Airline Pilot Central Forums - The Robots are Coming!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bing (Post 2594703)

I'm not sure if this the right place to post but I have a question for any commercial or military pilot. If you are at 30000' and travelling 460 mph and then lose all engines. Now you're losing 7000 feet per minute headed down at a 20% slope then at 2000' AGL you pull the nose up what happens next? I realize different aircraft handle differently. I'm curious about fighter jet and about commercial airliners. What would happen next in the scenario. I'm not a pilot yet. But planning to start learning to fly this year. Thanks!

Generally the same for all airplanes, although glide ratio and performance varies by design. Commercial jets are very aerodynamic, and don't have obnoxious propellers acting as windmills in the breeze, so they actually have a much better glide performance than a small piston plane, probably about twice as good.... much better than 20%!

On losing all engines you setup for "best glide" speed. This gives you max time and range to figure out where to go. Max time aloft speed and max range speed can be slightly different from each other, depending on the design.

When it's time to land you wouldn't pull the nose up at 2000', you'd slow and stall the plane. You would normally extend flaps and gear, adjust pitch slightly to keep the speed you need (lower speed with flaps). You would flare (increase pitch) within about 50' above the runway to reduce vertical speed at touchdown.

For airliners, this has been done successfully several times (Sully, Gimli Glider).

Many fighters have the glide ratio of a brick and if glided in would arrive with very high speed and descent rate. For that reason the procedure for loss of all engine(s) is often to simply point the plane where it won't hurt anybody and then eject.