correct in saying that this is what they are and what you need. However, when flying anywhere in the world you should always know the elevation of what's below you. You are correct in using your altimeter, which means you'll have to do some public math to change MSL to AGL. A great tool to help is a VFR chart. You can always look at a airport near you and get the elevation of that airport. You can also find a tower on the VFR chart and subtract the Height above the ground from the Height in MSL and this will give you the elevation. Hence public math yet again. This is where your altitude plays a huge key. If you are low on altitude channelizing your attention on things like this has caused a lot of accidents. I feel like what helped save our lives was after analyzing the problem and not being able to remedy the situation I then shifted my focus to saving my crew. My mind shifted to how can I get this aircraft on the ground safely. Mosts part of the country don't change in altitude drastically over a small distance. Not including mountainous terrain. A GPS is also a great tool the Garmin 430 will tell you the elevation of locations near you. I hope this helps.

God bless,
Tony<><

[IO540]

IMHO, I don't think the above is practical.

Upon an engine failure in a SE, one is going to get awfully busy awfully quickly - unless at FL150 above Lydd :) You will pick a provisional course of action, then set 7700, make a radio call, then - unless you have a conrod sticking up through the cowling - try to sort out what caused the failure (electric fuel pump ON, etc).

There are basically two approaches: one is to orbit until at what appears to be the right height / aspect ratio and then fly the part-circuit to land, and the other is to turn into the wind, pick a site straight ahead, and try to put the plane down in a field there.

The advantage of the former one is that you get a better chance to inspect it before you go in.

The advantage of the latter one is that anybody can do it - well anybody who can fly a long final, perhaps a very steep long final, with s-turns to lose height.

I think I would go for the latter method, if there were fields all over the place (which is the case most of the time when over the UK and most other "flat" places) and the rest of the time one would have to be more imaginative...

[flybymike]

There are basically two approaches: one is to orbit until at what appears to be the right height / aspect ratio and then fly the part-circuit to land, and the other is to turn into the wind,

I dont necessarily disagree with you (especially if already on glideslope on an into wind final towards the proverbial billiard table) but my instructor always maintained that the best initial manoeuvre was to turn downwind since you covered more ground which gave you an increased number of landing alternatives. Of course every case will be different depending on what is below you and its relative bearing to the aircraft and the wind, but I suspect that if the fateful day ever came, my natural inclination would be to "hug" any good looking field and go for the spiral descent option.

[pulse1]

Reverting to my long distant gliding training I NEVER lose sight of the field I have chosen. Having turned downwind, as I too was trained to do, I choose a field and then, if necessary, do S turns up and down the downwind leg until going downwind at 1000' and level with the touchdown point. (Low point?).

Orbiting could lead to losing sight of the field. Straight in approaches sound extremely dangerous to me unless you know the field and you KNOW that you are have height in hand. You ever see a glider pilot doing either of these things?

[IO540]

Straight in is OK if you can see a sequence of green fields lined up "vertically" ahead of you.

Anybody can glide on an azimuth; it is judging the glide distance which is hard.

I think that at least 90% of the time (UK) one would meet the requirement.

[hatzflyer]

Io you are right about getting busy.
Real engine falures are nothing like PFL's.
With the engine quiet and the prop stopped its nothing like coming down with the prop windmilling.
From the average height of a cross country in this country ( allegedly 2500ft) there is precious little time to get down safely.The only time I bent the plane was the only time I tried to put out a may day.
I tried to retune the radio and in my haste overshot the frequency, by the time I had retuned and put out the mayday, and then concentrated what was going on outside the window I was down to 500ft( approx) which just about gave me time to brief my son for the impact and take what was in front of me.
My ONLY advice to anyone faced with an engine failure is forget everything else and FLY THE BLOODY PLANE.
A friend of mine had an engine failure and trashed the plane and nearly killed his passenger.His comment to me after the accident was that he had remenbered to do everything "by the book" and was proud of that and the only bit that went wrong was the last few minutes!THEY ARE WHAT COUNT!!

[IO540]

The glide ratio with a stopped prop is better than with a windmilling prop, BTW.

At least with a stopped prop you know the engine is f*&^%$d and don't need to waste any time on restarting it.

[englishal]

In the southern UK I assume that all the ground below me is 500' MSL unless I know otherwise! If I were to come in high, it is easy enough to shed a few 00 feet. If I am low.....oops. But one instructor used to teach me the long base, short final technique. If you are flying over somewhere with tons of fields that all look alike (like S UK) and you are not particularly high, you can set yourself up for a long base and at the right altitude, turn final.

At least with a stopped prop you know the engine is f*&^%$d and don't need to waste any time on restarting it.
Fuel?

[IO540]

The motor won't stop turning all the time you are flying well above Vs. Too much airflow.

To stop an engine (that is not mechanically broken) you have to pitch up aggressively (maybe 30 degrees up) and switch off the ignition / close the mixture.

I was in a C150 with an instructor who did it for fun. I also know somebody who flew with the same instructor who did it at 2000ft :)

IMHO if an engine stops turning, in any kind of normal flight, it is gone.

[FlyingStone]

englishal, I think IO540 meant that if the engine stops turning and the airspeed is normal (so there is persistant and adequate airflow over the prop blades), there must be something terribly wrong with the engine, i.e. mechanical damage (and not lack of fuel, spark or air) and its restart and further operation is likely to be beyond pilot's capabilities to do so from the cockpit.

[Pilot DAR]

For general purposes, it is correct that if the propeller (metal) has stopped turning through no action of the pilot to stop it, don't concentrate on a restart, look for a place to land. I have stopped my C150 prop, but it was not easy. If metal has come adrift inside the engine, the starter is not going to be of any use!

That said, while doing un-feathering/restart evaulations of the Lycoming engine with the MT prop, in the DA 42 L360, I can tell you, that it was fairly easy to stop the prop (feathered or not), and un feathering did not cause it to windmill. A high speed dive did get it windmilling. Similarly, my evaluation of a Hoffmann 4 blade wood prop on the Scout suggested similar characteristics. On such installations, if I had let the engine stop, and thought that I had corrected the problem, I would be trying a restart.

A clip for you (and yes, I know it is feathered), but even with the outboard portions of the blades with a very favourable angle of incidence to encourage a windmill start, it was not a sure thing. The starter motor method worked very well!

Jims DAR Testing :: DA 42 L360 restart video by PilotDAR - Photobucket (http://s381.photobucket.com/albums/oo252/PilotDAR/Jims%20DAR%20Testing/?action=view&current=File0263.mp4)

With the popularity of the MT props (which is well desreved, in my opinion), it may more be the case where a stopped engine is worthy of an attempt to restart by starter motor.

As for setting up a gliding circuit, my practice, particularly after reading John Farley's excellent book, is to tend toward picking a landing sight nearer, and more straight ahead, and if possible flying a high, straight in approach, with lots of drag. I would much rather concentrate on configuration, drag management (side slipping), and glide path control, knowing I have good reserve, than to try to fly the perfectly configured glide, with half the circuit worried if I will really make the landing sight.

I do realize that this may conflict with convention methods, and I do not seek to challenge those time tested thecniques, but it works for me!

[The Flying Pram]

"Once you get away from the certified engine scene, there is a huge variation in engine reliability."

May add my few pence worth? I've clocked up almost 1200 hrs in the last 19 years, all bar an hour or so in the same flexwing I learned to fly in (which is possibly a record in itself?). The only time the engine has stopped in flight is on the few occasions when I have turned it off.

