Emergency Landings (Split from PushRod Lifter Broken)

[zero.one.victor]

I got one better than that-- the connecting rod that broke on mine while at about 1700' out over the salt water in the San Juan Islands. Got the big end & the small end-- but not the middle! One of the broke-off ends looks like it twisted off, not sheared. Scary! Too bad I don't have a digital camera or I'd post a pic of it.
I keep it around, like you said, to remind me what can happen.

Eric

[johneeb]

Eric
That scarier than mine by about a million, mine happened in the comfort of my hangar. How did you get to the ground?

Eric you must have a buddy with a digital camera who could help you scare a little caution into the rest of us.

Johneb

[zero.one.victor]

It turned out to be a non-event. After a big BANG, the airplane started shaking like a dog sh***ing a peach pit, so I immediately whipped it around in a 180 toward an airport a couple miles back. Reducing the power smoothed things out, so I just entered a modified pattern (45 to final!) and landed there. It kept making some power,thank goodness, or else I'd have gone for a swim. After I landed & got my pulse rate back under control, I found a big hole in the case under #4 cylinder,about 4 quarts of oil had gone overboard already. Timex ain't got nothing on Continental, as far as "takes a licking & keeps on ticking"!

Eric

[AR Dave]

If and when the big bang comes like that, if you know you can make it to a landing strip without power, would it be better to shut the engine down? I mean obviously yes for the engine, but what about for the pilot? Is little power better than no power at all? Just contemplating what I'll do next time it happens to me. Last time I went down with no power, silence was my first indication that there was a problem.

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

Though I've never personally tried it I've always been told and I'm sure others here will concur that the airplane will glide different with the prop spinning than with it stopped.

Since you are most used to the glide path with the propeller spinning, for this reason alone is why I'd keep it running.

Second I'd never get rid of an option which in this case is throttling up with what ever power is there. Once you kill the engine you'll never restart it at the last second. Obvioulsy if I was high over a dry lake bed my decision might be different here.

A Little Story:

Once will flying my Clipped Wing Cub with my wife on board over the edge of a populated area a spark plug backed out of the cylinder with a load bang like a shot gun. The aircraft shock like the dickens and I thought I'd lost a whole cylinder. With both of use in a clipped wing it has a glide ratio just better than a brick. We where going down and although I did have some fields to go into it didn't look pretty.

My first instinct was to pull the throttle to save the engine but after about 5 seconds I decided if I was going to reck the plane I was going to blow the engine to hell trying to save it. When I went full throttle and started to circle looking for the best crash spot it occured to me we where no longer decending.

We very carefully nursed the Cub 5 miles hopping from field to field to the nearest airport where we landed without incodent.

After looking the engine over we could only find the missing spark plug. it was still hanging with the plug wire. We reinserted the plug and torgued it and everything was good.

My wife who couldn't stand because of nerves for a few minutes, finished the flight to breakfast with a friend who was following us. She just couldn't bring herself to get back into the Cub at that moment. She did get back in later and finish a day of flying. I have a GREAT wife:!:

Had I tryed to save the engine I'd likely have recked the whole plane and we most likely would have been injured.

[GAHorn]

Bruce, I can't recall the reference, but ....if the engine is making power then certainly keeping it running will stretch the glide... but, if the engine is not making power at all..the advice is to stop the prop with a bit of slow flight. A windmilling prop supposedly makes more drag than a stopped one.

[zero.one.victor]

If the engine is making any power, my feeling is "better to have power & not need, than need it & not have it".
Earlier that day, we had been discussing what happens when a prop throws a blade--a good example is the aeromatic prop-- the engine can shake itself right off the mount in short order. So a broke-off prop blade is the first possibility that went thru my mind. I thoguth about pulling the mixture to kill the engine, but decided to try easing the power back instead, that reduced the vibration immensely. So I just kinda chugged my way to the nearby airport.
I have to admit ( ) that I didn't really run much of an emergency checklist, & as it turns out it wouldn't have helped anyway. But a guy I know had a similar inflight emergency-- a big bang followed by some horrible vibration & misfiring-- while sight-seeing Mount Saint Helen a few years ago. He was a long way from any airport, and was maintaining altitude, so he had some time (& the presense of mind) to try & diagnose the problem. Turned out to be a gunnysack mag--he discovered that it ran just fine on the left one only.

Eric

[Bruce Fenstermacher]

George

If the prop is driving the engine like a its a windmill then stop it case it's creating more drag. But if the engine is still turning I have to believe the engine is making some power. Chances of both mags failing or the carberator falling off or getting completely jambed and choking off the cumbustion is pretty slim.

My point is we don't practice engine out with a completely dead engine and the glide path is different when the prop stops virsus less power virsus driving the engine.

[GAHorn]

George

If the prop is driving the engine like a its a windmill then stop it case it's creating more drag. But if the engine is still turning I have to believe the engine is making some power. Chances of both mags failing or the carberator falling off or getting completely jambed and choking off the cumbustion is pretty slim.

My point is we don't practice engine out with a completely dead engine and the glide path is different when the prop stops virsus less power virsus driving the engine.

It's only my best guess, but my opinion is that a stopped prop is more like the practiced "idling" engine than a windmilling prop of a dead engine (due to that windmilling prop's increased drag). I base that opinion upon TWO dead engine experiences I've had in single-engined airplanes where the engine made NO power at all. I stopped the prop on my Aeronca when it's oil pressure failed and it glided MUCH BETTER/FARTHER than it did with the engine windmilling. (On the one hand, I had to circle the selected landing site a while and extend downwind in order to bleed off the excess altitude due to the improved glide capability....while on the other hand I almost blew it by getting on top of the runway still way too high! I had to deliberately stall the airplane to lose the excess altitude and then recover just above the surface. Otherwise I'd have overflown the airport.) *
In the other event, I had to abandon site of first selection as I realized the windmilling prop would not allow me to reach the field that I believed at first possible. (Fortunately another site presented itself, but it was not my choice!)
When it gets down to the actual event....I sure welcome the better glide angle of a stopped prop.

