EFATO

[Pilot DAR]

was climbing at max rate in an Issacs Fury. The engine failed and the Fury stalled and spun immediately

Yeah, there is a less than universally understood concept, which most of us have been guilty of ignoring, to our own peril;

The steeper the climb, the slower the airspeed. The slower the speed, the higher the drag. The higher the drag, the faster the plane will slow down when you take the power away. There comes a point where the pilot just will not get the nose down fast enough, and a stall is assured.

A pilot should expect that the plane can be easily glided from at engine failure at Vy. An engine failure at Vx may be somewhat different, and extra skill will have to be applied. Slower than Vx (which is certainly possible) is much worse. It might not be possible following, a sudden engine failure, to lower the nose fast enough to accelerate to glide speed. In that case, you're going to stall before you can establish a glide. Game over.

There are phases of flight which we get into, which we will not be able to get out of following an engine failure. All helicopters have them - it's called a height/velecity curve. Airplanes have them too, but they are not documented. This is probably because airplanes are not expected to be operating in those regions of flight. Aside from slow flight training, there just is no reason. In slow flight training, you should have lots of altitude to recover the stall which will result.

I have done this testing in a modified Cessna Grand Caravan, and it was very scary! My experience with microlights is limited. I do know that they have less inertia, and so are even more vulnerable to this than certified light planes.

Vx to assure that the obsticle is cleared. Vy or faster after that. Yes, altitude is your friend, but not if you foresake airspeed to get it!

[foxmoth]

My point is, if you plan too hard, you might end up doing yourself out of time when you need it most. Time that requires you to think about what the air is doing over your airframe, and what you can do to reduce your chances of potentially injurious rapid deceleration on the ground.

Sorry, that is rubbish - ALWAYS, the first thing is to lower the nose. THEN If you have beforehand thought about where you are going that DOES reduce the chances of "potentially injurious rapid deceleration on the ground." because you are then not spending all your time thinking "where do I go now", pre planning should be giving you more time when you need it - if it does not, then you have done your planning wrong - but it does need to be simple and achievable.

[ivorPhillips]

Here is a great Video and narrative on the AOPA website, youcan get access

For free, Mooney impossible turn,

http://flash.aopa.org/asf/pilotstories/impossibleturn/

[Big Pistons Forever]

The May issue of Pilot has a write up on the Manchester Pa 38 crash. The aircraft nose was never lowered after the engine failed and the aircraft stalled and spun in......But the mags and fuel were off and a Mayday call was made

This is an accident which raises disturbing questions about how the pilot was trained. It is hard to not draw the conclusion that during training a lot more emphasis was placed on doing the engine failure drills than flying the aircraft........

Finally the AAIB tests should be a wake up call. At a Vx climb unless the nose is lowered; from engine failure to the start of stall/spin/die sequence is only 3 seconds.

As I have said in earlier posts if you want to practice an exercise that will give you the automatic reactions that will save your life in the event of an EFATO, at a safe altitude establish a Vx climb and smoothly but quickly close the throttle. You should be able to immediately lower the nose exactly to the gliding attitude every time. If you have never done it the first time will be an eye opener. This is one exercise where the first time you try it should not be when it suddenly gets very quiet right after takeoff....

[piperboy84]

Turn Backs: On a lighter note, in my particular case on the farm strip landing straight ahead is not only an option it is in fact the desired choice by far, regardless if I have plenty attitude for a turn back. The reason being the farmer owning the fields past my strip heading appears to have been more diligent and massively more skilled when ploughing his fields for grass sowing, so much so that the results of my attempts at purposely ploughing/cultivating and levelling my field for the sole intention of taking off and landing falls far short of his results for livestock grazing. (The smarmy git has got it like a friggin grass version of Heathrow)