Turnback

[Hedley]

Today I was doing some advanced training in a 172 (I know, ignore the implicit oxymoron there) and the guy gave me such a good takeoff briefing that I couldn't resist pulling the throttle on him at 500 feet.

"I have control". 59.9 degrees of bank, and 80 and ball centered, 80 and ball centered through the turn. Main challenge was the lateral displacement from the runway. S-turn and we were down on the 4000 foot runway.

If you're an airshow pilot, pretty tame. The aircraft is perfectly capable of the turnback - if you have the knowledge, training and experience to perform it.

Background: 172 has 57 mph stall speed at max gross, flaps up. We weren't at max gross, more likely 2000 lbs. Using square root formula:

sqrt(2000/2300) x 57 = 53 mph

At 2 G, we know that the stall speed is

sqrt(2) x 53 = 75 mph

I could fly a level, co-ordinated steep turn at 60 DOB at 80 mph and not stall.

But I was NOT. I was letting the nose fall during the turn - I was NOT trying to maintain altitude, so I didn't need to produce the same lift. I wasn't pulling 2G at all - perhaps 1G, which means that my stall speed was still 53 mph

Plenty of margin with 80 mph.

Bottom line: don't confuse what an airplane is capable of, with what any random pilot is capable of. Precious few pilots are capable of making an aircraft do everything it can do, without breaking it or stalling it. Your name probably isn't Bob Hoover.

See the Vg diagram aka "envelope" that you hear so much about:

[trey kule]

I am not trying to bait you Hedley, but what exactly is the point you are trying to make?

[mike53]

Don't get me wrong,if your confident enough to perform that maneuver that's great,but as the above poster asked ,what is your point?The one thing I had drilled into me as a student a long long while ago is DON'T ever attempt what you just explained.A would guess that 90% of all pilots here would never think to attempt that ,the other 10% will probably spin in and die but you have introduced a "Well it is possible,Hedley did it" I will never attempt it myself and doing it at altitude is a false sense of security.Things will not look or feel the same at 500ft.
So back to trey kule's question .What are you trying to accomplish here and what were you trying to teach your student?

[Beefitarian]

I'm lost. Did you just do an 80mph aproach with a tail wind?

[AuxBatOn]

Hedley,

It's impossible and you'll die. People on AvCanada say so...

I made that argument a while a go and even brought up some calculations to prove my point. People were still saying it was not possible.....

If you never practiced it, sure don't try it. However with some practice, it's easy to make. Set yourself some gates (ie: below XXX ft, straight ahead, above that, 180). The more you practice, the lower you'll be able to make it. It also depends on the conditions of the day (mostly winds) and runway lenght.

[Hedley]

Exactly.

Food for thought: 95% of all pilots think they have "above average" skills. This is clearly a statistical impossibility. Given a symmetrical normal distribution (which is very likely), half of all pilots have below average skills, and half of all pilots have above average skills, and two sigma on either side will capture 95% of the pilot population.

I have been flying for 35 years, and I've met an awful lot of pilots in that time. Never in all those years did I ever meed a pilot who admitted he had "below average" skills. I only met pilots on the right hand side of the distribution. I will admit that this is theoretically possible, but seems somewhat unlikely. Where do they hide all those pilots on the left hand side of the curve?

This is not a digression. The turnback is clearly aerodynamically possible, but perhaps should not be attempted by pilots on the left hand side of the curve. However, pilots are loathe to admit that they are on the left hand side of the curve, so instead they attempt to perpetrate a myth that the turnback is "impossible", in order to excuse their lack of skill.

As a physics guy, this seems like so much self-deceiving nonsense. As Aux says, if you practice it, you will get better at it. This is not hard to understand.

Don't be happy about being on the left hand side of the curve. Do something about it.

I will freely admit that I don't suffer fools gladly, and I sure don't train hamburger pilots. I teach the finest civilian pilots in Canada. Well, the second-finest, according to Big Pistons Forever If you want Walmart training, well, you know where to go - someplace with a 5 knot crosswind limitation (this is NOT a Seneca bash - I know many fine pilots from Seneca). FWIW, my ab initio students only fly tailwheel, and they are all competent in 15 knot direct crosswinds, and they can all land on the upwind main, and drive down the runway with full aileron deflection.

