Please forgive (and correct) me if I am mistaken, but I'll only give the AT crew partial credit, as the emergency was of their own making due to not tracking their fuel score if I recall correctly. That said, hell of a job of not only making the island, but the runway after that point.

I'll only speak to the Hornet - but if I lose an engine on takeoff - I climb away **on-speed* which for us means 8.1 alpha (AOA)(L/D max). It is displayed in our HUD as an E bracket. It results in the perfect speed for whatever configuration/weight you happen to be at during the event. If I was really heavy (loaded down with bombs or tanks, etc.....) then I would emergency jettison those items. Once that extra weight is gone you usually don't have a problem with climbing out.

A-6 carrier crash - Google Video#

This video clip shows an A-6 taking off from the carrier and he has an engine failure if I remember correctly. More than likely he is trying to hold **on-speed** and climb away but something else happens, he knows he is going down and tries to jettison the centerline tank as a last ditch effort to save it I imagine. I don't have any knowledge of this particular accident (some on here might) but most engine failure of the catapult emergency proceduress fall along the same lines.

USMCFLYR

I am not sure myself but what I was primarily talking about was the actual landing more than the gliding part which frankly is pretty straight forward; you're going down no matter what, you need to make sure you don't get too slow and have to decide where you're going to put it down and stick to your decision.

Glider pilots are used to "milking” the airplane down onto sometimes pretty rough grass strips, etc. where touching down gently is very important.

Also, we are always focused on keeping the wings straight during the touchdown as the go-around option obviously just isn’t out there...

So basically I think the fact the river was to his left and he was already in a shallow left turn gave him a pretty good view of his touch down zone options. That's what I'd be looking out for and I'm sure his glider pilot instinct kicked in too.

By the way, I am not implying that a non-glider pilot wouldn't be able to repeat what he did, quite the opposite.

I simply think that as a glider pilot he truly knew how critical it’d be to keep those wings very straight over the water because in his past I’m sure he’d witnessed a ground-loop or two when the wing would dip just a tad too low over the grass strip... That's all.

Either way, like I said, very nice touchdown or splashdown indeed..,

The EMB170/190 series has a "green dot" on the airspeed tape that represents MaxL/D for current aircraft weight & configuration; is used for driftdown (one out) or gliding (two out!).

Thanks for the info. So even though there's no published glide speeds, that number is readily available to you. Like another poster said, I guess the 170 has the same capability. As long as the piece of equipment that provides that info is STILL working properly. I'm assuming the F-18 is similar to the civilian aircraft in that there is enough redundancy built in that if you lost that, your day is a lot worse than worry about knowing what L/D max is.

Well...there are procedures for that scenario too. We know what on-speed should be for a normal aircraft based on weight too and if I care too I can look it up in the Pocket CheckList (PCL) that we carry.

USMCFLYR

That sound like work

Sully on landing plane: 'It was a very intense moment' - MSN Video
Not sure of this was posted already, 20min interview on NBC with the whole crew.

Most glider pilots have flown trainers that have the L/D ratio of a streamlined brick then eventually fly 34/1 (and above) glass slippers that keep you airborne hours. Each of these has a "different sight picture" (especially in the pattern)and you adjust accordingly.

The "pattern sight picture" does not change just because the airframe is heavier. Things just happen faster.

Consider the following: Two aircraft are exactly alike (aerodynamically), are flying side by side at the same altitude, both loose total power at the same time and start flying L/D Max. One aircraft is significantly heavier then the other. Which one will glide the longest distance ?

You would be amazed how many pilots get it wrong.

Depends on the wind.

T-38 L/D if I remember was 230+fuel

First T-38 Flameout no fuel glide at 230 into a 230 kt wind. Dist traveled=0

Second T-38 Flameout with 1,000# into a 230 kt wind. Dist traveled>0