Cubdriver

Barry Schiff is like a superman to me, a super-pilot who has led a career that excelled so many respects your eyes gloss over when you even try to think about it. He knows more than I do about pretty much everything. However, he has apparently made the fabled "impossible turn" on two occasions in his long flying career, and has done it without loss of life, property, or airplane. For those who do not recall, the "impossible turn" in aviation is any attempt to return to a runway of departure following failure of one or more engines, and usually is associated with single engine airplanes because they are so crippled by loss of their only engine. It is a controversial maneuver because history shows such attempts are usually a failure. In other words, it doesn't work and the airplane with the dead engine either ends up short of the runway or enters a spin while trying to do the 180 degree turn and everybody generally dies when that happens. So, I am not a thousand hour flight instructor or a 30,00 hour pilot like Mr. Schiff and I have no right to say Mr. Schiff is wrong, but 1) the FAA says he is wrong as an official position, 2) accident history says he is wrong and those who try generally fail, and 3) my instinct tells me unless I have already been flying on a given day and I am "warmed up" on my skills I will probably not do anything so excellent as to recognize the situation and execute a low-g turn like this in the heat of the moment with an engine that has turned to lead at such low altitude and live to tell about it.

Barry Schiff- The Impossible Turn

Twin Wasp

He had an article a few years back doing the math. Don't recall what he came up will but it wasn't pattern altitude.

Glider pilots train for a rope break on takeoff. The normal altitude for making the 180 is 200 feet.

Cubdriver

I made this plot of glide versus altitude for some common glide ratios. On the low side an airplane that glides at 10:1, an average trainer at 12:1 and a glider at 40:1. I picked a number out of the air of "150ft" as loss of altitude to do a 180-degree back to the runway with no power.

Example. Cessna 172 with a 12:1 glide ratio takes off and loses the engine at 400 feet and due to excellent training realizes what they need to do immediately and goes to the best glide speed, makes a 180-degree turn and loses 150 feet in that turn, then has half a mile to use getting back to the runway.

Lots of assumptions here.

1. goes right to best glide speed without delay
2. starts the turn without delay, does not waste time with a restart attempt (or wig out)
3. other traffic does not use the runway in the meantime
4. has enough glide left after the turn to actually get "on" the runway rather than just "to" it
5. crosswinds are light, and if x-winds do exist the pilot is aware of the direction chooses to turn into the wind so as not to be blown farther away from runway in the turn
6. pilot flies a coordinated turn, does not stall-spin

Y-axis is altitude in (ft), x-axis is distance in (nm).

rickair7777

I have a relative who is 40+ year ASEL patrol/spotter pilot. He swears by a wing-over like maneuver which converts almost all of your AS to altitude, then uses the remaining AS to rudder the nose around toward the ground...you then just pull up as you regain AS and land on the reciprocal of the departure runway. Obviously you have to be prepared to execute this INSTANTLY on engine failure.

He has demonstrated this to me with a hard deck on more than one occasion, and it works with only a few hundred feet. I don't fly GA enough to feel proficient doing something like this so it's not in my bag of tricks. I wouldn't recommend it either, unless you satisfy yourself that your airplane, your ability, and your proficiency is up to the task.

Cubdriver

For giving it a try might be the fact there is no stall speed for an airplane in a zero-g light turn because there is no vertical lift being generated, so if you immediately and skillfully pitched the nose down and turned at the same time at a reasonable bank angle all the lift goes to the turn and hopefully this does not require a very high AoA to complete. The key would be pushing over and turning at the same time in measured amounts, and I am not sure most pilots are either ready or willing to do this at that time and such a low altitude. If I am flying at the drop zone and my skills are sharp I might give it a try, but otherwise I think the 800 ft rule is a good one.

clipperskipper

AOPA has a real life story with a Mooney engine that broke shortly after takeoff. I know it
goes against everything that we've been taught and practice such as aborting a takeoff after V1 following an engine or tire failure, however in this case....:
http://flash.aopa.org/asf/pilotstories/impossibleturn/

USMCFLYR

That is where that tricky thing called 'Decision Making' comes in I'm sure you agree. Most procedures are made based on a set of circumstances and reactions that produce a statistical outcome, but not one situation will be the exact same every time.

In this case, I have so doubt that someone can put the science to it and figure out a chart which will show a possibility (scientifcally and statistically) that a certain maneuver can be perform, and in special circumstances (whether those be perfect environmental factors or perfect reactions OR BOTH) the outcome is successful. BUT IN REALITY, the safer thing to do is stick with the mostly likely procedures that would give you the greatest statisitcal chance of surviving - - in this case, chosing the best landing place right out in front of you and completing any immediate action items called for in the manual.

USMCFLYR

detpilot

Keep in mind, on those wingover/hammerhead style maneuvers where airspeed approaches zero at the apex, a lot of the rudder authority comes from the prop wash hitting the tail. With an engine out, you might just find yourself pointing up, with full rudder and nothing happening. Not a good place to be. Plus, did he start this maneuver at Vy, or at a higher speed? Most GA planes at VY do not have the energy to increase the pitch more than 10-20 degrees momentarily without exceeding critical angle of attack, and that's WITH a working engine. If you pull too fast, accelerated stall. Too slow, and you bleed off too much of the (very little) airspeed you have. That sounds like a bad idea. General thoughts on the majority of CAP weekend warriors withheld out of respect for your relative (I've seen a lot of antics from the inside, and I've been less than impressed).

Cubdriver

A young woman got interested in this subject and rented a 172 to see what she could do and filmed it. She sounds like an inexperienced pilot, but she was able to get her turnaround minimum down to 750 agl under ideal circumstances. I teach my students not to try it unless they have at least 800 agl and only when they have no better option. Most of the time there is some useful dirt ahead and for airplanes this slow it hardly makes sense to squander any altitude you have trying to get a slightly better landing zone. In addition, these airplanes tend to anchor at the same airport all the time and there is little reason for the pilots who fly them not to know where the various near airport landing sites are. I think Mr. Schiff is wrong on this topic, but of course form your own opinion. The only time I would try a turnaround is if I have "warm" stick skills plus I am looking at rocks, water, and trees. A far more useful skill is to recognize the engine failure quickly, keep cool and get the nose down so the airplane does not stall. Another useful skill is to be able to forward slip to get the speed and distance under control so if you choose a field on the short side, which is pretty likely even in Kansas, you do not hit a tree line or a fence post. Getting back to the airport is possible but not smart in my opinion.

AOPA Deadly Turn video

PearlPilot

I read about it in one of Schiff's Proficient Pilot series'. Like many other fascinating topics he covered (pressure pattern navigation, using souring techniques to powered aircraft etc.) I always took it as purely academic as I have neither the skill, confidence, nor the desire to bank steeply, say at 500 AGL. It is "unconventional wisdom" like the AOPA Pilot magazine's article named it, but possibility doesn't make it wise like Cub said. It might however be beneficial like the author says, to find out how much altitude you will lose and how the the aircraft you fly will behave if such an attempt were made. I personally would rather land straight ahead and walk. After all the FAAs Airplane Flying Handbook said it the best. "There are times, however, when a pilot should be more interested in sacrificing the airplane so that the occupants can safely walk away from it" (16-2).