I have experienced 2 instances of fuel starvation, due on both occasions to water condensation mixing with the oil in the fuel (50:1 premix for the Rotax 447) and partially blocking the fuel filter. The first time was during my GFT, and we managed to limp back to the airfield. The second time I happened to be passing a suitable strip, and immediately turned round and landed safely.

More recently I have suffered several misfires during climbout - on all occasions the engine recovered after throttling back. This took me some time to resolve, and eventually turned out to be the original engine wiring harness. Since replacing, it's run perfectly.

When I hear the experiences of some other pilots who regard engine failures as a regular occurrence, I have to wonder why... Maybe years of motorcycling taught me to take care of 2 strokes? I only use good branded Mogas from the same garage, and buy my oil in bulk. I don't take off without allowing the CHT to reach 200F, and I never throttle right back on approach until I'm assured of a landing - no fuel = no oil... My machine has a simple permanent warm air induction system which seems to be enough to prevent carb ice from forming, without noticeably affecting performance, another reason for keeping some power on during descent.

This goes against how I was taught, but I'm of the opinion that glide approaches are asking for trouble on older 2 stroke powered machines like mine. I do all my own engine servicing and rebuilding, and keep to the recommended decoke intervals, so I know I won't have any problems undoing bolts or removing gummed piston rings, etc.

Harking back to some of the earlier comments I'm not constantly looking for somewhere to land - if I really was that unsure of things, I would have quit long ago. I'm supposedly flying for enjoyment, and I take the view expressed by others of trying to minimise the likely hood of engine failure in the first place.

[Fuji Abound]

Feathering will of course stop windmilling. Unfeathering the prop should mean that at speeds a margin above the stall speed the prop should windmill but that depends on how much internal friction first needs to be overcome. I have no experience of the Lycoming version of the 42 but it is surprising how much speed is required to windmill the prop on the diesel version presumably attributable to higher levels of friction in diesel engines. It is interesting that the Lycoming version appears to require such a high speed to start windmilling. Have you any idea why this should be so?

[Gertrude the Wombat]

If you are flying over somewhere with tons of fields that all look alike (like S UK) and you are not particularly high, you can set yourself up for a long base and at the right altitude, turn final.
The East Anglia technique.

As taught by instructors in East Anglia ... but they, and examiners, get all precious if you fly PFLs that way, they seem to insist on being told which field you're going for long before you get to 500'.

[englishal]

The motor won't stop turning all the time you are flying well above Vs. Too much airflow
Yes good point thanks for reminding me, I should have thought about that. Worth remembering so that if the prop stops, don't bother wasting time with fuel tanks etc...

The usual restart procedure on a twin is to unfeather and let the wind flow windmill the prop to restart....or in a DA42, just switch the engine master back on ;)

[Fuji Abound]

Does anyone think Mr Guppy has run into problems with the small arms fire? I do hope not.

[mad_jock]

Fuji the deisel engine as you more than likely know uses compression to ignite the mixture so no spark plugs.

The additional speed required is nothing to do with the internal friction of the beast which will be the same as a petrol.

It just requires more oomf to get it chuging away again. Its the same with bump starting cars drop the clutch on a deisel and its like hitting a wall as you fight against the compression. On a petrol you will get it going through a couple of compression cycles then it will fire up. Good thing about a deisel is that it usually goes when your through the first compression so you can start them in under a meter with the applance of brute force and sweat.

I have never flown one of these deisel suck squeeze bang blows but years driving lorrys etc I suspect thats the reason

[Big Pistons Forever]

I do not think flight schools do pilots a favour by teaching "cookbook" forced approach procedures ( ie apply one part glide angle with a half part of bank wait precisely 30 sec, perform a complicated mental calculation and then turn for another half part etc etc ). This works great as long as there is no wind, you are expecting the failure, you know the height of the terrain, the engine has infact totally failed and is not producing some residual thrust etc etc.

IMO the key to sucess in a for real forced landing is having the skill to be able to judge the gliding flight path and adjust it as required to get to the desired touchdown point. As long as the aircraft touches down in a wings level level flight attitude on a piece of reasonably flat ground, the chance of everyone walking away is very high. The length of that piece is not really that important. Your typical Cessna/Piper is designed so that the seats, seatbelts, and cabin structure will withstand a 9 Gee deacceleration. Assuming a steady rate of deacceleration (an over symplification I acknowledge) then it will need about 25 feet to go from 60 kts to stopped. Fatal accidents arising from engine failures usually result from gross mishandling resulting in a low altitude stall/spin or hitting a solid object at flying speed due to an inabilty to judge the aircraft flight path. IMO the most usefull exercise to prepare for a engine failure is to fly a circuit and when abeam the runway end close the throttle and manage the glide so that the aircraft touches down in the first 300 feet of the the runway.

But the bottom line for engine failures is in the accident statistics. At least 80% of all engine failures are a direct result of the actions or inactions of the pilot. So if you are standing next to the undamaged aircraft sitting in the field after the engine failed, you can congratulate yourself on your piloting skills......but there is a 4 out 5 chance that the reason the engine stopped in the first place was because you were stupid....

[IO540]

I think most people who fly different kinds of approaches to a normal runway (not just a standard circuit but straight-in, with shallow or very steep glideslopes, tight base approaches, etc) should be able to pull off an acceptable field landing.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Statistics can be interesting when offered to support a belief system.


At least 80% of all engine failures are a direct result of the actions or inactions of the pilot.

Thinking back on my career I can recall having at least eight engine failures, non of which would fall into the above statistic.

Two were fuel controller failures on PT6's.

Three were catastrophic break up of the engine on P&W 1830's.

Three were fuel lines becoming blocked resulting in engines quitting........in one case I lost both engines on a Navajo IFR at night and lucked in by finding a hole in the cloud deck with an airport in sight, allowing me to land on a runway and wait to get towed to a hangar.

I have had to do several other precautionary engine shut downs due to problems such as failed cylinders etc. to prevent the engines from possibly failing due to metal contamination from the failed cylinders.

Try as I may I can not recall ever having an engine failure that resulted in an emergency landing due to my inaction's or lack thereof.

So would the above experiences be worthy of starting another statistics record to quote?

Or was I just lucky?

[IO540]

More than likely, Chuck, your experience is the result of flying a huge number of hours but, through being a good pilot, you have not made any c0ckups, so your engine failures were caused by factors beyond your control.

The average UK PPL flies ~ 30hrs/year. Setting aside the fact that most of them pack it in for good within a year or two, those that remain for the long term probably accumulate below 1000hrs before they give up (due to old age / loss of medical etc). The long-time pilots I know are in that category, with 1 or 2 in the 2000hr range.

With such low hours being flown, I would not expect PPLs to see a lot of engine failures, in certified engines whose MTBF is believed to be of the order of 50k hrs.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

I0540, what I was questioning is the use of statistics to back up a belief system without any reference to where said statistics were found and the accuracy of same.

Looking at this from another angle if statistics are to be believed then why do a lot of pilots fall outside of said statistics?

Based on the numbers presented in the quote I posted then I should have had at least 64 other engine failures caused by lack of attention to what I was doing......but I can't even recall one, so what real value is there in using statistics to support a belief system without having a statistic for those who fall outside of the statistic used?

I do not want to start a big argument here I am only pointing out another side of this discussion.

It is allowable for anyone to question these issues is it not?

