Practice forced landings

[Guest Bigfella]

So as a follow on from my previous post I have now been let free on my own to practice out in the training area of Moorabbin. The main area I'm lacking in at the moment is practicing forced landings, in particular field selection. I can get all the checks out no worries but when it comes to picking a field I just cant get it, i guess a lot of it comes down to experience and more practice but I'm wondering if anyone can provide tips in feild selection? I know there are so many factors involved which I guess is why I'm finding it so hard so all comments are welcome. Cheers, Bigfella

 

 

[facthunter]

You can practice looking for them in your car, (each side0 . and the centre strip Roads as well though I wouldn[t recommend them without some discussion of the downside. You should have covered this a fair bit with your instructor. If you haven't , do it. . Of course you never know when you may need to do one, but perhaps your "solo" at this stage is turns, climbing and gliding and medium bank figure 8's etc. Appreciation of suitable fiels will come morewith time but you need to know exactly what to look for. When you have done that you need to train to get the plane where you want it. Nev

 

 

[Zibi]

Apart from the 5, 6 or 7 S' (depending how you've been taught: Size, Shape, Slope, Surface, Surrounds, some also include (S)Civilization, Sun, Stock, etc) one thing I can add is not to be afraid to change your mind as you approach it.

 

If you notice a better area within your range, or your approach isn't going as you'd expect it to (for example stronger wind than you previously though), provided you have enough height it's better to change your mind than to keep on going into a crash.

 

Other thing I keep on catching myself on is that I pick my "base turn" point and start approaching it, and then half way through there comes a doubt whether or not I'll make it there.

 

Usually a quick glance at the altimeter confirms that I was right in the first place and it's just my mind telling me that I've lost more height than I actually did.

 

 

[facthunter]

Your last point Zibi. How does your altimeter indicate height (above ground)? Nev

 

 

[Guest Bigfella]

Thanks Nev, yes my instructor has put alot of emphasis on practicing forced landings and is tough on me getting them right, I guess you dont get a second chance in a real life situation. Yes also lots of others things to practice with medium level turns, stalls, procedural requirements in and out of class d airspace, all fun stuff!

 

Thanks Zibi, yes thats a good point about changing your mind with fields although I have to be careful not to become indecisive about my field selection. I use 1200ft amsl as a low key to turn base.

 

Cheers,

 

Bigfella

 

 

[facthunter]

How can you use your altimeter to determine your height above ground that you are unfamiliar with? Nev

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

......one thing I can add is not to be afraid to change your mind as you approach it.If you notice a better area within your range, or your approach isn't going as you'd expect it to (for example stronger wind than you previously though), provided you have enough height it's better to change your mind than to keep on going into a crash.

This is a bit 'iffy'. You need to take the time early in the piece to be sure that you have selected the best possible site for your landing. To suddenly notice a better site indicates you didn't look properly in the first place. And in all the training I received over the years by commercial instructors and check Captains it was thoroughly drummed in to never change your mind because to start rapidly forming a new plan when time (height) is running out usually results in disaster. Of course there are variables, your suggestion 'provided you have enough height' is arbitrary though, and certainly if you discover the first site you chose is criss-crossed with power lines well then you'd have to change but the rule has served me well in many forced landings.

 

Other thing I keep on catching myself on is that I pick my "base turn" point and start approaching it, and then half way through there comes a doubt whether or not I'll make it there.Usually a quick glance at the altimeter confirms that I was right in the first place and it's just my mind telling me that I've lost more height than I actually did.

Sorry but this is iffy too. The altimeter is useless to you in the circumstance of a genuine forced landing because you don't know the height of the ground. The sight picture is what counts, based on the angle to the landing site.

 

 

[Zibi]

How can you use your altimeter to determine your height above ground that you are unfamiliar with? Nev

We're talking here about flights in a designated training area, so you should know the average ground elevation.

 

But my point was not as much about height above terrain but more about height loss. Say I start at 2000' AMSL, then as I start gliding it feels as if I lost 1000' but when I check it it only 400-500'.

 

I agree that it may not be a good action in an unknown terrain, but that's something I, as a fairly new pilot, caught myself doing and often I would end up way too high above my picked landing site (luckily those were all practice approaches and no real emergency yet).

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

...... and often I would end up way too high above my picked landing site (luckily those were all practice approaches and no real emergency yet).

Which is why approaches, whether practice or real, are all about the sight picture and nothing to do with height or altitude.

 

 

[facthunter]

It may facilitate your success in a familiar training area but since it will generally mean little or nothing in reality, why use it at all. All you can rely on generally is your developed JUDGEMENT, and some sort of evaluative process you have produced.

