Best place to deadstick land?

I'm pretty sure engine out is not, statistically, the biggest risk factor. However, you will spend plenty of time learning about how to deal with engine failure, and how to pick out a place to land.

Personally, when flying my single, I do think about it and keep a plan for what I'd do. Often, at least where I fly, there are lots of big open farm fields, but sometimes there are no good option, and you have to follow the early aviator's instructions: aim for the softest and cheapest thing.

 

And keep flying straight ahead! The ones who die are the ones who try and turn back towards the airport.

 

Yes! DON"T EVER ATTEMPT A TURN! Straight ahead, keep flying the airplane, pick something in which you can put the airplane, and as my instructor yelled at me, " Don't Become A Passenger! Fly The Airplane! I flew as an active pilot on and off for 70 years and I saw several engine-out incidents that ended in fatal results because they tried to make a turn back to the strip. Whenever and wherever you fly, always look at what is ahead of you on take off as an engine failure spot and pick a safer place to put it down. In a thread before this I was commenting on the Ryan PT-22 and I thought of a friend who put one down after a catastrophic engine failure on take off. He was climbing out over Lake Washington that was ahead when the top jug of the Kinner popped off and flew over his head. He was an ex-RAF pilot and very competent and he ignored the straight ahead rule. He went into a nose down spiral to his left very carefully landed his PT-22 on a curving street in the Newport Shores development without hitting any people, cars, or houses. The point that I'm making is that he had already figured what he was going to do, he knew how to make the turn without stalling (nose down), and he had the flying hours to back up what he intended to do.He repaired the PT-22 and immediately sold it. Another friend took off in a replica Hawker Hurricane that had engine failure and he had an open field ahead and to the right. He ignored it and tried to turn back to the strip, stalled and spun it in. The best response; straight ahead, nose down, fly the airplane.

 

Bo,
In the Navy, we practice engine out landings all the time.
In flight school, it is a routine part of most flights.
In the advanced stages of flight school, they spring them on you at all stages of the flight, from takeoff to landing.

While I agree with Mr. Parks, straight ahead is generally best, you can’t always count on that being an option.
But I absolutely agree; have a plan! A “good stick” is always, ALWAYS, looking for a place to land.

 

I lived for a number of years near a GA airport where about 3 miles past airport property you flew over part of San Francisco Bay. It was routine for instructors and examiners alike to pull back to idle and look at the pilot and say "Now what?".

I was told all they wanted to hear was what you had already planned.

 

Learning in the mid-west, from a small country strip in the middle of farmland we were taught how to distinguish between corn and soybean. Late summer/early fall you wanted to pick beans over corn.

This is only true for an engine out during initial climb after take-off. Once at or above pattern altitude there is no reason to keep flying straight, unless of course that is where the preferred off-field landing site is.

 

The small strip of which I spoke had one dirt "runway" , heading 270Deg. It was on the east shore of Lake Washington near I-90. It no longer exists and went the way of all the others that dotted the area in the 50's and 60's. The housing development next to it eventually spread north and gobbled it up. Personally, I would have never attempted to do what my friend did. I mentioned it only because he used his skill, experience, and a predetermined plan, and a lot of luck. One of my friends landed a Pitts biplane in a lumber yard without damage and there have been several other incidents here where "forced landings" were barely successful . Curry is correct, if one has altitude he has time to maintain airspeed and to look for a good spot. During my check ride for my PPL I had 4 " engine failures" , One on take off, and the rest of them at low altitude during maneuvers like eights on pylon, etc.

 

When I went through flight training, we (instructor and myself) would do stall and engine out (engine at idle) training almost every flight. Always look for where you will land if the engine fails or if you have a fire. Always know best glide speed of your aircraft and the glide ratio.

My Ercoupe is around 70 mph glide speed and around a 7 to 1 glide ratio, not fall out of the sky, but you will not get far when flying at 3000 feet. I can fly roughly 2 or so miles at 70 mph (nose slightly down). This doesn't give many options, hence why you should always be looking for where to land. Open Roads, Open Fields, airports if possible, tops of trees if you have to, powerlines NEVER, Water but be prepared to get wet and if it is cold ugh.

My theory is follow Bob Hoovers advise, be the first to arrive at the site of the crash and fly the plane all the way there. Never stop flying the airplane.

I will also avoid hitting someone car or house if at all possible, I am one person they may be many, is my life worth more than theirs? That is a call you have to live with, if you hit a car or house.

