This morning was gorgeous. Winds were calm, it was pretty cold out, just above freezing so our climb performance was pretty awesome. The density altitude (DA) was reporting as -1500 in the area.
Since we didn’t have any winds that would facilitate crosswind landings or ground reference maneuvers, we moved to a new topic of study and practice. Emergency engine out procedures.
As we left the pattern,I make the radio calls ( I’m making all of the radio calls now by the way 🙂 ), and we head west towards the practice area. Once we reach cruise altitude, I perform the cruise checklist and my instructor says, “See anywhere that we could land?” As I look, I notice that there isn’t any were particularly inviting. Most fields are small and green. We are looking for more long and brownish. I finally find a location and she says to head that direction. Okydoky.
As I come downwind on the field that I think is good, she pulls the throttle and says to go through my emergency checklist. It’s as easy as A,B,C,D,E or so it should be but at this moment I don’t know what I am doing. So with some prodding, I go through the checklist:
A – Pitch for best glide (Vg), which is 60 kts for the Cessna 152 that I am currently floating above the earth.
B – Find the best spot to land. Well I got to pick it before this started so I guess that is where I am landing.
C – Checklist for restart procedure. This is more of a flow, check fuel shutoff valve is set to on, mixture rich, carb heat off, mag switch on… to start if prop stopped, primer closed and locked.
D – Dialog. This is where I would declare an emergency on 121.5 and squawk 7700. If in the pattern or near patter of airport I would declare the emergency on the airport frequency.
E – Exit procedures. Shutoff fuel, electrical and unlatch the doors.
I pretty much had to let my instructor talk me through it because I was busy trying not to crash with no engine. It was oddly real feeling even though I know that we were ok and the engine was actually spinning. She would clear the engine every X amount of descent to make sure we didn’t have a REAL emergency.
So… the first attempt… too high and too low to make the field on the other side… 🙁
Second attempt, I was high so I tried to perform a spiral descending turn but I was way to close to the sides of the landing area so when I rolled couldn’t actually complete the final turn onto final without overshooting. 🙁
We headed over to KSCR and I entered the pattern and was getting ready to turn base and…… engine out…. throttle back to idle. This one was pretty uneventful and I landed successfully with full flaps deployed. This was weird because it was the first time that I had landed with full flaps extended. There was a bit more vibration and the nose pointed down a bit more than normal to keep approach speed. Wasn’t too big of an issue, just different.
We back taxi’d and took off heading back towards KTTA. I found a field and we lined up for another engine out landing. This time I learned from my second attempt where I was crowding the pattern. This time I flew a pinpoint pattern all the way down to around 500 feet, then I pushed in power and slowly retracted the flaps. “We would have survived that one, good job” 😀 YAY
We tuned in the Liberty VOR and followed the 120 radial back to Raleigh Exec. Talking about finding spots and always having somewhere that you could land if an issue were to arise. I expressed my dissatisfaction with my performance and she reminded me that it was my first lesson performing this maneuver and that I did well, considering.
The pattern at KTTA was buzzing, not surprising since it was an absolutely beautiful day to fly. I was a following an RV-7, that was really fast, who was downwind when I entered the pattern. The RV turned final about the time that I was abeam the numbers to I extended to give room. Once abeam to the RV, I began our initial descent, one notch of flaps, descent attitude. Turned base, second notch of flaps, then final. I was a bit high but coming down nicely. “There’s a deer on the runway!” So I go full power, cut carb heat, accelerate and slowly retract flaps, ten degrees at a time. She always gets me with that one. Not 100% sure if it was because I was a little high and she was giving me an out or just part of the curriculum. I suspect the latter.
Next time I am abeam the numbers, engine goes to idle…. you guessed it, engine out. We go through the A,B,C,D,E and me being really slow… I made the base turn at the normal point… um yeah, well… No flaps because we don’t use flaps until know that we have made the runway. I turn final and we are a little about right on with no flaps. My instructor makes the radio call “Raleigh Exec Cessna 40B final runway 3 simulated engine out, full stop” Since we are low, she makes the comment that flaps are unavailable due to electrical failure. My indication that we will not be using flaps. If we did, we wouldn’t make the runway.
As we approach the runway, the site picture is looking good and she comments to me that the airplane is going to float and to let it float and slowly settle down. I comply and we touch down nicely on the runway. The lesson here is, when the engine is out and you have a 6500 ft runway at your disposal… go ahead and make a tight base and final so you can use flaps. The happy side effect is that I was able to practice my first no flap landing.
We taxi back discussing the lesson. I tell her how displeased I was with my coordination when we went full power after each of the emergency landings. I really need to get that in my head… slow and full power means p factor and I need right rudder. She didn’t seem too worried about it.. probably pleased that I recognized it. The common theme is when I learn new things, I am behind the aircraft… It will get easier. She sent me home with a bit of homework so now to get studying. Next Flight is Friday… can’t wait to get back up.
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