[Big Pistons Forever]

Chuck

The PT6 has a mean time between failures of less than 1 failure for every 100,000 hrs flown. If you have had 2 failures of this type of engine than my thought is the engines were not properly maintained. An engine failure because the engine is not properly looked after IMO falls into the preventable enginr failure catagory. As for your comment regarding engine failures in large radial engines...... well I have also shut down big piston engines on numerous occasions due to internal mechanical failures but than it is a different case when you have three other engines still runnning and perfectly able to get you home :cool: However since this is the private aircraft forum I took it as a given that readers would understand that the 80% statistic applies to light aircraft accidents.

However you are correct in that I was insufficently precise in defining where the statistic came from. I got the 80% statistic from Richard Collins (the former editor of flying magazine). He arrived at the statistic after an extensive study of the light aircraftaccident database in the USA. To be counted in the 80% an aircraft had to have suffered an engine failure and either made an off airfield landing or sustained major damage at touchdown at an airport (mostly EFATO's). Unsurprisingly fuel exhaustion and mismanagement were the most common cause of engine failures and was in virtually every case 100% preventable. Carb ice which had been allowed to develop untill the engine stopped was also a leading cause of light aircraft engine failures. Also included were engines that failed due to a mechanical malfunction but where the fault was evident on the ground and yet the pilot took off anyway. The bottom line was that the majority of engine failures could have been prevented by the pilot.

It would seem that the least likely scenario for an engine failure in a typical Cessna/Piper light trainer/tourer would be where the a properly maintained engine that had a normal runup, has sufficent uncontaminated fuel, is not icing up and shows normal engine guage indications......suddenly and without warning suffers a total failure. Or in other words the common flight training scenario. This does not mean that the forced approach procedure should not be taught and practiced, just that this scenario is only one possibility among many others and that IMO the best defense against the engine failure emergency is to mimimize the probability of the engine failing in the first place by conducting good runups, carry extra fuel, be vigilient about the formation of carb ice etc etc.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

The PT6 has a mean time between failures of less than 1 failure for every 100,000 hrs flown. If you have had 2 failures of this type of engine than my thought is the engines were not properly maintained. An engine failure because the engine is not properly looked after IMO falls into the preventable enginr failure catagory.

Once again we have statistics that only point out an average.

Both of my engine failures on the PT6's had nothing to do with not being properly looked after.

Here again is why they failed.



Two were fuel controller failures on PT6's.

The engines were PT6-20's.

The company I was flying for had a lot of these engines in their Twin Otters and their Turbine Goose's.

Mind you that was some years ago though and it is possible you were not flying for a living then so you may not be familiar with the problems we had with fuel controllers then, in those engines.

[IO540]

why do a lot of pilots fall outside of said statistics?

If one sticks to certified engines, I think it must be down to the broad spectrum of "maintenance" (quotes fully intended) standards in GA.

Also, it is natural for rare events to show clustering, so finding one pilot who has had several is to be expected.

[Pilot DAR]

I'm with Chuck on the PT6 issue. Excellent engines, but not perfect, neither is P&W. My total flying of PT6's (-27, and -28) is about 120 hours. During that time, I personally shut one down preventatively, when the fuel control unit failed within 10 hours after a P&W repair/overhaul (I don't know which). This maintenance had been required because the same engine had been overtemped because the previous FCU had failed weeks earlier. Pilot action/inaction had not at all been a factor in the failure in either case.

Not statistics, just my experience.

[kala87]

Interesting thread. Well, it just happens I've been done quite a few PFL's in the past 3 weeks as part of my PPL revalidation (I passed the check!). For what they're worth, here are my thoughts:

1. In this part of the world, many fields are of the tennis court sized variety (definitely not East Anglian sized prairie!) with big stone walls round the boundaries, often with a diagonal or side slope and a hummocky surface as well. This somewhat limits your choice of landing site. I accept that once the aircraft is on the ground, the deceleration is going to be quite rapid on the rough ground, but I would prefer it wasn't caused by a block of granite. So, a search for a reasonably long flattish field is always a good idea. Of course I accept that in a real forced landing you may not have this luxury.

2. Long straight-in glide approaches are hard to get right, even with a slip or S-turns. The "high key, low key" method, with a tight base leg is much better. The aspect of the base leg can be varied to lose height if you are too high, ie too high, then turn away from the field sufficient to lose height. If you are really high, by all means orbit on base leg.

This is invariably the way I practice glide approaches when landing at my home airfield, and it works every time.

3. By all means slip the a/c to lose height on final, but be careful with the flap limiting speed. On one PFL I had flap 40 selected on a C172, tried a quite aggresive slip and quickly found the speed was 10 kts above the flap limiting speed -quickly corrected before the instructor noticed! In fact accurate speed control is vital to the exercise - try diving for the field in this part of the world and you will end up building up excess speed and probably going into the stone wall at the far end.

4. Most engine failures are caused by carb.heat or fuel problems so your first actions after pitching for best glide speed should always be to pull the carb heat knob and check/switch the fuel selector, and switch on the electric fuel pump if one is fitted. Fly the aircraft right down to the ground, send a mayday and don't bother with the transponder.

5. In most of my practice PFL's, being too high was far more common than being too low.

6. Try and pick a field that roughly aligns with the into-wind direction. Be aware of the wind strength and direction at all times, especially when turning from base onto final.

[Fuji Abound]

I think we are going over old ground.

First and foremost Mr Guppy is correct – engines do fail, and just because the statistics predict an engine will fail every 2,000 hours or whatever doesn’t mean that your particular failure will not be in the first 50 hours and you will not have a second failure in the next 5 hours. Obvious, I think we would all agree.

However, the stats do suggest that engine failures are rare, and become a great deal rarer if they are not pilot or mechanic induced in some way.

The FAA have produced stats that I believe are reasonably reliable and on which I base this statement. However, I recognise that far from all engine failures are reported so inevitably the stats are only as good as the reliability of the raw data.

I also agree with IO540’s point in that with any statistical analysis there will be hot spots. We all know there are aircraft that for one reason or another suffer higher engine failure rates than others. Dare I say there are also pilots who seem predisposed to engine failures!

How we cope with an engine failure is down to luck and skill – an issue on which I know I and Mr Guppy will part company. I agree with the recent poster – fly anytime soon over parts of Devon and Cornwall and with all the skill in the world you will do very well indeed to stop before a dry stone wall does the stopping for you. How well the landing turns out will probably depend on how hard the stone wall is and how quickly it does the job for you!

The reality is many pilots fly very few hours a year. They are struggling to remain substantially competent never mind being forced landing Sky Gods. I gave an analogy previously about sailing because I felt it was relevant. Yachties are no different – the majority would struggle to do a reasonable job of recovering a MOB simply because they do not sail enough. The RYA recognised this problem some while back so we teach a method of recovery which gives the most ham fisted of skippers the best chance of recovering the person. In the same way pilots who don’t fly many hours a year must either spend all the time they are flying rehearsing FLs, give up flying, or use a technique which gives them the best chance of a successful FLing.

You may feel my point of view is complacent, but I think it is realistic because for many if they spend their whole time worrying about the engines failing, where and how they were going to land, not only would they give up flying, but they would probably may a mess of all the other equally important management tasks like changing tanks so the engine doesn’t run out of fuel due to fuel starvation.

For those who fly more often by all means stake your claim as a Sky God – spend more time rehearsing these skills and developing the best possible technique and you may increase your chances of success should the worst happen.

For the rest of us operate a Cirrus whenever you can; I shall be pulling the chute so hopefully it is pretty much academic.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

For those who fly more often by all means stake your claim as a Sky God – s.

What is a Sky God?

[Big Pistons Forever]

If one is going to compare statistics than you have to compare comparable numbers.

