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Didn`t know about the Rotax 600 Ace! Did a quick internet search; Application: Snow. Rotax 600 ACE - BRP-Rotax Frank.

Well, I guess that`s something!...My point in post #19 was to show the difference between an LSA (Jabiru) and a rag and tube, high-drag, low-momentum AC, in that case, my WB Drifter, therefore, why training to fly Ultralights shouldn`t be done in high-performance LSA. In post #19, I gave IAS figures but in fact, in my WB Drifter, I don`t fly figures, I don`t need any instruments to know what the AC is telling me, the instruments are there to confirm what I know is happening, I fly the aircraft. Frank, Ps, Not for a second am I recommending anyone fly without instruments or not use them.

A while back Rodney Stiff flew a Jabiru to our property here at Deeral and took me flying while he was here; we were doing just over 100 kts and to get to 60 kts. hold it and maintain altitude we had to reduce power and get the nose up quite high...For me to get 60 kts and maintain that speed at straight and level flight, with my Drifter, I need to hold the nose down and apply power well above what I need to cruise at 50 kts. My Drifter stalls, power off, at 36 kts at MTOW; on final approach, on an average day I come in with nothing under 50 kts. Flying solo, power off stall is 32 kts IAS so I have 18 kts to play with, before wind shear...To maintain 50 IAS I need to point the nose at the ground at an angle that would frighten most LSA pilots, level off as close to the ground as needed at the time and finally land it. Best glide speed is 43 IAS so cruising solo at 50 IAS and the engine stops suddenly, from best glide speed, I now have 11 kts to play with, even with enough altitude to be able to zoom, maneuvering speed is 60 IAS... There`s no real advantage in trying to zoom in most high-drag, low-momentum rag and tube Ultralights and in fact, it could be disastrous for some. Some guys say that if the engine suddenly stops on an Ultralight, they were taught to "immediately shove the stick forward and get the nose down", to me that is a very ambiguous comment, there`s been no mention of IAS and the altitude of the AC at the moment the engine stops. Flying at anything above 500` agl with 50 IAS, I only need to lower the nose enough to maintain the speed I want and need, even though airspeed can decrease fast, from 50 IAS I need to slow down to get to best glide speed of 43 kts and I want to stay in the air for as long as possible...Just shoving the stick forward and getting the nose down can lose valuable hight required to make it to the landing site. In my opinion, Training for high-drag, low-momentum Ultralights should be done in those types of aircraft. Frank.

G`Day Don, That`s great! The photo won`t enlarge for me, can you please post it again or send it to me as PM...After a week of heavy rain, I got some flying in this afternoon, I can`t go much more than a week without it! Bad disease this flying bug... Frank.

Thanks, Callahan! You`ve led the way to a couple more true stories. This guy started flying in Tiger Moths, he was the first of our club members to obtain his AUF pilot certificate in my Drifter, he used to say "Tiger moths are good but Drifters are better" and went and bought one, flew it for many years then decided to build another type which he flew a few times before having an engine failure in it, up around the Ravenshoe area of North Queensland where lived. I`ve never forgotten this one and what he told me, he said, " I had nowhere else to go so I had to get around some trees and put it down on the road"! The road he was flying over went west from Ravenshoe over some hilly country and had numerous blind corners due to the cuttings through the ridges and he just happened to have to come down between one of those cuttings; he landed a bit sideways, the AC swung to the left, the right wing went up high enough for a vehicle coming around the blind corner to pass under the wing, the AC slamed into the bank of the cutting and was extensivilly damaged; though he wasn`t critically injured he had life lasting injuries and that was the end of his flying days. Wasn`t so lucky for one of the guys I`d instructed who stupidly decided to buzz his wife and two teenage children in their vehicle driving on the highway! He a hit powerline and the AC fell on the road in front of the car! Another guy I instructed was flying with him in his Drifter, stayed up around 1500` agl and saw it all happen...The guy who hit the power line died the next morning...A terrible tragedy and It`s brought tears to my eyes just writing this. Wasn`t so lucky for Ron either! He knew the powerline was there but forgot about it. Frank.

