ENGINE FAILURE, FROM GLIDE TO TOUCHDOWN ....

Acknowledgements: Thomas P. Turner (Mastery Flight Training Inc.)

 Ed. Note: Maybe not a common occurrence for most, but worth a refresh just in case?

“Following engine failure, and if your checklist efforts to restart the engine are unsuccessful, fly at “Best Glide” speed until you are on short final to your selected landing target, whether it’s a runway, a road, or a field. Flying faster than “Best Glide” results in higher drag and therefore a greater rate of descent, which reduces the distance you can glide and therefore limits your options. Flying slower may actually increase glide performance (reduce vertical speed while preserving glide distance) if the airplane is lighter than maximum gross weight … which it will always be, assuming you took off at or below max. gross. But the best speed is not terribly much below the handbook’s glide speed, which is published for maximum weight. 

If you fly much slower than the published glide speed the drag again increases, and glide performance is degraded. In an extended glide you might have time to experiment with flight a few knots less than “Best Glide” to see if you get better performance. In most cases, however, you’ll get very close to optimal performance at the published “Best Glide” airspeed.

In most airplane types “Best Glide” is well above a slowest safe speed. Once you reach your field, or you are committed to landing in trees, in water or onto rough terrain, you should slow to just above stall speed. This will reduce your rate of descent but increase your angle of descent; you’ll go down less rapidly but get less forward distance in the process. Most importantly, this slower speed reduces your forward momentum so that on impact less force is imparted on the airplane … and its occupants. 

Some “Pilot’s Operating Handbooks” specify an engine-out landing speed, or landing without power speed, or some other way of saying the same concept. This speed, when published, is usually a few knots greater than stall speed with full flaps. The added speed is a safety margin above stall and compensates for lack of propeller blast over the elevators, to ensure you have enough control authority to flare to make impact even more survivable. 

Should you use flaps? Of course. In most flap-equipped airplanes flaps reduce stall speed by many knots. Your objective is to fly at the slowest safe speed to reduce impact forces you and your passengers will experience. As you slow to landing without power, extend flaps fully, then flare to touch down (or hit the trees) just above stall speed.

How about landing gear? For pilots of retractable gear aircraft, the question often arises: In an off-airport landing should you land gear up or gear down? Recent LESSONS focused on the likelihood of flipping over if landing off-airport with the gear down. An RG pilot has the option of minimizing this risk. My suggestion is that, unless you are landing on a runway or hard-surfaced road, touchdown should be made gear up to minimize the hazard of flipping over when a gear leg hits a rut or hole or another obstacle. 

Regardless of the manoeuvring you must do to align with your best landing option, when you get within about 400 feet of the ground, perhaps 20-30 seconds from touchdown in most airplanes based on glide performance, it’s best make your wings level to land on whatever is close to straight ahead. You need time to judge your flare. 

If you’ve been turning or banking and are not in a position to land where you wanted when you reach this height, it’s not going to work! Level your wings and aim for the best option ahead of you, under control. If the airplane’s handbook gives guidance beyond just a “Best Glide” speed, follow it. But, with the manufacturer’s advice or without it, for maximum chances of survival land wings level, and under control at the slowest safe speed”.

FLY SAFE!