With respect to the PT6, all of the failures mentioned above would not have been counted in the 80% figure because

1) they were not in light aircraft (FAA definition is less than 6000lbs GTOW)

2) they did not result in an off airport landing or a crashed aircraft

Like most statistics the experience of one particular indivdual is likely to vary from the average of a large group. I pointed out this particular statistic (80% of all light aircraft engine failure accidents were caused by the actions/inactions of the pilot) because it reflects the facts of a large number of actual aircraft accidents over many years. How any particular pilot chooses to use this statistic.... or not, is of course up to them. I posted the information because my experience has been that most PPL's are not aware of the accident statistics and may find the information usefull.

Chuck:

in an earlier post you posted that you had a double engine failure in a Piper Navajo, due to the fuel lines being blocked. What casued the blockage ?

[Pilot DAR]

For the rest of us operate a Cirrus whenever you can; I shall be pulling the chute so hopefully it is pretty much academic

Is deploying the parachute in the case of an engine failure in a Cirrus a recommended procedure? The Cirrus SR20 flight manual I have does not leave me with that impression, indeed, somewhat to the contrary...

As the manual refers to "expected ... loss of the airframe" in the case of parachute deployment, is it appropriate to turn a possibly good forced landing into a lost airframe situation?

Would not deploying a parachute attached to an otherwise flyable aircraft make it much more difficult to guide it to a suitable touchdown area? At the very least, in a populated place, does not the pilot maintain the moral responsibility to guide the the striken aircraft to an area where the least possible injury and damage to those on the ground, would be the result?

[Gertrude the Wombat]

Looking at this from another angle if statistics are to be believed then why do a lot of pilots fall outside of said statistics?
Almost certainly because the sample sizes are too low.

[bjornhall]

Looking at this from another angle if statistics are to be believed then why do a lot of pilots fall outside of said statistics?

The usual error of trying to draw conclusions from statistics using only mean values. One needs higher order moments as well in order to draw any kind of meaningful conclusions from the data itself (at the very least some variance measurement). If one were to do that, I guess one would find that the variation among pilots is so high that the mean values are quite pointless.

The other big problem is that the sample sizes are too large. People try to create large sample sizes by grouping together all sorts of pilots undertaking all sorts of operations in some belief that large sample sizes make the statistics better. What one ends up with is a fairly accurate value of something nobody is interested in measuring. If I want to know, say, my probabilities of having an engine failure, I want a sample consisting of pilots similar to me doing similar things in similar planes. The proper sample size is one individual, and the result will not be available until my career is over! :}

The third rather obvious point is that engine failures are not random events. An engine fails for a reason. If one has a perfectly good, healthy engine that is handled properly, the chances of it failing is close to zero. If there is a fatigue crack in a rod with a remaining life of some 3000 cycles, the chances of the engine failing in the next five minutes is about 100%. Since one does not know if one belongs to the former or the latter cathegory, one fundamentally has no idea of the probability of having an engine failure during that flight. Statistics is useful for all sorts of things, but not for making predictions of individual events.

[Fuji Abound]

Is deploying the parachute in the case of an engine failure in a Cirrus a recommended procedure? The Cirrus SR20 flight manual I have does not leave me with that impression, indeed, somewhat to the contrary...

I think the view has always been pretty clear.

You would have to be very certain of a successful forced landing not to deploy the chute.

Here is the rational.

With the chute you will land vertically at around 20 mph. The u/c and compression panels beneath the seats are all designed to absorb energy and the energy that is transmitted to the pax is in the vertical plane - the precise plane the spine and the rest of the body is best able to absorb the residual energy.

Compare this with a conventional forced landing. If you are lucky you might impact with a forward velocity of around 60 mph (it could range by maybe -10mph but could equally exceed +30mph) which at best means you are carrying nearly ten times as much energy and the vector almost certainly will be in the wrong plane when it comes. The energy might dissipate slowly if you are lucky, but then again if you are unlucky the nose might dig in and the aircraft flip, with all sorts of other possibilities.

Which option would you take?

For these reasons the current thinking is you would have to have a good reason for not using the chute. The insurance companies share that view and favour the use of the chute if the engine quits.

In reality if you review the majority of chute deployments the aircrafts final resting place has been further cushioned by trees, shrubs and other elements of the terrain. While usually the damage to the aircraft is in fact relatively light and repairable, usually the aircraft is not repaired. The same would be true of an aircraft involved in a FL unless there was no serious structural damage. You would be lucky to land a Cirrus in most fields and find the u/c intact.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Chuck:

in an earlier post you posted that you had a double engine failure in a Piper Navajo, due to the fuel lines being blocked. What casued the blockage ?

Ice crystals.

[SkyHawk-N]

kala87 said ...

3. By all means slip the a/c to lose height on final, but be careful with the flap limiting speed. On one PFL I had flap 40 selected on a C172, tried a quite aggresive slip and quickly found the speed was 10 kts above the flap limiting speed

What does the POH for the 172 in question say about slipping the aircraft with 40 degree flaps set?

[24Carrot]

Chuck, you are a one-man statistical data source!

As a rough estimate, how many times did you decide not to fly at all because of pre-flight doubts about the engine?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Chuck, you are a one-man statistical data source!

All I can do is relate my own experiences with flying.


As a rough estimate, how many times did you decide not to fly at all because of pre-flight doubts about the engine?

Just off the top of my head I can think of three engine problems I had that were enough concern to persuade me not to fly them until the cause was found.

The first time was with an airplane that had had an engine failure and the crew had to use METO ( Maximum except take off. ) power to get back to the airport.

They changed the failed engine and I did the next trip on the airplane, on descent the other engine started to backfire as power was reduced at the destination and also when returning to the departure airport ( Goose Bay ).

The decision was made to change the AMC in the carburetor ( Automatic mixture control unit. ).

On the test flight it had the same problem and we started to look deeper into the issue, I happened to be coming back from getting some stuff for the job and they were running it up and listening to the sound from a distance I had a hunch what was wrong, cracked cylinder ? 's.

We did a leak down test and there were four cylinders below specs.

We changed four cylinders and on the test flight I was looking at the engine as the power was reduced from climb power to cruise on the down wind leg...as I watched a cylinder let go and went right up through the cowling, I just hit the feather button and then followed the feather shut down check list.

The engine as I had suspected was junk and my decision not to fly it because of the way it was acting was correct.

That was the first, should I use more bandwidth and relate the other two?

[douglas.lindsay]

Always interesting to hear the tales - particularly the inexperienced of us like me... go on...

[Big Pistons Forever]

The usual error of trying to draw conclusions from statistics using only mean values. One needs higher order moments as well in order to draw any kind of meaningful conclusions from the data itself (at the very least some variance measurement). If one were to do that, I guess one would find that the variation among pilots is so high that the mean values are quite pointless.

The other big problem is that the sample sizes are too large. People try to create large sample sizes by grouping together all sorts of pilots undertaking all sorts of operations in some belief that large sample sizes make the statistics better. What one ends up with is a fairly accurate value of something nobody is interested in measuring. If I want to know, say, my probabilities of having an engine failure, I want a sample consisting of pilots similar to me doing similar things in similar planes. The proper sample size is one individual, and the result will not be available until my career is over! :}

The third rather obvious point is that engine failures are not random events. An engine fails for a reason. If one has a perfectly good, healthy engine that is handled properly, the chances of it failing is close to zero. If there is a fatigue crack in a rod with a remaining life of some 3000 cycles, the chances of the engine failing in the next five minutes is about 100%. Since one does not know if one belongs to the former or the latter cathegory, one fundamentally has no idea of the probability of having an engine failure during that flight. Statistics is useful for all sorts of things, but not for making predictions of individual events.