This wasn't a Hypothetical, it is a true story.The CFI is a guy I`ve known very well since my teenage years and that`s how he told me it happened. I didn`t like to ask too many questions about it so all I know is what I`ve written in my post #152. This is also a true story: This happened a couple of years ago, don`t recall exactly when... A very experienced fixed wing and Gyrocopter pilot who I also know very well had an accident with his quad bike on his private property and severely injured one of his shoulders; on this particular day he thought the shoulder was well enough to go for a fly in his very expensive Gyrocopter; before he could get it off the ground the shoulder gave in and Gyro was extensively damaged, fortunately! he wasn`t and is still with us but I don`t know what has become of the Gyro Moral of the story?.... I hope everyone get`s it. Frank.

I`ve done both and I pretty much agree! I rode motorcycles on the road for years and raced on dirt and grass track for a few years; I`ve done so many high-risk activities in my life, I reckon flying Ultralight aircraft has probably been one of the safest...I`m now retired from my primary occupation of sugarcane farming but when I was farming, the yearly fatality rate of farmers, throughout the country, was an average of 30, apparently, these days quad bikes take out more; I still use a quad bike around the property and I have never been hurt by it. Back to Ultralights and the sink rate: The sink rate depends on several variables but stall any Ultralight and the sink rate will be well above 5 feet a second so without the height and the ability required to recover from it, there is very little chance of surviving the impact. Hyperthical: Happily flying along satisfied there`s what appears to be a suitable landing area well within gliding distance if the engine stops and suddenly it does! No problem! Nose down, set up best glide speed, keep it flying and making the landing area looks certain! Now getting to the point where there`s no option other than to land straight ahead and suddenly what looked like a nice flat grassy field, from a few thousand feet up is, in fact, a field full of huge boulders covered by long grass....................Too late, it`s all over!!! A few years ago a similar situation happened to a very experienced local AUF/RA-Aus CFI at his satellite training facility strip. He took off from his FTF with a student, flew out to his satellite strip, landed too fast, overran the runway, hit a mound of dirt covered in grass, (OH! Sh!t That Wasn`t There Last Time!), flipped the AC over... Result: One AC needing re-building and two guys in the hospital...The mound of dirt wasn`t there the last time he`d used the strip but had been put there since! Frank.

Hi Dan, Could you please explain why not!

You got the "cheekily posted" bit wrong! I was completely serious! For those who don`t know. Self-taught? Absolutely correct! When I started flying, twin seat Ultralights were illegal, so no legal dual flight training in any Ultralight; if you could find someone somewhere in the country who would instruct it was probably someone who had never flown an Ultralight and simply been given the authority to instruct and I didn`t see the intelligence of learning to fly in some Cessna, then go and fly the Ultralight I`d built. Engine failures? Well! I had more than some but many less than others! I have one of Austflight`s original twin seat, certified WB Drifters` approved to start dual flight training, through the Australian Ultralight Federation and that`s the AC I started flight training with; it came with a Rotax 503 single carb, single ignition engine with a Rotax B type reduction gearbox, turning a 2 blade wooden propeller; that engine did a couple of hundred hours then destroyed itself. Next was a Rotax grey head 582, it did over 600 hrs then destroyed itself, then so did the next one! These Rotax engines had been made for snowmobiles and other things, not aircraft; there was next to no information on how to maintain them and it was us guys in the early days who put our life on the line using these engines to get to the Rotax engines available today. Yes! I survived and without so much as a scratch; it`s now over 10 years since I installed my current Rotax 503 DCDI with the Rotax E type box driving a 60 inch 3 blade ground adjustable Ivo prop, it`s done many hours and has never so much as missed a single beat! Do I trust it? Never! but I`m more than happy to fly with it. Frank.

Fair point! It didn`t take me long to learn that the ground behind me was as important for a forced landing as the ground in front of me! Allowing for wind speed, direction, and turbulence, I will not leave gliding distance of the ground behind me until I`m as certain as I can be that I will glide to the ground either ahead or to the sides of me, recognising a suitable landing area though is not as simple as it sounds and the higher the altitude, the more challenging it becomes to be sure that what you`re looking at is in fact what you think it is. Example: I`ve done a lot flying over the Atherton Tablelands; the area around Atherton, Dimbulah, Mareeba is fairly flat with large areas being used for agriculture; to the south of Atherton,all around Malanda, Milla Milla, down the Palmerston until you get to Innisfail, is mostly dairy country that consists of very high hills and hollows that are extremely steep with fence lines running along a lot of the ridges and very little flat country between them; not terrain you would like to have to make a quick decission on a suitable landing area. Frank.