I would rather train one steak pilot than 100 hamburger pilot. I can only apologize for my lack of egalitariansim.

[iflyforpie]

I did it in a 206 after a real life failure. I had previous training though.


Oh, and math is great, but it makes SFA difference when you are in an airplane. Equations in aerodynamics are written by looking at the answer first and then making the rest fit (like every time you see the word 'coefficient'). Expect some serious erosion of those rosy numbers when confronted with a real emergency. I ran some numbers and figured Sully could have made it back to La Guardia with room to spare, but I wouldn't bet my life on it.


I am curious as to what the wind conditions were. With a calm wind I can't make it back to the runway (mind you I only have 3000ft). With 15 knots I will overshoot (or at least don't feel comfortable with the less than 1000 left on an unstabilized approach).

[Hedley]

Very little wind today. Perhaps 5 knots of headwind component, possibly less.

As Aux says, the runway length is also a big factor. I have 4,000 feet. A friend
of mine did it for real with a 6,000 foot runway, after an engine failure in Harvard
at 400 AGL. He makes a living as a test pilot, though, so I think it's safe to say
he's well on the right hand side of the bell curve of pilot skill.

I should probably leave this well enough alone, but if I can let you know a secret ...
the turnback really isn't very hard. Neither is an aileron roll, but I know people
keep killing themselves doing both, which makes me shake my head. I can
teach anyone to do either of the above in one lesson.

There are a lot more difficult things you can do in an aircraft. Off the top of my
head, a low altitude tumble is much more sporty than the turnback. You will
exit the tumble in either an inverted spin (90% of the time) or a tailslide (10%
of the time), well below 1,000 feet. That's perhaps two decimal orders of
magnitude above the turnback.

Far less sporty than a tumble, but still more interesting than a turnback, is
a surface level loop or half reverse cuban-eight, which is perhaps one decimal
order of magnitude above the turnback.

Much more interesting than the tumble is a formation outside loop at low altitude
in line abreast formation. The visuals and physical sensation will blow your mind.
Personally, I would estimate the level of difficulty of that maneuver approximately
3 decimal orders of magnitude above the turnback, during which I would happily
eat a sandwich.

I really don't understand what all the fuss is about.

I get crapped on, on a regular basis, that I'm not a "very good pilot". Ok, I buy
into the rhetoric. You're a better stick than I am. But if I find it easy to do, you
should find it ridiculously easy to do - simple inequalities. But that's not what I
am told, so there's something wrong here, with someone's reasoning.

[mike53]

Hedley,

It's impossible and you'll die. People on AvCanada say so...

I made that argument a while a go and even brought up some calculations to prove my point. People were still saying it was not possible.....

If you never practiced it, sure don't try it. However with some practice, it's easy to make. Set yourself some gates (ie: below XXX ft, straight ahead, above that, 180). The more you practice, the lower you'll be able to make it. It also depends on the conditions of the day (mostly winds) and runway lenght.

No one in this thread said it was impossible .Would you care to hazard a guess how many students,pilots and instructors have died trying?.The following was pasted from http://www.aviationmagazine.com

Turning Around

Take the 180-degree turnback to the runway as another example. Presume the engine quits shortly after takeoff. Influenced into believing that the runway behind is the best option and that the ailerons make the airplane turn, the pilot immediately banks rapidly and steeply. Sensing the rising rate of descent and with the misconception that elevator holds the airplane up, the pilot hauls the stick back. A stall/spin ensues.

A quick look in the NTSB database for the one-year period starting with the Oroville mishap yielded a total of five accidents in which the narratives state the flights

included intentional turnbacks following simulated engine failures during the takeoff phase. The results: five airplanes wrecked; eight pilots killed; one pilot seriously injured; one pilot with minor injuries. The four CFIs who were providing instruction in intentional turnbacks: all dead.

The accident not involving an instructor instead involved an FAA inspector conducting a reexamination flight with a private pilot who previously had a landing accident. The inspector requested demonstration of a turnaround following a simulated engine out on takeoff. The inspector survived; the private pilot, trying to comply with the inspector’s request, died.