I agree that one has to be carefull not to attribute too much accuracy to a statistical value but I think the accident trends provide usefull information. The 80% number came from light aircraft that had an engine failure and had to execute a off airport forced landing or were damanged. I think it is safe to say that the majority of light aircraft hours flown are either as training or as a private flight. The fact is that the majority of crumpled airplanes sitting in a field got there because they ran out of gas or let carb ice stop the engine. Very few had an engine failure because of a "fatigue crack in the connecting rod", or any other catastrophic internal engine failure. To reduce risk one must be able to assign an appropriate level of risk to possible events. I think the engine failure statistic is of value in reminding all pilots that they are in direct control of the major risk factors that are the most likely to cause a pilot to experience an engine failure.

I suppose if you are convinced that you will always takeoff with sufficent uncontaminaded gas with the fuel selector always correctly set and never let carb ice develop then the accident statistics that show many pilots have in the past failed to take those steps and suffered the resultant engine failure...... you would feel that the information is of no value to you. Obviously each pilot must decide for themselves how much weight to put on the statistics and whether or not the trends that they may reveal would prompt a reexamination of how they operate their aircraft.

BTW of the private light aircraft engine failure accidents that I have personal knowledge of and which resulted in off airport landings with the aircraft substantially damaged/destroyed; 2 were "ran out of gas"(C150,C172), one was the result of leaving the fuel selector on one tank untill it ran dry, even though there was fuel in the other tank (C172) 1 one was carb ice (C150)and the last one ironically was a fatigue failure of a connecting rod (C172).

[24Carrot]

That was the first, should I use more bandwidth and relate the other two? Yes please.

Always interesting to hear the tales - particularly the inexperienced of us like me... go on... For the same reason!

[Contacttower]

What does the POH for the 172 in question say about slipping the aircraft with 40 degree flaps set?

I only have the C182's in front of me but to quote (and this would probably be the same for the C172) "Steep slips with flaps settings greater than 20 degrees can cause a slight tendency for the elevator to oscillate under certain combinations of airspeed, sideslip angle, and center of gravity loadings".

[Chuck Ellsworth]

The second time I had reason not to fly an airplane with an engine problem that I felt unsure about was in Cape Town where I was giving type ratings to the owner and also a good friend of his Glen Dell who is now with the Red Bull air Racing Team.

We had previously been doing training in J/berg but due to the altitude we decided to go to Cape Town to finish the water work portion of the training as Cape Town is at sea level.

The problem first showed up one morning when I noticed the oil temperature started to climb and very soon went into the red zone which resulted in us returning to Cape Town airport.

After two weeks of trouble shooting which included not only changing the oil cooler and all the oil lines we even switched oil coolers from one side to another we decided to start the ferry flight to Oshkosh and hope the problem did not get worse...the temperatures were not high enough to have the over temp manifest itself and the owner wanted the airplane to get to Oshkosh if possible for the air show.

I told him I was almost certain that once I got in the higher temperature areas the problem would return.....I also put forward the possibility that the problem was related to a partially plugged oil galley in the engine caused by changing from mineral oil to detergent oil after 450 hours of running on mineral oil.

The engineers in Africa and the engine overhaul shop were doubtful about my diagnosis so I agreed to do my best to get it to Oshkosh.

All went well until we landed in Djibouti where the temperature was 45 c when we landed and the oil temp started to rise on the approach and landing. After a couple of days going through the usual problems associated with trying to get anything done in that part of Africa we finally taxied out for take off just as the sun was rising and the temperature was still low...for Djibouti, around 35 C.

I managed to finally get the airplane nursed up to nine thousand feet on the good engine and using the sick one at partial power to control the oil temperature where the air was cool enough to use cruise power and still have a safe oil temperature.

Our next fuel stop was Jeddah where the trip ended because we had to shut it down just after take off due to a run away oil temp problem.

Seven months and two trips back to Saudi Arabia due to running out of time on our visas we finally finished the engine change and ferried the airplane to England where it stayed for two years and was used flying for Miramax before I finally ferried it to Suffolk Virginia where it is now owned by this guy.

There is a good story on the history of that PBY in his web site for you keeners who like reading about airplanes.

Fighter Factory - WWII Aircraft Recovery and Restoration (http://www.fighterfactory.com/)

By the way when the engine was opened and examined during the rebuild I had been right about the cause...there was a partially plugged oil galley leading into the nose gear reduction case that caused the oil temp to run away in hot weather.

Will relate the third engine I was reluctant to fly, which also turned into a real expensive problem for the company who owned the airplane when I get some more time to peck away on this keyboard. :O

[Pilot DAR]

the vertical plane - the precise plane the spine and the rest of the body is best able to absorb the residual energy.


I am not a medical professional, and will certainly defer to such a person on this, however, until then, I very much disagree with this idea. I accept that there are crush panels in the Cirrus, which will absorb a vertical load, but even so, I would far rather ondergo a 60 MPH deceleration across the ground over many feet, perhaps hundreds if I do it right, than a vertical deceleration at 20 MPH in no more than about 4? feet! (unless a tree cooperates).

A five, four, or at worst three point harness will distribute the decelertion forces widely across the torso if it is a forward or nearly so force. Add to that, an injury resulting from deceleration in that direction tends to be less severe, relative to the "G" force. A vertical deceleration up the spine concentrates all the force up the spine only, and no muscles or tendons can play a part in absorbing that force, as they would were it to be forward into a harness. It's entirely weight on the spine. And, if you do an injury up the spine, it will be much more serious. I expect that experts on ejection from aircraft would have a lot to contribute on this.

Until then, when I'm flying a Cirrus, deployment of the 'chute will firstly be in accordance with the flight manual only, and thereafter, only if I deem the situation life threatening. If an engine failure in this type of aircraft is life threatening, I must have already pushed the limits really far somehow!

I have force landed four times, and (very lucky) not only have I not damaged an aircraft doing it, each time, I was able to fly it out very safely, once the problem was resolved. Though at times I have been required to wear a 'chute, I have never wanted to have one, or considered using it!

[IO540]

I would far rather ondergo a 60 MPH deceleration across the ground over many feet, perhaps hundreds if I do it right, than a vertical deceleration at 20 MPH in no more than about 4? feet!

I agree.

Experiments done by the USAF with rocket powered sleds in the 1950s involved a forward deceleration of 80+G. At the top end, the subject ended up with a detached retina but no broken bones IIRC.

A vertical acceleration is just going to b*gger up your spine so you end up in a wheelchair, and an excessive value is going to snap your pelvis, which is not great either.

I am not a doctor but give me a field to plough any day.

I would still like a chute for

- engine loss over forest
- engine loss over mountains
- structural failure

[VMC-on-top]

I'm no expert but would imagine that the G's from any Martin Baker ejection seat get the pilot out a hell of a lot faster than 20mph - and I understand the maximum number of times a pilot can eject is twice because of compression damage to the spine. So I'm pretty sure that landing vertically at 20mph is going to be considerably less damaging to the spine than (a) ejecting from a MB seat and (b) hitting something solid at 60mph.

So, given the the option, I'd be reaching for the chute every time!

[24Carrot]

I would far rather ondergo a 60 MPH deceleration across the ground over many feet, perhaps hundreds if I do it right, than a vertical deceleration at 20 MPH in no more than about 4? feet!We can compare them. The vertical 20mph to zero in 4 feet is 3.36G. The horizontal 60mph to zero at 3.36G takes 36 feet. 60mph to zero in 4ft (stone wall scenario) is 30G.

speed squared = 2 times 32 times G times distance

e.g. (20x5280/3600)sqd = 2x32xGx4

As said already, tolerance of vertical and horizontal G will vary.