 

Also, do what is best for your (and your passengers) survival. Forget about the well-being of the airplane and use it to your advantage. Just accept that the airplane is a write-off and do what it takes to (hopefully) walk away uninjured.

 

When I learned to fly helicopters, my instructor had a saying about that-- "The helicopter tried to kill you, so don't feel bad about killing it."

 

For me the best place to deadstick land would be an empty, straight, wide, paved road, with no wires/cables/poles alongside, and a bar waiting where I roll to a stop.

‘Cause I’m gonna need a drink

 

I like that point because I think it gets overlooked and it’s important to keep that floating around somewhere in your brain. This video, is the best discussion and analysis of an actual off field landing I’ve ever seen. This guy is such a consummate professional and the bonus is that it’s in a P-51. Oh, and he makes the same point you did.

And to the original posters question; it was something we were always planning during our private pilot training. You could count on your instructor pulling the power on almost every flight and saying ‘engine failure.’ It might be out in a practice area and you had to execute your pattern to a field or road or whatever down to 500’. Or it could be in an empty traffic pattern on a downwind or base leg, in which case you got to carry it all the way to the landing, or go around if you botched it. Really useful exercise and a lot of fun!

 

Actually, that is true. In general, they do have a better record, although a full-down autorotation is not trivial. In training, they only make you do full-down autos for CFI, I believe-- for the commercial, you just recover into a hover-- much easier. But no question the spot can be smaller.

 

Interestingly, the conventional wisdom has been changing on this, especially with the high powered turboprop singles like the Pilatus and the TBM. Those airplanes climb so well that, above a certain altitude, they do recommend making a 180 degree turn. I think the CIrrus might as well.

Obviously that's only true past a certain point in the climb. But if the angle is steep enough, it makes sense.

 

options are always in your mind.

Over water, not so much. It kinda leaves your mind because, well, there’s only one option.

Road has never been my first choice. The decision to land on a road can go from good to bad without your input.

(although I do like the idea of coming to a stop in front of a bar )

 

Certainly there are changes to more modern situations but all this old training refers to lower power, low altitude, mostly after take off. In the old days engine failures were common and consequently the flight training reflected this. My flight instructor had been flying for 13 years and he had had 13 "forced landings".he had time in the CPTP and flying AT-6's in the training of RAF pilots in Florida. I described it before a while back when I was working at the Sarasota airport in 1957 I watched a Cessna 140 taking of but it wasn't gaining much altitude. At about several hundred feet at the end of the runway, the engine quit . The airplane appeared to have hit a trip wire, the nose went down violently to vertical and it went into a spiraling 180 deg. turn and made a hard landing in the tall grass to the right of the runway. There was a loud bang when it hit the only downed pine tree left over from building the airport by the military. When we got there he had the student sitting in the grass and yelling, " Don't ever do what I just did !" He had it all planned beforehand. AND he knew how to do it. The log destroyed the nose of the airplane and knocked the landing gear back under the cockpit. We eventually mated the back end of the airplane with the front end of one that had been damaged by a hurricane later that year. I flew it later and you couldn't tell the difference.

 

So you had your own "Swoose"!

 

I didn't think of that, but yes. The value of jig drilled fastener locations paid handsomely when we aligned the aft fuselage to join it. Plumb bob's, piano wire, levels, measuring tape , and a level hangar floor made everything work.

 

Agree with this completely...having a plan is the key and straight ahead is not always it. It may be the plan in the very earliest seconds after takeoff as there are usually no other options, but several seconds later, you may have cross runways, parallel taxiways, adjacent glider ports, farmer John's field of greens, sometimes another small airport...you figure these things out with experience and hopefully even practice this stuff as you fly more and more. In the T-28 I virtually always accelerate straight until best rate, keep my crosswind turn fairly tight, and keep turning a full 270 til right over the field before proceeding wherever. This way, as soon as I've turned 90 degrees, I'm low key to someplace to land and it just keeps getting better from there.

 

I find that taking off without a plan is best. It makes it easier to adjust for unforeseen circumstances!

 

I know someone who had an engine fail in a T-28... not good. Happened in the pattern, and he landed on the runway... but sold it immediately after it was repaired. I don't think it has a great glide ratio...

 

Almost 11:1 isn’t too shabby actually. Still...nobody wants to do a forced landing...