 

It's like using familiar points in the circuit you normally fly at.. When you go somewhere you haven't been before you are in strife. Your forced landing site when it comes, will be (most likely) somewhere you haven't been before. Nev

 

 

[motzartmerv]

G'day Bigfella. Others have mentioned it and im sure you have heard it before, the 'wosssss' check. I think tjis is an area not taught overly well and it is very difficult I have to admit. The problem is that ist taught as a 'check'

 

In the briefing room the instructor usually draws up a nice picture of a paddock, and draws your approach path bla bla, and spends 10 minutes explaining the 'wossss' check.

 

Wind

 

Size

 

Slope

 

Surface etc.

 

Great, all very usefull stuff. And then in the acft he fails the engine on you and you find yourself running through a longass checklist as you try and pick a paddock. Oh, that ones into wind, next is size, yep looks good, slope, well hard to say from here, and on it goes. meanwhile you've lost 300-500 feet and you get to the end and decide its no good. So you move on to your next paddock..Wind....etc..

 

The point im trying to make is that it shouldn't be a check to determine if a paddock is GOOD but rather a method of ruling a paddock out. Sounds circular I know, but think about it.

 

Cranky instructor pulls the power, after you have set best glide and trimmed you select the paddock, yep that looks good, oh no, wait, its into the sun. Which is normally LASt on the WOSSS check. So instead of wasting time going through it as a checklist, its more a method of ruling a paddock out.

 

Another example, youve chosen the paddock, it looks good, its into wind but there are paddocks just as good but closer to Civilisation (another S in WOSSSS) so you choose it instead, without working your way through a checklist.

 

Does that make sense?

 

 

[facthunter]

Andy,You have illustrated how confusing it is on the ground. Your ( anyones) brain is always smaller in the air. ( Well that is how it seems). When you add the element of confusion you are going for a BAD outcome. Time is usually something you don't have enough of so don't waste what you have... Nev

 

 

[Zibi]

It may facilitate your success in a familiar training area but since it will generally mean little or nothing in reality, why use it at all. All you can rely on generally is your developed JUDGEMENT, and some sort of evaluative process you have produced.

I guess I just use it as a way to develop that judgement, or rather reassure myself that my judgement is ok.

 

As with any judgement it's not something that you can just learn - it comes with experience, and the thing with PFLs is that you hardly ever take it all the way down to the ground, so you need some feedback as to how you're doing.

 

Obviously your instructor is your first feedback, but then you start flying and practicing solo.

 

You can get down to that 500' (provided your landing area is not near build up area) and you should know from there.

 

I usually end my practice approaches at about 1000' as that's the height of my usual circuit and I can judge it better from there.

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Roughly how many hours dual have you done doing PFL's?

 

 

[Zibi]

I don't remember now, but roughly it would have been 3 or 4 hours dedicated to PFLs and couple more PFL while practicing something else .

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Good. Paddock selection, while important, is easily botched and under the heat of the moment a common mistake. You will get better at it and I often argue that its your ability to plan and execute a good FL that should be focussed on. Even a bad plan, is better than no plan.

 

I tell people after ive failed an engine on them and they have trimmed for best glide, "you have just survived, now lets try and save the plane." because its the no plan, no control approach that is deadly. If you get the plane set up, and FLY the bugga all the way down, you will be ok. Paddock selction is important, but only secondary to 'Flying" the plane.

 

Cheers and good luck

 

 

[Guest Bigfella]

Hard to say exaclty how many dual hrs I've spent PFL's, he'll probably pull 2 o 3 on me in a session all with different scenarios but all in all it's not something I've spent a lot of time on until now except for like you say practicing the theory of the checklists.

 

I'm actually back up in the air in a couple of hours and my instructor has suggested I go through the process of a PFL with out the checks, ie go to 2500ft amsl, set it up for best glide speed and purely focus on field selection, do this enough times and experience will tell me where and what fields are the best. Where I am I'm dealing with high voltage power lines, rural fencing, housing, livestock, culverts & drains etc etc. all the normal stuff I guess.

 

The actually checks themselves I can get out relatively smoothly, I've found the best way to practice this is while driving, not just while driving down the freeway but in situations that are more conducive to a stressful situation. Try doing your checks in the middle of the melbourne, in peak hour, while trying to a hook turn! not as easy as it sounds.......good experience.....

 

p.s. for those non melbourniuns you may have to google hook turn, now thats a whole other conversation

 

Cheers,

 

Bigfella

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

At the risk of sounding like a broken record I still say you shouldn't have to choose a paddock when the engine quits, because you should always have one selected in advance.