[Fuji Abound]

I am also no expert but I have taken an interest in this matter.

There are a number of factors that will determine the outcome of a forced landing. However, reading the accident reports, it strikes me that with conventional forced landings the single commonality is the lack of predictability. That makes sense to me. I suspect we all think about forced landings in the relatively sterile training environment. In reality there is every chance the engine will probably fail when we are least expecting it to do so.

From my limited experience, discussions with those who have had engines fail, and from reading the accident reports a lot of engine failures are at relatively low levels. Statistically this is not surprising because so many pilots usually operate between 1,500 and 3,000 feet. Catastrophic engine failure is often, not surprisingly, associated with some sole searching. For example, a pilot I know had oil all over the screen and almost no forward visibility. There are a host of reasons why in advance of a failure and for a time after the failure, it is all too easy for the pilot’s vision to have tunnelled, such that he has lost some of his situational awareness. He must now prepare for the landing and select the best landing site as well as maintain control of the aircraft. Again this is barely representative of the normal sterile training environment in which the pilot is expecting a PFL, has thought about wind, has rehearsed the vital pre-landing actions and, as luck has it, is almost certainly over a area that will present some reasonable landing opportunities.

To put it simply you are lucky if a forced landing occurs in ideal circumstances and you are truly current if you are able to totally avoid tunnel vision and correctly prioritise the vital tasks. I would suggest that is not representative of the average GA pilot flying less than 50 hours a year, and may not be representative of many pilots flying a lot more hours.

Moving on, the wind has been assessed, although perhaps not that well or without adequate thought to the variation in direction or strength at the bottom of the valley with which we are confronted, and a field has been selected.

Everything now depends on maintaining control and arriving where we intend. Over the years I have enjoyed taking part in spot landing competitions. At some you can stand with the other onlookers almost in the box. It is interesting to see how many pilots new to the game fail to even get there wheels in the box – and that is with the availability of power. Inevitably some types are much more difficult to spot land accurately – in fact the very types many pilots commonly fly.

We can all recall the tips we were given about field selection – and they are in the main sound. However find me a field that turns out the way you would have wished form 2,000, by which many pilots will have committed to the landing site. I think we all realise that there are many hazards which we may not have anticipated.

As to the landing, yes of course in ideal circumstances we slide across Bowling Green grass in an exactly horizontal plane until eventually the aircraft comes to rest of its own accord. Yeah, right. The reality is likely to be different, and it is likely to involve some degree of impact damage involving both horizontal and torsional forces some of which may be high. Both the aircraft and its occupants are ill prepared for these forces. We all understand that very little thought was given to the design of the vast majority of light aircraft to energy absorption. How many light aircraft have air bags, crumple zones, roll bars and don’t have all sorts of sharp and protruding panel work almost designed to impale or prevent your egress?

A reasonably sound resume of the effect of deceleration on the human bodies appears here:

http://ftp.rta.nato.int/public/PubFullText/RTO/EN/RTO-EN-HFM-113/EN-HFM-113-03.pdf (http://ftp.rta.nato.int/public/PubFullText/RTO/EN/RTO-EN-HFM-113/EN-HFM-113-03.pdf)

and is worth reading. If anyone is interested I have more detailed material. We believe the body is better able to withstand axial loads than horizontal rotational loads which are more than likely in a typical forced landing (other than the greaser along the apocryphal Bowling Green). An analysis of rotary accidents suggests spinal injury is no worse than in fixed wing accidents, surprising in itself given that in the typical rotary accident the vertical rate of descent and the absence of energy absorbing technology results in significantly greater loads being transmitted to the pax.

IO I am aware of the tests to which you refer. However with respect I cant imagine they are representaive of the impact loads in a typical forced landing because the aircraft is unlikley to be running along the ground in a single plane but more likely to be subjected to some "tumbling". Moreover how many pilots find themselves tightly strapped to their seats by means of a "proper" five point ratchet harness.

So, to sum up, for the average pilot, who at best is likely to find himself dealing with his worst nightmare while lacking in the currency to achieve better than a pedestrian forced landing an engine failure is a real threat to his and his passengers. For the pilot who considers himself current, he may still need a healthy dose of luck or live to regret as he descends through IMC into the mountain valley painted on his GPS, that the terrain at the bottom of the valley was at least as good as he hoped and the winds aloft had not turned into a stonking 20mph tail wind.

I don’t want this to sound like a Cirrus PR campaign, because it isn’t. However it does reflect my thoughts on why ballistic parachutes and cockpit design are vital as a means of improving on average the survivability of a forced landing. Yes, with luck the outcome of many forced landings is very good. However, I would rather we take luck from the equation. By doing so that means we give the average pilot experiencing an engine failure above the sort of terrain and in the type of conditions we could reasonable expect him to be operating the best chances of survival and the least injury.

I also think for an aircraft with a BP I am comforted by the predictable arrival this should ensure. I know with almost certainty that I will land with a vertical velocity of less than 20 mph. I know that the energy absorbing material will do its job. I know that it is very unlikely any of the forward facing elements of the cockpit will impact on me, or hinder my egress, I know there will not be any surprises that I hadn’t spotted when I turn final, importantly I know that I have got maximum time during the descent to organise myself and my pax to best improve their chances. For all of these reasons I think a chute is almost always the best option. I think the injury record in every successful Cirrus deployment speaks for itself.

Please persuade me otherwise – I would be truly interested.

At the moment I will take the predictable 3G any time.

[VMC-on-top]

We can compare them. The vertical 20mph to zero in 4 feet is 3.36G. The horizontal 60mph to zero at 3.36G takes 36 feet. 60mph to zero in 4ft (stone wall scenario) is 30G.

speed squared = 2 times 32 times G times distance

e.g. (20x5280/3600)sqd = 2x32xGx4

As said already, tolerance of vertical and horizontal G will vary.

Ejection seat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejection_seat)

"The pilot typically experiences an acceleration of about 12–14 g (117–137 m/s²)"

- and the purpose is for them to walk away from the scene, so 3g is more like the forces experienced on a half decent rollercoaster!

[172driver]

At the moment I will take the predictable 3G any time.

The chap in this thread (http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/424481-rans-s-9-loses-wing-pulls-chute-pilot-ok-15-aug-2010-a.html#post5876651) would certainly agree!

On a different note: I once read (cannot find the reference any more) that about 70-80% of engine failures - or least the EFATO variety - occur at the first change in power setting after t/o. This comes from some FAA statistic and it certainly impressed me enough to avoid changes to the power setting until at about 1000' (when and where possible). Can someone confirm?

[24Carrot]

Fuji, thank you for a very informative post.

One very tiny quibble, the R22 helicopter does have energy absorbing bendable skids and crushable seat bottoms.

[Fuji Abound]

24carrot - no thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings.

I wasnt aware that was the case although you would expect it to be so with more "modern" civil designs. I dont recall the report to which I gave the link mentions the specific types included in their study.

[Big Pistons Forever]

The chap in this thread (http://www.pprune.org/private-flying/424481-rans-s-9-loses-wing-pulls-chute-pilot-ok-15-aug-2010-a.html#post5876651) would certainly agree!

On a different note: I once read (cannot find the reference any more) that about 70-80% of engine failures - or least the EFATO variety - occur at the first change in power setting after t/o. This comes from some FAA statistic and it certainly impressed me enough to avoid changes to the power setting until at about 1000' (when and where possible). Can someone confirm?

