Great video. But: Don't do spiral 360 turns to lose altitude, don't turn your back on your landing site, because if you mis-judge the last turn, you can be screwed. Instead, where possible (or at least when you get down low) make "S" turns, this way and that, keeping your nose at right angles to the landing site, because at any point, if you are too low, just cut the corner and turn straight toward the field. Can't do that if you turn your back to the field.
Circling around an airport would not turn your back to the field... Also as a student I have zero experience "straight in" and without my "decent to field" from foreflight I would have a hard time doing a straight in. Its much better for many to enter a patter like they have done 150 times. 360s down to the field also mean if you are way too low you might just need to land opposite direction with a tail wind.
i've learned also to land up hill and stop perpendicular, and while landing try to keep the pressure of the nosewheel as little as possible if it gets stuck in the muddy soil you can tip over.
Panic can be the killer with a loss of engine power so a simple note of action is ABC. A = Best glide speed. B = Best place to land. C = Checks if you have time.
It's not hard to memorize a few steps cold. Trim for best glide. Pick landing site. Fly towards landing site. Memorize and practice a flow to restart the engine. "Floor-to-the-door" If you're still above the hard deck (say, 2000 AGL), get out the checklist. If not, do what you can from memory and fly it all the way to the scene of the crash. Remember, planes that land with low energy, wings level, under control usually have survivors on board.
Point of destination should be a determination after minimizing loss of critical altitude . Not mentioned here. A critical tool in all landings by hang glider and sailplane pilots. Point of destination after a resonable search for a good lz make a determination by if you see your touch down point rising to your field of view you will make a determination quickly that you have little hope of reaching that lz. If you see that point sinking you know you have a good resonable chance of reaching that lz. A very valuable tool not on your flight panel! Keeping calm , the wing flying and your head looking out of the aircraft and make the best adm choices will save you.too much concentration on your instruments will take away very valuable adm time looking and acessing field of view. Powerlines ,fences and obsticles hidden making quick decisive desicions. Just my opinion
As explained in Wolfgang Langewiche's book "Stick and Rudder". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stick_and_Rudder . Yes indeed! Set up best glide and observe straight ahead, where you are gliding down toward. Then complete a "cone" around you, at that same angle or steeper, to select your possible landing sites.
So, no fields but a lot of forest below you. The last time I made an off field landing was on a golf course. I was about ten miles from my home field so I knew the layout of the land below me.
Good infor! Just a question, extending flaps during a crash landing would reduce the speed and risk for injuries, but when the engine isn’t running, which means you will lose more speed and altitude if you add flaps cuz it creates more drag, in this case I would wanna do a no flap landing cause otherwise I will lose my precious altitude,speed and range. So is it really necessary to add flaps?
Flaps should be added as necessary once you know you can make your intended point of landing. Touching down with the lowest energy possible increases your chances of survival.
Hi! Thanks for the video, it's amazing! And just a question, what a great and curious headset have the pilot, what is the brand and model? Thanks again! Best regards and have a great year 2018..!!!
Flaps may steepen your descent angle (hence don't set them until sure of making the chosen landing site) - but will crucially lower the effective stall speed, allowing a slower touchdown and shorter ground roll - and usually allowing greater aileron response at low airspeed. A low touchdown speed and short ground roll is especially important if the landing surface is rough and/or limited in length.
Huh? Im surprised you guys have this big of an error in this. A 1.5:1 glide ratio would mean that you would glide only 1500' from 1000' and is not great at all. A 172 is closer to 9:1 - meaning if you are a mile high, you could glider 9 miles. Or - if you are 1000' high, you can glide 9000'
Curt Lewis Not a mistake at all, you’ve simply got your units confused. Glide Ratios are typically presented as “Nautical Miles per One-Thousand Feet.” This keeps the pilot having to do unnecessary conversions during critical phases of flight. For example.....the Cessna glides at about 1.5nm per 1000 feet. That’s around 9000 lateral feet for every vertical 1000 feet. Since we generally use Nautical Miles as a measure of distance, it is simple easier to represent this figure as 1.5:1.
Yeah I got it. I don't think I have ever heard of a ratio using two different units of measurement is all. You can say that you will glide 1.5nm for every 1000' and that is very nice and practical, but I would call that a 'rate' if it only works as "nm : ft" 3:2, 4.5:3, etc etc Great content!
I was surprised as well. If you used the same units for both sides of the "ratio", then the units themselves would not matter. It would suffice to say 9:1 and it would work the same way for feet, meters, kilometers, miles, etc. If you have different units of the same quantity (length), then calling it a ratio may be misleading, and - at least for me - makes things unnecessarily complicated and ambiguous.
At 3:10 you display a misleading figure. 1000 feet is 0,19 miles, so the glide slope is arctg (0,19/1,5) ~ 7 degrees - much less steep than shown. But do you really compare 1000's of feet to miles when speaking of "glide ratio"? Quite a non-traditional way to treat units in physics.
That's exactly how we do it in the aviation world. It is a simplified method that reduces the need for pilots to calculate complicated mathematic formulas while in flight. We blend units for expediency in making our calculations. It's been working for us for over a hundred years, so we probably won't be changing anytime soon. :-)
I was surprised as well. If you used the same units for both sides of the "ratio", then the units themselves would not matter. It would suffice to say 9:1 and it would work the same way for feet, meters, kilometers, miles, etc. If you have different units of the same quantity (length), then calling it a ratio may be misleading, and - at least for me - makes things unnecessarily complicated and ambiguous.
In the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook (FAA-H-8083-3B) the sole numerical example of glide ratio (on page 3-20) is expressed with same units at both sides of the divider (feet/feet). And of course the Glider Flying Handbook (FAA-H-8083-13A) is packed with discussion of glide ratios - all using the same units for dividend and divisor. I understand the logic behind using the rule of thumb values for quick estimations in your head. But stating that that is 'exactly how we do it in the aviation world' seems a bit overblown?
I flew cargo in South America 30 years ago. We used to lose a cylinder every month at least. Hot weather an older supercharged engines dont mix. That is why most older radials engines work better in Alaska on those cargo operations of that tv show. And still they lose engines a lot. That was normal for us.
3:03 1.5 *miles* per 1000 *feet* doesnt work out to a 1.5:1 ratio. Thats not how ratios work. If it can glide 1.5 miles that's about 8000 feet so it would be 8000:1000 or 8:1, which makes more sense. Don't dumb things down to try and make it sound easier if it means teaching incorrect terminology.
