By John Wyman, EAA 462533, Montreal Chapter 266
Accidents are the result of adding many problems together. It’s seldom ever just one thing that causes them. We airline pilots are taught this on an almost yearly basis by comparing it to a block of Swiss cheese. The more the holes line up, the greater chance of the problem developing into an accident. Having your engine cut out is an example. It’s the first hole in the block, or likely the second, because something led to it failing. However, where it cuts out determines the amount of time you have to safely glide to the ground — pretty straightforward, but difficult to do under most circumstances. Pilot error is often cited as the cause. But what does that mean? Their engines may have quit due to some immediate mechanical fault; their tanks may have been dry (fuel starvation or contamination) or perhaps it was something else entirely.
Forced Landings
It seems that the story is always the same — the result, a pile of rubble or worse still, fatalities. I don’t profess to have all the answers but I do feel that I have a good grasp of what they’re about, how to handle them, and more importantly, how to train for them. This is where I think we need a reset in how they are taught and practiced.
But first, let me introduce myself. I am an airline pilot for a Canadian charter company by profession (23 years so far), but I first sincerely got involved with flying in the Air Cadets. That’s a great program. I got my glider license on Schweizer 2-33s and then my private through scholarships. Like a lot of the readers here, I’ve been obsessed with airplanes for as long as I can remember. Dad fixed them too, so I was always hanging around a hangar watching him in action. Around the dinner table it was airplanes, airplanes, and oh, did I say it — AIRPLANES! I was fortunate to find something at an early age and stick with it, nearly learning to fly before driving. That didn’t happen because getting off one island and onto another in Montreal was a priority at 16, so the motorcycle came first! I still have it. My next stop on the motorbike was a gliding field and then the local airport. That was my youth. Grass airstrips, small airplanes, and fixing stuff — learning from Dad. I’m still doing that. Now, I’ve got a few airplanes and projects and my own airstrip — a real grass runway and my preferred airplanes have the third wheel in the back where it belongs. Not to say that I am only hell bent on tailwheels. That’s a given. But we do have a Piper Comanche 250 that’s about as bulletproof as they get and it has a big wheel up front for just about any strip you can handle — great performance, a good instrument platform, and it’s a real good-looking truck to boot. It hauls a lot. So, I am partial to tailwheels for training but there are some good nosewheel aircraft too, I just don’t like to train with them.
Fast forward a couple of decades and I now have the urge to write about flying. I have been brewing the idea for a while. I talked to some people about it. They said, like Nike, “Just DO IT!” I feel that something has to be said about aviation as a whole, where it’s headed, how EAA and general aviation are integral to one another, and what the hurdles are for small aircraft, schools, owners, pilots, mechanics, and airports. I bring to the table almost 17,000 flying hours and a little bit of wrench turning along the way. If I can make it a regular contribution, you should come to know where I stand and what my thoughts are.
Some might say I’m a little too straightforward when I shouldn’t be, while others have an opinion that muffled words are for the sake of appeasing the masses, and not making a point. I like to think I can make a point. Thus, my title for this column. Maybe I’ll ruffle a few feathers, perhaps I won’t — but at least you’ll know where I’m coming from.
Lets get at ‘er
Normal Approaches
I see, over and over again, in local aerodrome circuits, pilots carrying out most of their landings using power-on approaches. I’ll be the first to say that this is good engine management practice (no shock cooling of the cylinders; power is available when you need it, etc.) and, if it does quit, you’ll notice the immediate power loss. What irks me though is asking if these same novice and experienced fliers alike practice their power-off technique? I mean, completely off as in idle all the way down till the flare (except for a test or two here and there to be sure it hasn’t quit), landing, and roll-out — no exceptions. I’ve always preached, “Stay within gliding distance of the airfield!” I learned to fly on gliders, so power on or power off wasn’t in the cards unless you relate it to energy management, e.g. spoiler use, relative runway wind, surface lift conditions, aircraft weight, etc. We did (I still do) practice a lot of rope breaks. It’s part of every season’s checkout. But in a powered airplane, power is kind of cheating if you’re trying to simulate a total engine failure. When I do see pilots coming in to land at relatively shallow three-degree angles (like the big ones) with lots of power on, it raises the question, can they land if the engine quits short final and would they have the altitude to do it?
Recent Accidents
I’ve thought more about forced landing instruction and practice after two recent accidents. Engine failure should always be in the back of your mind when flying. I need not delve into the details of the accidents, but what I will say is that I think each engine failure happened at the worst possible moment, immediately after takeoff when there wasn’t much time for a course of action. Anything between “after the fence” (see below) and your initial turn, say 300 feet to 1000 feet AGL for argument purposes, can be a tricky time to have the windmill stop! Both aircraft had relatively short wings (higher wing loadings, draggy profiles) and their drift-down was quick. When it does hiccup and falter, what are you always taught to do first? Never, ever, forget to keep flying the airplane! Right? Sounds simple, eh? It ain’t. A lot of people do just that. They forget to get the nose down and come up with a plan. You’re busy after takeoff. You’re scanning, cleaning up the ship, looking outside.
