Altitude to turn back to the airport

[cessna170bdriver]

The standard rate turn is not that different from what might be available due to loss of power/speed anyway. (22 degrees versus 30 isn't that much)

Do the math... the slower the true airspeed, the shallower the bank required for a given turn rate. At 60 knots, the bank angle for a 3-deg/sec turn would be less than 10 degrees. The speed to make a 22 degree bank angle a standard rate turn is almost 150 knots.

Miles

I have a red B-model.

I thought maybe you thought this thread was about getting a Hawker back to the runway.

[AGB]

Thanks, although there was not a definite answer for the question, I guess everyone aggress that ‘it depends’. I was worried because I am operating from a grass field inside a valley with no place to land straight ahead, I am not worried about losing the aircraft, but with the safety of myself and the passengers. To minimize this risk I am doing something a friend with a Luscomb suggested. After lift off we immediately turn about 20 degrees do the side and keep climbing, at about the end of the field we turn towards the runway. So when we are at about 300-400 feet we are perpendicular to the field and able to reach the field in case of engine failure. This would not work in a controlled airfield, but it is ok were we fly.

As a side note, I am participating in the investigation of a crash that is much what we have been talking about. The single engine turboprop was passing 500 feet when the engine quit, the instructor tried to make back to the runway but they had not enough altitude. Fortunately they ejected.

I guess this decision of turn back or not is much easer to make once you have an ejection seat

[n3437d]

I am going to express my ignorance but what type of civilian turboprop has ejection seats?

In this month's copy of AOPA, Air Safety Foundation "Instructor Report" there is an short article entitled "Where Will You go?" This article has some rather interesting ideas, one of which was to use Google Earth as a tool to illustrate options to the student. While not fail safe it did present a "birds eye" view of possible options. The next concept that the insturctor suggested (please do this with either an instructor or anothe qualified pilot) was to fix a "hard deck" say 200'; 300'; 500' ABOVE 2000' AGL (ie 2300') whereby the power is pulled to simulate engine out and then attempt to pick out the suitable field or 180 if appropriate and see how close you get to the origianl "hard deck" of 2000'.
He claims in situations where he has the student climb to 500' above the "deck" (2500') he will pull power and ask the student to return to the field. He claims that the student will typically be between 200' and 300' BELOW the "deck" marking the end of the runway.

This may be a good task to try during a BRF.

Joel
N3437D

[flyguy]

My only engine failure was on a night take-off at K59 (Atchison Kansas ) All hell broke loose at about 300AGL and about halfway down the 3000' runway. I didn't know what let loose but it was shaking itself to pieces and just for one milisecond I thought about trying to make it around the pattern but because of the intense shaking I opted to pull the power, grab the flaps and try to land on the airport. Thank the good Lord we landed with a few hundred feet of the runway surface left and only did a little ground loop in the grass short of the boundary fence. The engine was still idiling but lots of smoke and backfiring. The piston that came out of that cylinder sits on my desk with the broken valve head embedded in it.

I never once considered a turn back to try to land in the runway I had just left.