Forced Landings practice and proficiency

[PropsForward]

Please excuse the intrusion by me on this topic, as I feel akward saying anything because of my inexperience. But I thought the article posted here was interesting... It mentioned that they had decreasing oil pressure and were not going to make Orlando Exec, and had picked a landing site at a high school football field. They then chose a different landing site (apparently this one?) and tragically didn't make it.

Hindsight is 20/20 and I hardly have any right to be making judgement calls, but during my PPL training my CFI told me that once I have chosen a forced landing sight, I was to treat it like a normal pattern at 1000 ft (i.e. NEVER do a long final), and NEVER start changing landing areas once I'd chosen one. Obviously you have to do something if you notice your first spot has power lines or some such thing, but the article makes it sound like they had at least a little time to find a place to ditch. I wonder if they fell into the changing landing areas trap?

It sure as hell would be hard for me to decide what to do if I was losing oil pressure but still making power. I wouldn't want to ditch immediatly if it was just oil pressure loss, but if I noticed the pressure going down and the oil temp shooting up, I would probably look immediatly for a place to land and follow through. A very sad and unfortunate circumstance, but hopefully low time guys like me can learn something from it.

There are so many variables in this scenerio that it is difficult to lay down any hard or fast rules of thumb. The following are some suggestions.

1. Goto the training thread and read the stuff about engine failure on take off. Very informative.

2. When flying. look for some potential landing sites and then drive to them after landing and look at them again. I think you will be able to add some possibilites, and remove others. Football Fields should never be considered unless it is a school or recreation environment where many fields are side by side. Most people never consider a highway when in fact it makes a perfect landing spot. Just keep in mind when trying to avoid cars that you not only need to pass the slower ones in time for them to see you, but you also have to be far enough behind the ones in front of you as they have a nasty habit of slamming their brakes and becoming an instant/additional obstacle for you to deal with.

3. Practice precision landings and simulated engine failures on your airport landings. If you operate out of an airport with a 4000ft-ish runway, then perhaps make note of a couple taxi way turn offs, calculate the distance and then practice power off landings withing a confined section of the runway (ie. touchdown at C1 and stop before C2 which is 600ft). This will greatly build your perception and judgement skills.

4. Using the same concept with reference points at an airport. practice maximizing your best glide to the airport. It is important to state that it is not a safe practice (in my opinion) to cut power and then depend on power later in the descent. With this in mind. Cut the power say 1mn out at 1000ft and see how you do. Try it from different speeds, winds, and airplane configurations. Get a feel for you cleanest speed, and your dirtiest speed. See how far you can get from the airport and land with the power off, simulated engine failure. This will be golden to being able to determine your options in a real event.

5. Practice emergency descents, slips, and short field landings. These skills are vital to insure a successful landing into confined areas.

6. Learn how much altitude your aircraft looses at best glide in straight and level, and in a 45-60 degree turn. This is need-to-know if your fast or high and already arrived over your intended point of landing.

 

[EatSleepFly]

My input, for whatever it's worth...

but during my PPL training my CFI told me that once I have chosen a forced landing sight, I was to treat it like a normal pattern at 1000 ft (i.e. NEVER do a long final), and NEVER start changing landing areas once I'd chosen one. Obviously you have to do something if you notice your first spot has power lines or some such thing, but the article makes it sound like they had at least a little time to find a place to ditch. I wonder if they fell into the changing landing areas trap?

First of all, I wouldn't take something any news article says for granted about what appears to have happened. Secondly, never say never.

Sticking with your first landing area is something you were told to get you through the checkride. In reality, there are plenty of reasons one might choose to change a landing area late in the maneuver. I don't teach students to *never* change a landing area, because I sure don't want my words echoing in their head as they pass up a perfectly good landing area for the first one they saw, only to realize that they're simultaneously out of altitude and airspeed and 15 seconds ago, one quick 90 degree turn would've saved their bacon. (Thats a run-on sentence if I've ever written one...) As instructors, its our job to plant the seed for GOOD JUDGEMENT. Sometimes this involves thinking outside of the box. Like I said, sticking with your first choice of a landing area is fine...for the sake of the checkride and the PTS. In the real world, not necessarily.

In my opinion, and in my teaching, I would suggest evaluating your choice of landing areas as you're progressing. I don't mean that you should fixate on the ground below. I mean routinely look around you while all this is going on, and see what you see. Things not going as planned for that little cabbage field you're on final for? Its a pretty short field and you're landing downwind. You've got a lot faster groundspeed than you'd ideally have, but look...there's a dirt road right there that you're practically on base for. Its narrow and in bad shape, and won't be a pretty landing, but it beats the treeline that just became your touchdown zone. Or are you REALLY going to stick with your first choice and gamble that your aggressive slip will get you down soon enough to avoid becoming an aluminum tree fort?

Of course, in reality things happen super fast and my example is just a quick scenario that I pulled out of my arse in the middle of the night. I'm not claiming to be a $hit-hot stick or instructor. I just want to get the point across that sometimes plans change, things happen, and you've got to be proactive. Obviously there's a point where you're committed to the spot you picked (initially or otherwise). Knowing your airplane and your abilities well will make realizing that point much easier, and thus open up your options should your first field begin to look rather undesireable.

My opinion, for what its worth.

 

[PropsForward]

To elaborate on EatSleepFly's input:

The first choice concept is used by a lot of instructors because we as pilots (students) tend to want the best possible outcome. Pilots tend to spend way too much time looking for the field, or a choice made at 3000 feet ends up looking to be unacceptable when we get down to 1000 feet so we force ourselves to look for a better option with less than 2 minutes left in the flight and ultimately end up risking not being able to land at either location. Contrary to popular opinion, landing in tree tops (canopy’s) is more often deadly than not.



So changing ones mind for a more suitable field is perfectly acceptable in real life, and even on the check ride if it makes sense. What is unacceptable is to have a pilot refuse to accept that what he has picked is the best around and ends up diverting precious attention to looking for something better. This is dangerous because the pilot should be concentrating on getting the plane down safely. The secret to success here is to know what a suitable landing field is. Knowing this puts you way ahead of the game.



Every time you're out flying and enjoying the scenery, take a second to evaluate where you would land ---> RIGHT NOW <--- if the engine quit. If it takes you less than a few seconds then you are doing well.



Another big problem is that from 3000ft, the only thing we see as suitable is the 40 acre cow field. So when you're driving on the country side, or through the mall parking lot. Take a second to look at the area, is it big enough to land your plane there. Is the terrain suitable. Could you reasonably squeeze an airplane between the light poles? The next time you are flying look at it from the air. If it all the sudden looks too small, but you did the public math on the ground and determined the area was 1000ft long and 65ft wide. Well, you now have a better idea of what and where you can land and just how small it is.