 

Now the last time I spouted off about this I got a fair bit of resistance from certain quarters and so I had a good think about it. In essence those who couldn't see the need lived/fly in areas, mainly rural Victoria and NSW where you can land just about anywhere so when the noise stops it's not much of a brainer to work out somewhere to go because it's nearly all open farmland.

 

My contention though is based on most of my flying having been done where there are few landing spots, mostly bad, and far between them, so it's a case of studying each one as you travel along and selecting the part of the clearing that is usable rather than just choosing the clearing itself.

 

So things do change according to the type of terrain you're operating over and in general the further north you live or fly the more you'd better pay attention to forced landing opportunities in advance of the engine stopping.

 

 

[facthunter]

I've been known to fly near tracks /roads. A friend of mine years ago landed on a road in a dust storm near Lightning Ridge and a cattle grid brought him Unstuck. Using places where you know a vehicle has used is some guarantee of the surface being OK. The last time I outlanded I used the presence of straw dumped as feed as an indicator. Nev

 

 

[motzartmerv]

Hey head. I agree with your sentiments, but regardless of when the paddock is being selected, it still needs to be selected ..Somehow.. The ability to choose one on the fly is a very important one. Sure we can plan and fly with 'suitable landing area' as much as possible underneath us, but still we need, and need to teach, an ability to make decisions on the fly. Its crucial. All the failures ive had required some reasonably brisk decisions and often close to home is when your thinking less about paddocks and more about the airfield, so there is room for confusion there. Am i going home or going into a afield..?

 

I couldnt agree more that as much as possible we should be planning where we are going. But in reality, for a student, its an impossible ask ALL the time. So therefor a method needs to be promoted. IMHO

 

 

[DWF]

To my mind the most important thing with a forced landing is to get the aircraft occupants back on the ground safely and in one piece.

 

If the aircraft is reusable as well that is a bonus.

 

The hardest part of achieving that is the last bit from 500' to touchdown - the bit we DON'T get to practice.

 

I know we practice glide approaches to our own airstrip(s) [don't we?] but the 'picture' can be quite different away from 'home'.

 

If you can, find a low flying area and/or ALA in your training area where you can come down to (almost) ground level safely and do a go around (or even touch and go if you are lucky).

 

It is better to be too high than too low! You can always lose height - it is almost impossible to get it back (thermal).

 

You have flap (in most aircraft), side-slipping (you have been taught that haven't you) and S turns (you can lose a lot of height with this technique so practice at height first). At touchdown you want to be as slow as possible (just above the stall) so speed control on final is also important - short field landing practice is useful here.

 

Even a PFL from ~2000' over your home field can be a useful exercise.

 

Choose a forced landing area as close to directly below the aircraft as possible - not always that easy I know.

 

motzartverv's tip about using the 'field selection checklist' to reject an area is very useful.

 

DWF

 

 

[Zibi]

I may be digging myself into some problems with my instructor here, but one other thing to take into account is how much difference the wind makes and sometimes it can be hard to judge the wind down below from 2 or 3000'.

 

We are all taught to land into the wind, that it makes safer, shorter landings, etc, etc.

 

But I don't think there's any practical demonstration of how much difference a little wind can make.

 

Before I've experienced it I thought, that it should be pretty much the same, you just touch down a bit faster and all is good, after all what difference would another couple knots of ground speed make.

 

Until one day I had to land with the wind...

 

(and before anyone starts having a go at me, note this:

 

- the wind sock was barely lifted from vertical

 

- from memory it was also changing directions slightly, so there was no clear wind direction

 

- there were several aircraft doing circuits on that runway.

 

now with that out of the way)

 

well, when I've turned on final the aircraft just would not descend, I think I overshot my landing point by a good 300m or more. It just kept going and going.

 

 

[Gnarly Gnu]

The hardest part of achieving that is the last bit from 500' to touchdown - the bit we DON'T get to practice.

Some of us. Using an instructor in a rural area where there is permission to go right down to the paddock I found much more realistic than this 500 feet stuff.

 

 

[facthunter]

That's true. It's hard to legally do it unfortunately. Another thing to bear in mind is that you don't need a straight path to land on you can land on a curved path. Nev

 

 

[rankamateur]

I've been known to fly near tracks /roads. A friend of mine years ago landed on a road in a dust storm near Lightning Ridge and a cattle grid brought him Unstuck. Using places where you know a vehicle has used is some guarantee of the surface being OK. The last time I outlanded I used the presence of straw dumped as feed as an indicator. Nev

My instructor warned of on-coming traffic on roadways, apparently a friend of his died in a forced landing into oncoming traffic. I guess it doesn't happen often so the likelihood of someone on-coming is even less likely. I remember heading down to Temora a few years ago, looking over to the Newell highway, well with-in gliding distance, and not much else going for us, but it was crawling with B-double trucks.