Engine Failure

[Chuck Ellsworth]

In short, what I'm getting at is, I would prefer you gave some of your foxy wisdom for the 20% of failures that we didn't cause.

Exactly lilflyboy262...2........

Is it possible that even those pilots who use good decision making and are extra pro active in their inspections of their airplanes and the maintenance thereof could still have a sudden unexpected engine failure?

Looking back on my career I should have had about four times more engines quit on me because believe me the ones that quit sure had nothing to do with anything I had done.......in fact two PT 6's failed on me and the failures sure were not predictable.

Then again what would I know compared to some of the real experts here?

[rigpiggy]

Don't kill anybody on the ground
Don't kill anybody in the airplane
Don't wreck the airplane

in that order

[Big Pistons Forever]

Chuck

I am assuming the original poster is a PPL flying a simple fixed gear Piper/Cessna light aircraft

So to keep the comparison one of apples to apples I have three questions for you. Since you have 50 + years of flying experience I figure you represent a pretty big sample size

1) How many off airport forced landings have you made where the single engine lycoming or Continental powered aircraft suffered a unforeseeable mechanical failure

2) How many times when flying a single engine lycoming or Continental powered aircraft have you had the engine fail but were able to restart it and make it to an airport.

3) How many times when flying a single engine lycoming or Continental powered aircraft did you recognize a failing engine and where able to nurse it to the nearest airport.

Personally my experience is as follows (nine years as a PPL followed by 25 years flying commercially)

I have had no instances of a Q 1 scenario,

three instances of a Q 2 scenario, (inadvertantly ran a tank dry twice and once had a case of an internal mag failure which massively advanced the spark and basically killed the engine. Selecting only the good mag restored normal power)

one instance of a Q3 scenario (the engine in a C 150 ate its oill pump. I caught the oil pressure dropping in time to make it back to the airport before the engine seized.)

So for me I have had none of the 20 percenter engine failures and 4 engine failures that I prevented from turning into a off airport for real forced approach, by either fixing the problem or recognizing it early enough I could get to an airport and make a normal landing. Or to put it another way I was able to not join 80 percenters club. My goal is to keep that record.

My only point is that while the possibility exists that you may have to make the choice of road of using a road because the engine failed in an unforeseeable way, the probability (as reflected in the accident stats) is that you could either get the engine going again and for what ever reason did not, or it gave you some warning which you did not appreciate in time.

So I think it is important for lower time pilots to make a serious evaluation of how they are actively working to avoid the common pilot caused engine failures of fuel exhaustion/mismanagement/contamination and carb ice and to make sure they have a good understanding of the aircraft systems and performance and regularly practice the emergency vital actions needed to restore power
If you can't put your hand on your heart and say to yourself "yes I have got that stuff firmly in hand" then I would suggest that you start with that list before worrying about road or no road for the engine failure scenario.

That does not mean you ignore the 20 percenter scenarios, just don't assign them a unrealistically high probability especially if it comes at the expense of working at eliminating failures that were within your ability to prevent.

[Big Pistons Forever]

Originally Posted by lilflyboy262...2

In short, what I'm getting at is, I would prefer you gave some of your foxy wisdom for the 20% of failures that we didn't cause

Pretty much everything you got taught about forced approaches at flight school is crap. If the engine fails your only priority is to survive the crash

So what makes a survivable crash? The accident record is clear as long as the aircraft hits approximately wings level and in a level pitch attitude and has a least a short ground run to reduce the deacceleration forces then there is a very high (98 % ish) probability that no will be killed. On the last point a steady 9 Gee deacceration from 60 kts to 0 kts takes less then 25 feet.

The killer crashes are the ones where you hit in a steep nose down and/or steeply banked; or where you hit an immovable solid object at flying speed.

If the engine fails you should be able to do a cause check in less than 15 seconds. Proficiency here will help stop you from unnecessarily joining the 80 % club. My experience is that most PPL's don't practice this enough to be proficient. No joy on the cause check ? Well you are one unlucky pilot

Pick your field using the following criteria in that order

Close (a crappy field close is always better then a great field farther away)

Open ( ie no obstacles on the approach)

Flat (You don't need thousands of feet of golf grass, a couple of hundred that is free of major obstacles will do fine)

Point the aircraft at the selected space, trim for the glide and concentrate a getting the airplane to the chosen touch down point under control. If it looks like you are going to overshoot your touchdown point smash the aircraft into the ground with forward stick

That foxy enough for you......

[lilflyboy262...2]

That's perfect and exactly the type of advice that I was after from the more experienced guys like yourself.

Me? I have been flying for about 10yrs and haven't had so much as a splutter.
I truly hope it continues this way. Doesn't mean I am not ready for it either.

Know your surroundings, and know your planes capabilities.
I asked my Cojo the other day what he would do if the engine quit right now. He looked around and there was nothing. Suggested a controlled slow landing into the bendy young poplar trees.
There was a runway 18nm away, with a road that led all the way there.
We were at 8,500ft AGL. 500fpm decent with 90kts glide speed. I would sure as heck give it a crack and just re-evaluate every 1000ft.
Quick mental maths means that I should have been able to get 25.5 miles out of the glide. Should have arrived over the field with around 2000ft to spare.

Would that not be the better option?

[Chuck Ellsworth]

1) How many off airport forced landings have you made where the single engine lycoming or Continental powered aircraft suffered a unforeseeable mechanical failure.

Answer.......1

2) How many times when flying a single engine lycoming or Continental powered aircraft have you had the engine fail but were able to restart it and make it to an airport.

Answer.......0

3) How many times when flying a single engine lycoming or Continental powered aircraft did you recognize a failing engine and where able to nurse it to the nearest airport.

Answer.........0

So for me I have had none of the 20 percenter engine failures and 4 engine failures that I prevented from turning into a off airport for real forced approach, by either fixing the problem or recognizing it early enough I could get to an airport and make a normal landing. Or to put it another way I was able to not join 80 percenters club.

I have had eight engine failures in multi engine airplanes....six in big radials and two on turbine engines.

All of my engine failures ended at airports on the remaining engine with no further damage to the airplanes.