I`ve always believed in telling true stories as part of teaching. My very first flight in an Ultralight was in the back seat of a home built copy of the Canadian Chinook WT 2 which I later copied from to build mine; the owner was an experienced Ultralight pilot and treasurer of our recently formed club the F.N.Q.U.A., he asked me if I would like to go for a flight with him to Mission beach, on the weekend, me being me at that time, I couldn`t say no. The flight from our property here at Deeral, down to Mission beach went without incident but the flight back not so, the track the pilot chose was coastal, just inland from the beach and we were approaching a 220 m ridge, just south of Bramston beach; even with no flying experience at that stage and from the back seat I could see we would clear the ridge dangerously low; 500 m before the ridge the Fuji Robin 440 twin cylinder single ignition engine completely lost power but kept running; Mr. Cool (not his name) at the controls had the, " Oh Sh!t I Don`t Believe This", moment, fortunately! he`d lowered the nose but couldn`t quickly decide what to do. With nothing but trees below, the ridge ahead and the AC losing height, I could see we were in big trouble if he didn`t act quickly, so I yelled out to him to do a descending turn to the right and head for the beach, which he did, at least we would live a little longer and maybe even make the beach; as soon he lowered the nose enough the engine picked up RPM; we got to the beach with about 50` of height left (I kid you not) but instead of landing on the beach (it was low tide) he decided to do a 90 degree left turn and continue flying about 20` above the water; with nothing but rocks to our left for a kilometer or so, all I could do was prepair myself for the swim if we had to ditch in the water and he got it right. We made it to Bramston beach, landed on the beach and looked for the power loss; the engine was rear mounted, inverted and a spark plug lead had fallen off; the spark plug type were those with the screw on cap that the plug lead held onto, from the vibration, one of the caps had worn out the thread and the lead fell off. Pilot went and found another spark plug cap, put the lead back on and we flew home...The Fuji Robin 440 had pushed us a total of 9 kilometers, 20 feet above the water, on one cylinder. That day, I very quickly learned several lessons but it didn`t deter me from wanting to fly, nor have the engine failures I`ve had since; because of that day, with my own Fuji Robin 440, 2 Rotax 503 and 4, 582, all inverted, I have always had a simple device I used to stop spark plug leads coming off, even though I`ve been using spark plugs without the screw on caps for a long time, I still use it. Frank,

...Due to the recent fatal accident, in the 95-10 Ultralight at Emerald, I started this thread in an attempt to discuss engine failure, in high-drag, low-momentum Ultralights` because some were speculating on that thread the accident may have been caused by engine failure. I lost count a long time ago of the number of times I`ve heard " If the engine stop, those things fall out of the sky" and the times I`ve tried to explain, that is not correct, but perception is a reality for some people so I attempt to change their perception. RA-Aus still have Ultralights registered in the CAO 95-10 category and those that were in the CAO 95-25 which are now in CAO 95-55, all rag and tube high-drag, low-momentum aircraft; there are still those who choose to fly these types and those who intend to fly them and need the appropriate training; I believe it`s extremely important that they get the correct information and not believe that if the engine fails they will die! Over the Christmas period, I had a guy turn up at home here at Deeral looking for, in his words, "the Ultralight guy" I said, "that`s me".This guy trained in a high-performance AC and hadn`t long obtained his first RA-Aus certificate, which restricts him to 25 nm of the field he will fly from. He was well aware and concerned about the fact he could get into a lot of trouble just within the area he would be flying over so one of the things I asked him was what he`d been taught on engine failure, he gave the reply I expected and dread to hear; 'If the engine stops, immediately setup best glide speed then look for somewhere to land". Unfortunately, in some cases, it`s too late by then. He was up here on holidays, never flown in a Drifter so we did some flying together and by the time he went back home he was convinced to always look for a suitable place to land before the engine stops and remain within gliding distance of that place. Choosing a suitable place for a forced landing and remaining within gliding distance of it is a skill in itself. Frank.