This notion came from a study of EFATO failures of large radial engines. It has to do with the change in loadings of the nose case reduction gear and or valve train. The theory being that the change of power and especially RPM alters the forces inside the engine which could trigger a harmfull vibration or imbalance in an allready failing engine and lead to the engine self destruction. Therefor it became a realtively common practice to not make early power reduction in these engines. However since almost all light aircraft have simple direct drive lightly loaded engines the factors that are an issue for the big radials do not exist. I read a short note on this issue from one of the engine makers (lycoming I believe) which stated that if the engine made full power and was running smoothly at the start of the takeoff run it was very unlikely to suffer an internal mechanical failure at the first power reduction.

However in a take off of a single engine aircraft, altitude is your friend so I think a full power climb to a 1000 feet at Vy is a good idea to quickly get some altitude and therefore have more options in the event of an EFATO

[Gertrude the Wombat]

One has an opportunity to practice a forced landing every time one lands an airplane.
Not round here. On a typical busy summer weekend it's:

"Request PFL to land"

"Negative due circuit traffic, join overhead runway ... "

[bjornhall]

At the moment I will take the predictable 3G any time.


Those "predictable 3G" might be expected when landing on a flat, unobstructed, suitably firm surface (provided the darned thing actually works, etc etc, see previous post). But once you pull the chute you no longer have any control over where you land. You could just as well end up in high trees, power lines, on a road 30 feet in front of a semi, snag a wing on an obstacle causing you to land upside down, end up in water, and so on. No 3G then.

Cirrus might have changed their sales pitch since then, but when that thing was introduced the chute was expected and intended to save you from certain death, not injury. In a situation that would otherwise lead to a destroyed plane and a dead pilot, the chute would result in a destroyed plane and an injured pilot. Whereas an even somewhat successful forced landing results in an uninjured pilot and a possibly undamaged and probably repairable plane.

In my view, suggesting a pilot would be so poor that they would not even be able to accomplish a forced landing on suitable terrain is setting the piloting standards way, way too low.

Even a pilot who only flies 20 hours per year needs to spend enough of those hours practicing to be reasonably certain they could pull it off. That is the message that should be given, rather than "an average low hours pilot is so lousy they shouldn't even try it, just pull the chute and pray".

One thing that could probably be emphasized more is the option to choose a landing site that provides a suitable rate of deceleration. Performing a real-life forced landing on a 1000 ft smooth grass surface without rolling off the far end at speed would be somewhat challenging for many, and pulling off the same on a 500 ft field would be downright tricky. But if that 500 ft field has high, standing crop or low young trees in it, providing for deceleration in maybe 50 - 100 ft, anybody could pull it off; just land anywhere in that field, even in the last 200 ft, and you should be fine shouldn't you? (genuine question, I have not heard this method described anywhere).

[Fuji Abound]

bjhornall

Have a look at the record.

Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) Deployment History - Cirrus Owners and Pilots Association (http://www.cirruspilots.org/Content/CAPSHistory.aspx)

It challenges some of your assumption and just about all of Mr Guppies.

My friend had over 10,000 hours, a good mix of CAT and GA. She landed her Pitts in field - and it looked a very good field indeed. The aircraft hit a rock, flipped and she spent six months in hospital. With respect tell her she was not a good pilot - not many are better.

As to your last paragraph you make a valid point. However if you read my earlier post you address the point I sort to make. Objects may help to disipate the energy but equally might fail to do so. Toying with hard objects is not predictable.

Mr Guppy

Have a look at the COPA web site (see above). The whole of your post is ill informed and has little or no basis in fact.

You are well advised to avoid getting to close to anything factual.

[20driver]

As they say never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Cirrus seems to attack a lot of stories that rarely match the facts.

Just to note, the Boulder crash was a midair and the plane was one fire. In fact I think the occupants jumped out.

Only two loss of power incidents noted, one of which was stated to be a fuel management problem. No mention of the cause of the second one so engine failure does not seem to be a major issue.

Icing was involved in a lot of the incidents, suggesting being where you don't belong remains the major menace in GA in all types of planes.

What is interesting is there are a lot more fatal incidents in Cirrus's where the CAP was not deployed. COPA is trying to drum into people to use the chute.

Another interesting note is mid airs were a driving factor behind developing the chute. But like engine failures mid airs seem to be rare on the list.

Despite all the hot air I think the CAPS is a useful device. Is it worth the price is another question.

20driver

[20driver]

In that tirade Guppy are you saying flying single engine in IMC is stupid or that just these pilots were stupid?



20driver

[20driver]

Conventional wisdom is it is best to climb at Vy to 1000 feet. I don't buy into that in my case.

Case A - Climb at Vy. In my TB-20 this is very nose up with no view of the ground below. If you have a failure in the 3-5 seconds it will take to identify and act you are stalled or very close to it. It will take a very strong push over and leave you in a strange attitude trying to avoid a stall and looking where to go. Trying this with an instructor has always being pretty demanding.

Case B - Climb closer to Vx - I figure if the engine does fail I want to be in a better attitude to control the plane and I'm already looking where I'm going. At my local field I know which way I will turn. (In a high wing plane I would see this differently, but I fly a low wing) You are going down, There is little point in trying to restart, so control your airspeed and fly it into the ground under control is the best you can do.

In the scenario A by the time you have things under control you have probably lost any altitude you gained over case B and you are no doubt mentally saturated.

Interesting in all the real cases listed here of failures no one has mentioned one in a GA SEP on takeoff.

20driver

[Fuji Abound]

Cirrus are dangerous.

We can now see that the Cirrus fatal accident rate is higher than the overall general aviation (GA) rate of 1.19 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours.

Comparing Cirrus to the GA fleet is a tough comparison because GA includes multi-engine turboprops and turbojets flown by two pilots. This redundancy and professionalism produces significantly fewer fatal accidents. Backing out the flight hours and fatalities for those aircraft from the survey reduces flight time to about 14 million flight hours and produces about 261 fatal accidents.

Thus, the single-engine piston accident rate is about 1.86 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours.

The Cirrus rates of 1.42 to 1.76, depending on the time scale, compares very favorably with single-engine piston aircraft rate of 1.86.

But what about other competitive aircraft like Cessna, Beechcraft, Mooney, Columbia, or Diamond? Unfortunately, none of those manufacturers publish their fleet hours. The legacy manufacturers have produced considerably more aircraft over a long period of time, so fleet comparisons may not be meaningful. For instance, the FAA survey of GA activity reports planes less than five years old fly about 200 hours a year, while planes 25 years or older only fly 125 hours per year.

As for fleet sizes, other new manufacturers have such small fleets in comparison to Cirrus Design, perhaps one-tenth to one-third the number of airplanes, that just a few accidents can cause a huge fluctuation in their accident rates. Until more information becomes available, no meaningful comparisons are possible.

I think that is pretty balanced. Make your own mind up, but please base your views on the facts, rather than the usual ill infomed views expressed by some, who see the facts as a nuisance.

The parachute leads pilots into places they should not be.

Do you recall the many many accidents I am sure we have all read about involving pilots "finding" themselves in conditions beyond them or their aircraft (or both). Do your recall those cases of CFIT. Do you recall pilots losing instruments in IMC. Do you recall icing. I do.

Pilots can, and will always get themselves in fixes. There most of us go for the Grace of God. That doesnt mean we shouldnt do everything we can to avoid getting ourselves into a fix in the first place. However given that it will continue to happen, it is no bad thing to have an out. I think the chute is an out.