Two of the narratives also mention successful turnaround attempts had been made prior to the accidents. Based on the reports, at least five turnaround attempts can be counted, with three successes and two failures. The failures accounted for two of those killed, the one serious injury, and the one minor injury in the mix of five turnback accidents.

A third narrative described how the first turnback attempt was aborted (i.e., it failed) in favor of a go-around. The control tower was then asked for, and granted, a second attempt. The second try failed too, ending in a stall/spin and two more fatalities. The combined turnaround success rate in these three cases was three out of seven, or 43 percent. This is less than the overall turnaround success rate measured during the course of the simulator turnback study (see page 7).

Interestingly, however, it happens to be the same rate tallied in the simulator study during the first three of the seven test sorties, where the exact turnaround technique was left up to the test subject’s discretion. The penalty for failure in a real airplane close to the ground, of course, is far greater than it is in a simulator.

It’s plenty dangerous to attempt a turnback, even in a supposedly controlled environment close to the ground, even though the attempt supposedly can be aborted at any time by leveling the wings, powering up, and going around. The danger during a real, surprise emergency is exponentially greater. Aviation educators who continue to promote and teach the 180-turnaround as a viable alternative—in the face of the data and historically sound advice to the contrary—put themselves and their students at grave risk. And for what? Maybe to save some metal and fabric? The problem here is the extremes: Either you’ll have resounding success, or you’ll die trying. Sadly, far too many have needlessly experienced the latter.

In subsequent articles, we’ll explore some of the underlying reasons for these misunderstandings and what we can do about it.

Rich Stowell was designated the country’s first-ever Master Aerobatic Instructor in 2001 and was the FAA National CFI of the Year in 2006. His most recent book is "The Light Airplane Pilot’s Guide to Stall/Spin Awareness."

Also With This Article
Similarities

[Hedley]

I might mention that Rich Stowell has plenty to learn yet. He just wrote an article for the IAC magazine during which he claimed to experience -4.5G in a Pitts S-2B during an inverted spin, which is complete nonsense - he was doing outside snaps on the way down, and didn't know it.

The turnback is ridiculously easy. I find is supremely depressing that so many people find it - like the aileron roll - so challenging. It blows my mind.

The manager of the Kingston airport died when his tractor rolled over. I haven't stopped driving a tractor, either. Does that make me a bad man?

I will gladly admit that I am not as good a stick & rudder pilot as you. Come to CYSH and teach me.

Or if you want, come to CYSH and pay me to do turnbacks all day long. As long as I can bring my lunch in the airplane, I will be happy. As I said before, there are plenty more difficult things you can do in an airplane than a vanilla turnback. This isn't one of them:

[Bushav8er]

When I was young and new I tried it with a 172, at an airport with no traffic (Mountain View). I got to about 120 degrees before needing to 'miss'. I was new though. Haven't tried it since except in training on the PC12 which IS capable of the manoeuvre.

[Hedley]

the PC12 which IS capable of the manoeuvre

I have no doubt!

Let me try to explain this. Let's say you went to a website where people
said that stairs were dangerous, and if you tried to run up (or down) a set
of stairs, you would surely die, because it is IMPOSSIBLE and people had
DIED TRYING.

What would your response be?

[Beefitarian]

Um, "I bet Hedley could run up and down them stairs!"?

[mike53]

[quote="Hedley"]I might mention that Rich Stowell has plenty to learn yet. He just wrote an article for the IAC magazine during which he claimed to experience -4.5G in a Pitts S-2B during an inverted spin, which is complete nonsense - he was doing outside snaps on the way down, and didn't know it.

The turnback is ridiculously easy. I find is supremely depressing that so many people find it - like the aileron roll - so challenging. It blows my mind.

The manager of the Kingston airport died when his tractor rolled over. I haven't stopped driving a tractor, either. Does that make me a bad man?

I will gladly admit that I am not as good a stick & rudder pilot as you. Come to CYSH and teach me.