Great! Now we're starting to get information on what contributed to a successful safe landing instead of what might contribute to a successful safe landing. I`m only going to talk about high-drag, low-momentum, low-speed Ultralights...This particular incident occurred when I was instructing for our local club, the Far North Queensland Ultralight Asociation, at that time the club owned the Drifter I fly...This story is a bit long but it makes a few very important examples of surviving engine failure. A guy doing his nav wanted to fly to Ravenshoe as he`d grown up there. Back then I did a lot of flying for our club from the Pioneer Valley holiday ranch on the Atherton Tablelands. We took off from our property here at Deeral, with the guy at the controls and me in the back seat, went over the Gillies range and stayed within gliding distance of a suitable landing area all the way to Pioneer Valley then onto Ravenshoe. We flew around Ravenshoe a couple of times then started heading back when the guy in the front asked me if he could track back to Pioneer Valley in a straight line from our current position, this meant flying for quite a while over tiger country completely unsuitable for a forced landing, I considered it for about 10 seconds and said NO! we`d go back the way we came; I`d hardly said it when the engine surged and began to lose power, it kept running enough to keep us flying but the guy in the front seat couldn`t keep the stick steady enough and every time the nose went up we lost power, I thought the engine would stop so I took over. Because we were over terrain that I could land on if the engine stopped I set a track to Peter Grimley`s property at Kaban, which was a lot closer than Pioneer Valley; Peter was a club member, owned and flew a Drifter and had cleared a large area of trees and made a couple of strips there and I knew a couple of our club members would be there. I was able to maintain 1500` agl but as I got closer to Peter`s, there was a large area of trees between us and one of the strips, I could see if the engine failed over those trees I wasn`t going to make the strip, I had to climb to be safe and I was fairly certain that as soon as I started to climb the engine would stop so I positioned the Drifter over the 2 paddocks below us with a headland between them and started to attempt a circling climb, as soon as I lifted the nose, the engine stoped, nothing to do now but land on the headland that was twice the width of the wheel bace. Peter had heard us coming and when the noise stopped he and another club member came to us by Ute. We thought we`d found the reason for the failure, started the engine and it ran quite well so I sent the guy in the front seat back to peter`s in the Ute and I flew it out to Peter`s. We went right over everything on the Drifter, again and again, we thought we`d found the problem so I flew it back to Pioneer Valley holiday ranch where some of our club members were...That was the first engine failure that day, the second was with a club member flying solo but it didn`t end so well. I`ll tell the story of the second failure and the reason for the two failures that day, after I give someone else a go to tell theirs. Frank.

In my post above, I should have added, there was no damage to the aircraft or pilot because he kept it flying all the way down and just settled it on top of the tall sugar cane. If done correctly, landing on top of tall sugar cane can be a soft landing in all the types of Ultralights` that I`m aware of and have flown, I`ve had to! but I`m not so sure about the nose wheel LSA. Frank.

This could have been a Fatal! The pilot was the owner and this was his first flight; I`d test flown it for him the day before, it flew well and was quite maneuverable; he was flying circuits off a local turf farm here at Deeral, was on final approach, reduced the power and the engine stopped; had he been 100` higher when he reduced the power, he would have easily been able to safely land, where he took off from. What isn`t in the photo is the drain about 2 mts wide and 2.5 mts deep and about 1.5 mts behind the tail, he just cleared it, had he hit the bank of the drain, it would have ended completely different. That`s Ron Biondi holding the prop and myself, the guy looking under the AC is the owner/pilot. These days I mostly fly from home, but over the years I flew from many different places, one thing that has never changed though is my principal on final; I always keep more than enough height to make my landing point then slip it off if I need to. I believe, what is needed on this thread, is more stories of real-life experiences, from those who have had engine failure, talking from theory is almost useless. Frank.

Due to the continued discussion on the possible cause of the fatal accident in the Ultralight at Emerald I thought it best to start this thread on the subject of engine failure in Ultralight aircraft. I`ll start by saying, engine failure in itself does not and should not cause a fatal accident in an Ultralight aircraft, it`s the chain of events that occur before and after the engine failure that determine the final outcome. Frank.

Geoff, There was Zenith CH 701 based here on our property for 10 years that I often flew; the 701 is a STOL aircraft and I could almost stand it on it`s tail at lift-off if I wanted to but I always kept the nose down with an airspeed that I could simply land without stalling if the engine suddenly quit, until I got to a height that I considered safe enough to use it`s STOL performance. The best rate of climb is the rate that keeps you safest; as we saw in the video, it`s all over extremely quickly. Frank, Ps, I test flew a SkyDart at Caboolture for a guy I instructed who was wanting to buy it and he did.