I think fitting seat belts to cars is a good idea because someone's son or daughter will think he is Stirling Moss.

With no apologies I think arguments to the contrary are dangerous and foolish because only a fool believes he will never make a mistake. I had the pleasure to be in the sim a few weeks ago with a pilot with nearly 40 years behind him, 10s of thousand hours, etc. During the simulated engine failure he "missed" a very obvious indication of the problem and "failed" to take the appropriate vital action. The training captain smiled and said nearly everyone does that! As I said you are a fool if you think you will never get yourself into a situation when the chute might come in handy unless, of course, you possess the very advanced flying skills of our friend Mr Guppy. :)

[Fuji Abound]

Mr Guppy

Please let me help you:

Let me google that for you (http://www.lmgtfy.com/?q=tirade)

:D

Thats my lot - I think it has been done to death.

[20driver]

Quote:
In that tirade Guppy are you saying flying single engine in IMC is stupid or that just these pilots were stupid?
Both.

Truly a statement worthy of the issuer.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Conventional wisdom is it is best to climb at Vy to 1000 feet. I don't buy into that in my case.

Case A - Climb at Vy. In my TB-20 this is very nose up with no view of the ground below. If you have a failure in the 3-5 seconds it will take to identify and act you are stalled or very close to it. It will take a very strong push over and leave you in a strange attitude trying to avoid a stall and looking where to go. Trying this with an instructor has always being pretty demanding.

Case B - Climb closer to Vx - I figure if the engine does fail I want to be in a better attitude to control the plane and I'm already looking where I'm going. At my local field I know which way I will turn. (In a high wing plane I would see this differently, but I fly a low wing) You are going down, There is little point in trying to restart, so control your airspeed and fly it into the ground under control is the best you can do.

In the scenario A by the time you have things under control you have probably lost any altitude you gained over case B and you are no doubt mentally saturated.

Interesting in all the real cases listed here of failures no one has mentioned one in a GA SEP on takeoff.

20driver

Vx (best angle of climb), is always slower than Vy (best rate of climb) so I have trouble following your logic as the higher speed of a Vy climb will produce a lower nose attitude yet still provide a high rate of climb and an acceptable angle. Climbing at Vx as you suggest produces the very nose high angle you want to avoid. I think a Vy climb to 1000 feet AGL represents a good compromise between angle, rate, nose attitude and down field position and is the SOP I use and teach to my students

[flybymike]

Be comfortable landing with and without power. Land fast, land slow. Get comfortable hitting the numbers each and ever time. Get comfortable getting down and getting stopped. Get comfortable not using brakes.

Practising high speed landings without brakes I will pass on....

[Big Pistons Forever]

SN3Guppy

I think the hostility of your last post is not really necessary....

[Chuck Ellsworth]

I find myself agreeing with Guppy more and more as I read his comments.

Especially about single engine IFR, and his logical approach on adusting your climb profile to suit the airplane and the mission you are flying.

As to This:



Getting shot at with small arms, missiles, and other arms is part of the job description; a professional endeavor, as opposed to flying in one's Cessna to visit Grandma on one dark and stormy night. Big difference.

Exactly, and unless one has experienced these things one should not form preconceived ideas about it.

Guppy the last time I had a close call flying in a no fly zone they scrambled two Mig 29's on me....one of my crew actually saw them light the afterburners.

( Dire Dawa )

[20driver]

Another way to look at it, if you lost power close the the ground what pitch attitude would you rather be in?
Given the reaction time to do something, I'd rather have the 20 knots extra airspeed and be able to nose over in a smooth maneuver than finding myself nose high on the verge of a stall.

It would be interesting to calculate the total energy vs time for a Vx and Vy climb profile to 1000 feet. I suspect the difference is minor. Might make a fun little flying experiment to time the two profiles.

A second consideration is relative risk. Engine failures on climb out are very rare. So are collisions in the traffic pattern. Both have happened in the area I fly in, but collisions are more frequent. On a TB-20 with a long cowling you have a limited forward view in a nose high attitude, so climbing at a lower rate with a lower pitch gives you some safety margin in terms of visibility.


20driver

- We did have a plane loose power on takeoff at a local field. The cause, I was told, was water in the fuel.

[VMC-on-top]

Guppy, so you are saying that single engine IMC is dangerous and shouldn't be done at all - ever?

I have an IMC rating and don't make a habit of flying in hard IMC but have flown on top many times since getting the rating. My criteria for flying on top (or in IMC) are

1. Don't fly on top where the MSA is in the clouds and
2. Don't try to climb on top where the freezing level is well below the tops.

Are you therefore saying that anyone with an IMCR or an IR who flies SEP should just not venture out at all unless its clear VMC for the whole route? No-one would fly if that were the case, would they? Surely, there's an argument which says that in actual fact, flying MEP in IMC is (potentially) more dangerous for the simple facts that there is the temptation by many MEP owners to fly closer to the limits of maintenance etc. and if they are in hard IMC and have an engine failure, there is a greater chance of loss of control?

I'm not talking about those pilots / owners who fly 1000+ hrs a year but the "average" GA, say 50-100hrs p.a.?

I only have 150 hours total so I'm not in a position to preach to anyone, I'm just more than a little surprised I suppose, at the suggestion that "anyone" flying SEP in IMC (or on top) is asking for trouble - period?

[IO540]

Mr Guppy (a CIA agent and a one-time Belgian Congo mercenary, apparently, whose biggest risk in aviation is small arms fire) does his best to make some good points (like quite a few of the Cirrus chute deployments being nothing other than sheer pilot stupidity, which I agree with) but he then he totally undermines his fearsome reputation withPilot disorientation in instrument conditions, in a single engine piston airplane. Pilot shouldn't have been there to begin with.

What a load of utter bollox.

[Contacttower]

What a load of utter bollox.

I quite agree, the number of engines one has has nothing to do with disorientation. I think this whole thread has got a bit silly actually and in fact the Cirrus discussion is giving me a serious sense of deja vu. No one is really posting anything particularly profound or useful. Loads of people on here fly single engine IFR (including myself) and are completely fine with it but I think would rather balk at the prospect of being shot down. I know which risk I'm happier with. :E

[Pilot DAR]

the number of engines one has has nothing to do with disorientation

Well... it might, if one engine stops, and the pilot gets disoriented, and loses control, while trying to maintain control on the other....

[Contacttower]

The allegiance to single engine instrument flying is generally the domain of the inexperienced; those who simply don't know better yet.

I think it is much more to do with cost actually.

I would much rather fly IMC in the modern G1000 C182 that I do for example with its solid state AHRS and vacuum pump driven back up AI, backup battery for the essential systems and all the other trimmings that a modern IFR certified GPS/EFIS system comes with than the vast majority of shabby twins you see lying around in the UK which cost a lot more and are more complicated to operate. Although Guppy you quite rightly warn against using aircraft with single power sources for the instruments in reality few people actually fly IFR regularly with just one vacuum pump even if the aircraft itself has only one engine. I find it ironic as well that you criticise the Cirrus when in fact the latest versions have excellent system redundancy, the G1000 system for the Cirrus for example has two separate AHRS systems. They are designed to fly IFR safely and can so, which has nothing to do with idiots flying into thunderstorms or getting disorientated. 737s have crashed due to pilot disorientation just as Cirri have, it is not usually the aircraft's fault.

I personally think the Cirrus is an excellent design and has really improved the piston end of the GA scene in the US in terms of the quality of the aircraft available.