5 ms·
My dad used a fly a cesna 172 when I was a kid. So I've heard many stories from his pilot friends about losing engines, landing in fields and the like. It happe
by KaiserPro 5y ago
My dad used a fly a cesna 172 when I was a kid. So I've heard many stories from his pilot friends about losing engines, landing in fields and the like. It happens quite a lot, apparently.
A few things strike me:
o why was he wobbling the yoke so much forwards and backwards, that costs you speed, and knackers your glide efficiency.
o Why wasn't he looking for landing sites (he was up really high, like 2k+ above the mountain top), edit: see comment daughter, decent is measured in feet per minute, unfeathered prop will cause drag, nailing your glide ratio so not 10 minutes glide time before action was needed
o why didn't he set his glide path up properly, to give him time to think?
o why isn't he looking at the checklist for engine failure? (my dad had one in the middle) I suspect he might not have one
o Did he send a distress signal?
o where was the attempt to restart the engine (granted it might not be young enough to have a starter, but he had the height to spin the prop)
Finally, the other thing that gets me, is that the door is open before the engine fails. which either means that he's expecting the failure (checklists are your friend here) so why wasn't he lining up/searching for a river bed for landing?
- verytrivial 5y agoo Why did he hike to the crash site to where all the GoPro memory cards were, and where all the flight controls were still set to where they were when he baile---Ooooh. Yeah. Go directly to jail. Do not pass GO.
- mizzao 5y agoCan you elaborate on the jail part?
- verytrivial 5y agoWell, up-front he says he reported the crash. If he said to the FAA / NTSB "I deliberately flew on an empty tank so I could jump out for YouTube views" he's probably only going to lose his license, otherwise it's going to be his liberty.
- sokoloff 5y agoSink rate is much higher than 200 fpm engine out (likely 500+ fpm in a T-craft). From 2K AGL, you don't have 10 minutes.
- KaiserPro 5y agothanks, I have updated.
- addaon 5y agoYep, almost exactly. Best glide in a t-craft is going to be about 65 mph, give or take. It's a better-than-average glider, and with the prop stopped should be able to get close to 10:1 (although I surely wouldn't plan on it); so vertical speed is about 6.5 mph, or ~575 fpm. If you're optimizing for time in the air (loiter) instead of glide distance you can pull it a bit slower than best glide -- Vx is about 57 mph, which at 10:1 (you'll get a bit less below best glide, but not much less) would be 500 fpm.
- atlex2 5y agoPilot here. That aircraft wasn’t built with an electrical system, and people only install them when they need to fly into populated areas— it’s basically an antique. No way to radio anybody, barely any checklists to follow; generally extraordinary simple— just throttle and magnetos, if it’s anything like the Piper Cub… so engine failure is usually due to fuel exhaustion, the more likely case because also there wasn’t a fire near the landing site despite the crumpled metal, or oil leak, unlikely because the prop freewheeled once the plane sped up, or maybe sure the magnetos were turned off. More generally, there’s something off about the person… his emotional connection to his experience does not seem typically expressed.