Or if you want, come to CYSH and pay me to do turnbacks all day long. As long as I can bring my lunch in the airplane, I will be happy. As I said before, there are plenty more difficult things you can do in an airplane than a vanilla turnback. This isn't one of them:
==============================================================================


The fact that you find the turnback easy is just honkey dorey. Bully for you.I will gladly send every student,pilot,and instructor to you so that you may show them how easy it is but the odds are against your average joe making it on his own.I'm sorry but statistics will bear me out.
My original question still remains unanswered so I will put it another way .Why give fools the ammunition they need to kill themselves?Every pilot here knows that it is possible but probably only about 3 or 4 in 10 will survive an engine failure by turning back at 500ft .If one pilot here turns back because you said "It's so damned easy" you will never know.You will also never know if he didn't make it. You seem to have little respect for the author of the above article.I on the other hand have every respect for him for the way he handled the subject.

[Hedley]

You seem to have little respect for the author of the above article

Rich doesn't know the difference between an accelerated inverted spin, and an outside snap on a downline, so I think that objectively qualifies his opinion on the subject.

After his IAC magazine article came out, did you participate in the resulting email thread on the IAC mailing list?

I will probably continue to run up AND DOWN stairs. And I might even drive a tractor, every now and then.

It is a tragedy that so many people struggle with something so simple as the turnback, or an aileron roll. Both can be easily learned in a very brief period.

It discourages me that so many people argue so strongly for their limitations.

statistics will bear me out

Yes, people attempting something they have no training on, experiencing difficulty. How surprising

If you can master the use of carb heat, you can master the turnaround. They are approximately
the same level of technical difficulty. I suppose both could kill you, if you didn't do it right, but I
stiill fly aircraft with carburetors, even if you think they are DANGEROUS.

[Beefitarian]

I'm pretty sure you want to kill some people for saying they were better pilots than you. You seem pretty bent that most pilots can't be honest like me and admit they are not up to doing a turn back even if they think it's possible for a c-172 flown by a guy with better skills.

Are you upset, do you need a hug?

[Hedley]

you want to kill some people for saying they were better pilots than you

Huh? No, I honestly and humbly accept that rhetoric, which has been
repeatedly directed at me, over many decades, by many people.

The thing that puzzles me is the very same people will claim that
something absurdly easy, like the turnback or an aileron roll, is
DANGEROUS and SHOULD NOT BE ATTEMPTED because IT WILL
KILL YOU.

Hold on a sec. You claim you're a better pilot than I am. I accept
that. No problem. But then you claim that something really easy
is hard to do?

That just doesn't make sense to me.

This really isn't very hard to understand. Explain.

[Beefitarian]

It's probably pretty easy to ride a moped in the winter with traffic. I watched a guy do it and since I have not heard or read about his demise I presume he survived it. What if it slips and falls over then a truck runs over his head?

Again, are you upset because you're an experienced aerobatic pilot who's not getting recognised by the general AvCanada population. I can give you a hug.

Yes I noticed this.

the PC12 which IS capable

if I can trust you're telling the truth without the graph which some how shows a 172 going 180mph in straight and level flight.

I believe that many planes are capable in the right hands.

[Cat Driver]

Please remember that I am still not functioning anywhere near my normal level and should stay out of this thread......but I have a question for those who are in doubt about the question of whether or not a given airplane can safely do a turn back as described by Hedley, and if an instructor should teach same.

How long does it take to teach a student to safely perform this maneuver?

Hedley please don't reply to this question because I want to know what some of the other flight instructors will answer on this question.

Both you and I pretty well know what I think on this Hedley.

[trey kule]

I think I getting up to speed on this.
The original post was based on the premise (or fact) that some people are stating the turnaround is impossible. Of course it isnt provided the reason for doing it happens above a critical altitude. So you provided, by demonstration and theory that it could of course be done.
I still dont really see the point.
Considering that 50% of us are on the left side of the bell curve so to speak, and couple that with the short decision time made under a real emergency situation, and I have to think that unless you are very certain of your height, weight, wind, and even traffic that may be behind you, the best option to learn is to put the nose down and, if possible land straight ahead.
I am not sure anyone actually said it was impossible. Just that if it really happens and you are not quite as good as you thought you were, or were just a little bit lower than you thought, it might not be the best opition. When it really happens we have to check to see that we have 500 feet (for example), something that was omitted on your demonstration as you waited until you had 500 feet to pull the power. You have eliminated two things that occur in a real situation. 1. You were comfortable with the altitude, and 2. You had time to think about it before you pulled the power. The training scenario was set up so it could be done. How bout the same situation where you pull the power at 450' then 200' then 100'? Contrast that with a new pilot climbing out and focused a bit on attitude, speed, cleaning up the aircraft, setting power, and ....it happens.
And , believing that because they did it in a training scenario they will have no problem doing it in real life.
A good pre takeoff briefing, made silently to yourself is, in my opinion, a better idea.