A good trick prior to starting the takeoff, a last item you might say in a mental checklist, is to ask yourself what your “O” for “Options” are? If it quits, do I go left or right or at what point in the climb-out can I try for the field beyond the fence? When could I feel comfortable turning back? We do this all the time in gliders on the tow rope. It prepares you for the “what-ifs” of the takeoff. Another thing that “gets ya” is the shock factor. When it does fail (and it will) it’s always a shock that takes longer to recover from than when an instructor pulled the throttle back on you in the circuit. Then, you sort of have a sixth sense that it’s coming before he/she even does it. I, myself, fly a Pitts and when my wheels clear the fence (I call it the “over the fence check” because every airport has a fence or some other obstacle at the end of the runway), I am only focused on oil and fuel pressure and my rate of climb. If it’s positive and going up, then all is well. I am gaining time (altitude) to react. Tragically, in both of the aforementioned accidents, neither pilot successfully carried out a dead-stick landing. Why? Based on the data from one of those accidents, I feel that not enough energy (speed for elevator control) was available into the flare allowing for the pilot to round out and stall (bleed off their aircraft’s energy) onto the landing spot that they chose. Run out of elevator with the stick all the way back in the gut with the airplane still descending and you are in some serious trouble! In the other accident, the pilot never made it to the flare as he was likely overwhelmed at some point and stopped flying the airplane. The result was the crash site while attempting to turn back.
So this begs the question, does each pilot after they receive their license practice enough engine-out landings to become proficient at it, especially when time or altitude (that’s almost the same thing) is in short supply? I like to practice this most often in the Pitts just because it falls like a rock. You have to be at the top of your game, initially, pausing the descent in the flare and because you established a glide at the proper engine-out speed (in my case, about 90-100 mph), this gives you enough energy to carry out the flare with the remaining available (nose-up) control. I equate it to more of an auto rotation landing in a helicopter (look it up) than that of a normal airplane landing, it’s so quick.
Recent Trends
What is a reasonable amount of “engine-out (idle)” practice per flying season? As a rough guess, I’d say as much as required until you can carry it out successfully without ANY power. Remember, power is cheating. Now I am not trying to say that a forced landing is the same as a normal approach. It isn’t. But what I am trying to say is that if your normal approaches are too far away from the runway, when you are faced with a forced approach you won’t be prepared mentally or be in the right physical space to address the emergency. This is where bad habits creep in. An instructor recently pointed out to me that Transport Canada (Flight Test Guide, PPL Aeroplane, TP13723) is now requesting that students demonstrate stabilized approaches with the necessary power applied to maintain a constant descent angle on their “normal” approaches, which, in my estimate would require power right to touchdown in some (if not most) small aircraft types. “Constant descent” has become a bit of a buzz word recently in airline circles. It’s a nice concept and it reduces pilot workload in the bigger machines through a planned profile on landing that limits the number of level-offs that an airplane goes through. It’s designed to keep it simple. Yes, the KISS method. But, flying a VFR circuit should not be like flying an approach in an airliner. To me, this has no place in the training curriculum aside from instrument training conditions, larger aircraft, or winter operations. This is something you’ll learn farther down your career, flying bigger aircraft, if that’s your intended route. We can’t be teaching these techniques to pilots of aircraft with bad sink rates at idle, because, if you are used to always coming in with power, the day she does quit, you’ll be under the glide required to make the field, because you are so far back with power on!
If the rumor that this is promoted at the flight instruction level is fact, then I think we are failing the next generations of pilots with inadequate training for normal and forced landings. All of this theory starts with the student first learning how to properly manage their aircraft energy up to the point of stall, during the flare, and just prior to touchdown. This includes slips, which I feel, as a tailwheel and glider instructor, is one of the most under-taught maneuvers in the book. That’s another can of worms.
How many students or seasoned pilots have you seen recently crossing the threshold of the runway, with loads of speed (energy), only to float halfway down it while they “feel” for the runway porpoising up and down like a yo-yo? To me, that’s just bad energy management and a disaster waiting to happen. It’s like a takeoff — taking off with runway behind you is pretty useless and landing with half the runway gone by under your wheels is just as bad. It just shows you’re not trying hard enough and that maybe someone along the way misinformed you about how to land.
John’s a self-proclaimed airport bum. When he isn’t in the saddle at the airline, he can be found out at the airfield doing any number of things. He likes to fly gliders, practice aerobatics, work on airplanes and fix stuff.