Originally Posted by
Otto123
Hello,
I was just wondering what everyone thought on an engine out situation.
If you have an engine out and have plenty of altitude, say 6000' AGL, and you wanted to turn 180 degrees after calculating that you can make a field behind you, would you bank sharply (knowing you will lose altitude, but gain airspeed that you can then use to gain altitude again up until hitting best glide speed), or would you bank shallow and make a slow turn at glide speed?
I ask this because the more people I fly with, I find they have a harder time staying coordinated while trying to perform a shallow bank than they do if they roll the plane over to a steeper bank. Simply put, is it better to get the aircraft turned so you can set up for the decent and approach, or rather take things slow?
Thanks for the input...just something I've never heard in training pilots for emergency procedures.
Of course it depends on what aircraft you're doing it in - but for the sake of training say a 172.... Say departure end of the runway and 6000' AGL is more than enough for a 360 degree turn to land into the wind (if that's what you wanted) on the same runway. As a matter of fact you'd probably have to loose altitude depending on position, winds, etc. There's enough time to quickly run through some trouble shooting - and get a back-up landing area in mind should you have miscalculated.
IHMO bank doesn't really matter too much until you're critical on your airspeed/altitude... which may be below 1000' AGL or something.
It may be a good idea for CFIs to teach really tight patterns so students get an idea of how a ~50-60 degree bank base to final feels like with speed/sink rate, etc.... getting a feel of energy lost, etc...