After about 350 hours of flying my Quick, I have never had an engine out situation. I know that the more I fly, the more it can happen. This video is a good training tool that makes you think about "what if". I am grateful to the pilot for sharing and for your analysis. Keep your post coming.
I did the exact same thing in 93 in a Phantom. I thought I would "skip" across the dirt. As soon as the mains touched the nose slammed down and broke the fork. Flipped over. Ended up only needing the fork and fiberglass repair. I was really lucky. I'm with you, with a slip he could have made the dirt roads at the 0:23 mark.
The pilot did everything correctly! Slow ultralight speed is a major factor in no injury or damage. Could have picked a harder landing spot but no way to tell from the air. I have been forced down off field 6 times flying a lot of hours over the last 18 years in my 1984 Quicksilver MX and never bent anything. Only one was a Rotax 447 engine failure with a broken piston ring that fouled the plug. That time the engine ran on one cylinder until I turned base on a pasture. One engine failure, 3 fuel starvation, 1 bad spark plug cap and a prop shaft bearing failure. Four of these dead stick landings could have been prevented by what I know now in the preflight and post flight inspections.
Easy to be critical when judging an engine out. as a former and now very occasional pa28-140 Pilot for the last 42 years, looks like the a/c came down pretty fast, could be sde slipping,, First and foremost always land dead ahead, would have chosen a dirt track instead of wasting time circling etc. got down low, quick calm inspection then a landing on three wheels, then pray no potholes . Easy to say. The Pilot was very lucky that it turned out OK :-) Have never flown one of these machines, but Pilot pocedure is same no matter what you fly. The pa28-140 is a safe machine, and steady as a rock and very responsive, so very happy with it, no regrets
This wasn't a takeoff. He had been flying for a bit. On the contrary, I've CFIs that stated, if the best spot to make an emergency landing is under you, land there if you've the altitude and time available to make it.
Engine out … establish your best guide speed, find a suitable landing site and commit to it. Communicate if you can. Finally you can try to restart your engine if you have time.
My instructor said to never land on roads because the signs, poles and wires are easy to overlook in the moment. But he did say land in the field next to the road, less walking and easier to recover the airplane. When my crankshaft broke I had two options, a gravel road or a bean field. I landed at the back of the bean field, landing near the road was not an available option. It was a pain to recover the airplane. The beans stopped me in less than 50ft, my nose wheel held up and did not flip. I just tried to keep the nose up right before touchdown and until stopped. The moment the nose caught on the beans the stop was nearly instant.
Last minute changes of plan are dangerous. Landing in a field, worst that will happen is you break your undercarriage and motor, that's the insurance company's problem. Dirt road you can hit power cables, signs, veer off into a ditch... It's just more risky overall.
Very good of you to not second guess the decision making but ignoring ten dirt roads to go for a ploughed field is, well, not ideal. Back seat piloting etc but still, let's be honest, it's a bad choice and even at 40mph or whatever ultralights land at there's solid potential for a freak fatality at that speed especially with a faceplant.
I understand the issue of back seat piloting, yet the same time I want to make it clear -- don't do this! It's kind of a fine line to walk. Nevertheless, the pilot did a great job of flying to preserve his life. That's all we can ask of any pilot. Thanks for commenting.
For off field glider landings its advised dirt roads, to avoid dirt roads because of fence posts, and to land on plowed fields in the direction of the plowing which he did..so overall he did pretty well. I have had one off field landing in an overgrown field very lumpy, landing in the direction of furloughs, bent a couple of tubes, but was able to fly out after repairs…
The ditches can be disastrous! A friend got a couple hundred feet off the deck and the engine quit in a bell 407 (i think). He went into autorotation and had about a 30-35 forward airspeed when he hit in the field right there at the airport. There was a small ditch there and when he hit it caused an internal decapitation resulting in a quick and instant death.