*- You know, as I wrote this it caused me to think back over that event, some twenty-odd years ago and wonder......why I didn't slip the airplane as I saw I was too high? I don't have an answer to that question. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me in the heat of the moment. Instead, I stalled it, and did a "falling leaf" type of manuever, keeping the wings level with rudder,...then un-stalled it just above the runway. It worked very well, ...but I have to admit, I'm now curious why I have no recollection of even considering a slip.

[Dave Clark]

If I understand you George if the engine is able to make some power like Erics one should keep it going just in case that little power could get you there like it did for Eric. If the engine is not making power, say the fuel tanks came up prematurely empty, then the prop turning the engine is a brake and it should be stopped. That's how I've always thought of it.

The real thing here is to try to be calm and keep from doing something stupid. Practicing the checklist of what to do with an engine roughness or engine out helps keep you calm when it happens. (note I didn't say if it happens). Some good examples have been mentioned here.

Had a friend in an RV who took off on the wrong tank to the South where there was a drop off at the end of the runway of about 400' to a nice valley below with numerous fields. The engine stopped suddenly when he was a few hundred feet off the ground just past the runway. He elected to do a 180 and didn't make it, wrecking the plane and breaking the two lower vertabre in his back so he'll be laid up a while. Had he taken the valley perhaps he wopuld have had time to think to switch tanks (the first item on the checklist) or at least to have landed in a better field in a controlled situation.

[GAHorn]

Yes, to your first comment, and yes to your second as well.

I think it might be a good idea to sit in a quiet cockpit in the hangar and actually GO THRU THE MOTIONS of the emergency checklist until it's a HABIT.
We all talk about using the checklist, but let's face the facts: It's in the glovebox. It's under the seat. The emerg. portion is unfamiliar. The emerg. portion is too lengthy/complicated because it's a commercial product that tried to please the lawyers.

So let's PRACTICE it so we make our muscles memorize the drill!

So,.... Here we are sitting in the quiet cockpit in the hangar, pretending we've lost the engine.
1. Pull FULL CARB HEAT. (you were wrong Dave.) (There may be sufficient residual heat to do some good if we act early enough and if the engine is still windmilling.)
2. Switch fuel tanks. (Even if previoulsy on Both)
3. Mixture RICH (Fuel boost pump ON -if equipped).
4. Check operations on each magneto.
5. ELT activation switch - PRESS! (The higher you are when it broadcasts the more likely it'll be heard, and activation removes the failure mode of the G-switch.)
6. Radio position and ask for assistance.
(All while selecting a field and noting the wind direction.)
7. If no power is being developed, consider slowing sufficiently to stop the prop. Glide at best glide speed.

OK. NOw, let's do that again, ... and again...while we're in the hangar and until it becomes habit.

If you're at 10K' and got spare time on your hands,...THEN pull out the checklist and see if there's anything else of value.

[lowNslow]

Number 1 should be FLY THE AIRPLANE.

[GAHorn]

I thought we were already flying the airplane! (or it wouldn't be a problem.)
Yep, that's correct. Don't get so distracted to forget basic airmanship. Another good reason to train on the ground for the emergency.

While on the subject, I must admit there was a time I felt that checking the mags were a waste of time. I mean, if the mags are on both and the dang thing quit....then clearly if the problem were ignition in origin ...then switching from TWO obviously dead mags to ONE dead mag would be a waste of time. Or so I once imagined.
I once actually had an engine go incredibly (uselessly and worthy of immediate shut-down) rough while in cruise. It was attempting to shake itself out of the airframe! I almost caged it (being in a C-402) but that airplane has two toggle switches for mags and it was so easy to first "do the drill" and check the mags, so I switched a mag off ....and the engine immediately ran smooth. (Got lucky first try.)
The diagnosis was a failed/stripped plastic distributor-gear in one of the mags. That mag was still rotating and firing six-times every two engine revolutions....but unfortunately it was sending all six sparks to the #5 cylinder regardless of that piston's position! The result was complete chaos!
Subsequently, that cylinder, piston, and conn rod should have been removed/replaced in my opinion. The shop complied with the owner's desires and merely replaced the mag. About 100 hours later most of that cylinder left the engine and went thru the cowl on IFR climbout. Fly the airplane? Yes, you're correct, . The pilot on that flight got so excited he shut down the wrong engine! He was fortunate that when he popped back out of the clouds he was over another airport and got it on the ground with the only running engine the one missing a cylinder!
But I digress....
...the point was that checking mags does have virtue.

[zero.one.victor]

Dave, from your description of the terrain, the RV crash you mentioned musta been at Cawley's? Who was it, & when? The only accident I've ever heard about there was Carl Terrana's. Not to speak ill of the dead, God rest his soul, but it sounded to me like that one didn't have to be fatal. From what I heard, it seems like he stalled & spun in trying to stretch the (dead stick) glide to land on the runway, when he coulda maybe just landed short, on the over-run north of the runway. Of course, I wasn't there, and it always sounds easy when you're monday-morning quarter-backing. It's a whole lot different when it's happening in "real time".

Eric

[lowNslow]

I thought we were already flying the airplane! (or it wouldn't be a problem.)
Yep, that's correct. Don't get so distracted to forget basic airmanship. Another good reason to train on the ground for the emergency.

My point being - start slowing the airplane to best glide and start a turn for a possible landing site before going heads down and reaching for switches, valves etc.