G`Day Alf! With the length of runway still ahead of them I`d also say, they should have been climbing at lower angle, with a higher airspeed. Frank.

A precautionary landing is completely different to an engine failure where you are forced to land, like it or not and it`s how you land that determines the final outcome. From experience, I just don`t agree or believe that instructing someone on engine failure in the latest, you beaut, high-performance LSA and pulling out at 500` agl is going to prepare them for an engine failure in a 95-10 Ultralight or any other high-drag, low-momentum Ultralight. I`m not suggesting engine failure training be carried out all the way to runway, at a busy public aerodrome, what I am suggesting is that training for high- drag, low-momentum Ultralights be carried out in a high-drag, low-momentum aircraft, where the training can be carried out, all the way to a full stop on the runway. Frank.

In case you missed it, I made the point in my above post #124 that I began instructing legally from my own property when we were only legal to 500`, agl. From memory, I retired from instructing around 15 years ago for several reasons, one of them being I didn`t agree with the direction Ultralight training was heading. As for my obligations to the regulations, that`s my business but I`m not going to agree on any regulation that I believe is not improving the safety of Ultralight pilots, just to appease the system...So there you have it, no more to be said. Frank.

Who said it was about my level of skill? Certainly not I! Again an assumption you have dreamed up.One thing you are absolutely correct about though is what this thread is about, so why not contribute something positive to it! I`ve simply tried to show that training for engine failure in an Ultralight and for Ultralight pilots, pulling out at 500` agl is a joke because as we all know, it`s only the last bit at the bottom that does the damage. Oh! By the way! why am I not surprised you reply to my question would be "no and no" Frank.

I`m not fueled by anyone and you`re entitled to your opinions, regardless of what they remind you of. Please tell me if you`ve ever instructed in an Ultralight aircraft and if you have had any engine failure in any Ultralight you`ve been flying and walked away from!...I talk from the experience of both scenarios. It`s a pity you don`t stick to the subject being discussed instead of giving some BS example, such as you have in your post I`ve quoted from, Frank.

I find it hard to agree to stop training for the accident you are trying to prevent because the very accident you are trying to prevent is occurring. What that says to me, is, " You can`t train to achieve the ability required to stop that accident occurring but hopefully, it won`t happen or if it does, you might be able to deal with it and survive". It also says to me, "The instructor is not capable of preventing the accident, in training". Forgetting GA aircraft. I had the advantage of beginning to instruct in the Drifter off my own property when we were only legal to 500` agl; Throughout the country, there had already been numerous fatal accidents resulting from engine failure and I believed this was unacceptable but I didn`t stop instructing on how to survive engine failure because I might get it wrong and cause the very accident I was trying to prevent, I put a lot of time and effort into instructing on how to get back onto the ground safely and that meant flying the aircraft all the way to landing back on the strip. What is the point in training for engine failure and pulling out at 500` agl.? Frank.

I did a couple of hours in the back seat of a Quicksilver GT 500 with the owner, a guy I instructed in the Drifter when he was doing nav with me. When I was instructing I went through 4 Rotax 582 grey head engines on my Drifter; with a student on board, I had 3 engine failures just after take-off, not all with the same student or engine, though. The first failure I was able to land back on the strip ahead of me; the second failure, up wind, past the end of the strip, I landed straight ahead in an adjoining paddock; the third failure, up wind, past the end of the strip, at around 250` agl, I had to do a 90 degree, right, descending turn and land in an adjoining paddock...The result of the 3 engine failures` was, no injuries to student or myself, aircraft damage; a broken tail wheel, due to the rough paddock... I eventually flew the Drifter out of that paddock. In the video, at approximately 7.50 the guy in the front seat pulls back on the control yoke and the aircraft lifts off. At approximately 8.03 the engine starts to lose power and begins to sink and the guy in the front seat is still holding back on the control yoke. At approximately 8.07 the guy in the front seat pulls back on the control yoke and the aircraft crashes on the runway. At this stage, I point out that`s how it appears to me and if I `m, correct, there was no attempt to lower the nose of the aircraft, causing it to stall, therefore, the accident was caused by the aircraft stalling and not the engine failure; I believe if the nose of the aircraft had been lowered as soon as the engine started to fail, a satisfactory landing could have been carried out. Frank, Ps, The guy who owned the Quicksilver I spoke about was fatally injured when he hit a powerline attempting to buzz his wife and children, driving on the highway.