Concluding, we are actually discussing two issues. You want to prove to some people who are claiming it is impossible that it can be done...And some posters are not disagreeing with you, but asking how safe that really is compared to just putting the nose down to get the proper glide attitude and landing sort of straight ahead.


Of course it can be done, and I am not sure in a training scenario it really takes a super pilot to do it. In a real life situation though, not sure

[mike53]

Hedley you just don't get it. It's not about the physics of the turnback. It's about the psychology of the human psyche.Every pilot that died turning back at a low altitude understood what a stall was . Every pilot understood that when you are in a turn that the stall speed increased,turn even tighter and it increased even more ,pull back to much and it would enter a spin without too much effort.They all new that but they died all the same. I've no doubt it is easy when it is planned but an engine failure is not planned and thats when that human psychology reacts not as planned but in spurts and starts, and that is why your instructor told you land ahead ,don't turn around unless you have the altitude. Simple and very survivable.I don't give a rats ass how easy you think it is.You fly every day for christs sake .A lot of us fly if we are lucky 2 hours a month so don't come on here and tell inexperienced pilots" Hey if you have an engine failure below 600ft ,turnback hell it's easy".You can give me the physics and explain how it's done even though we all know how to turn a plane at low speed without stalling it.
The fact remains most pilots will pull back on the yoke because the ground is coming up fast and they will probably add a little rudder to hurry the turn.Your smart enough to see where this will end.
Over 35 years I have probably read a dozen articles on this subject .Yours was the first that condoned turning back.Other than a few of your sycophants here you stand alone.
If you want to teach turnbacks at low altitude that's great but you can only do harm by coming on here and trying to explain it.
Fools will take you at your word and try it .

[Hedley]

Sigh. I am reminded of ulcers. Yes, stomach ulcers. Everyone used to "know" that ulcers were caused by stress. Sure as the sun came up in the east and went down in the west, ulcers were caused by stress. You were an idiot if you thought otherwise.

Well, fortunately in the 1980's a couple of australian researchers discovered otherwise. Ulcers were in fact caused by bacteria, and could be treated by anti-biotics.

The medical establishment ridiculed the researchers, because they "knew" that no bacteria could live in stomach acid.

Well, the establishment was wrong, and the australian researchers were right. Decades later, they were grudgingly honoured with a Nobel prize, for all the suffering they alleviated.


Now, children. Does anyone see a parallel here? The "establishment" is claiming that the turnback is "impossible", when in fact it is indeed aerodynamically possible, and actually quite easy to perform, given a little training.

If you can master carb heat, you can master the turnaround. Both can kill you if you don't do them right - just like a ladder - but that's not a good reason to not learn about them.

[Cat Driver]

Other than a few of your sycophants here you stand alone.

I am curious, do you think I am one of the sycophants mike53?

[Big Pistons Forever]

The thing that puzzles me is the very same people will claim that
something absurdly easy, like the turnback or an aileron roll, is
DANGEROUS and SHOULD NOT BE ATTEMPTED because IT WILL
KILL YOU.

.

I (and most of the other guys commenting on this) never claimed that turnback is impossible, or even very difficult, for a pilot with lots of experience, plenty of recent hands and feet flying, preferably at low level, and who have already successfully dealt with some real world actual emergencies. Your average high time float driver, tundra tired bush driver, firebomber pilot, ag pilot, pipeline patroller, aerobatic instructor, or high time Class 2 or 1 aeroplane instructor will be able to so this manoever.

After that though we get the difference between what "should be" and "what is". What "should be" is that every pilot should be able to quickly and competantly react to an EFATO emergency including completing the turn back manoever that the aircraft is clearly capable of. "What is"... is the fact that the accident statistics show that in all the actual EFATO emergencies that have occurred in the last 25 years those pilots who elected to turn back suffered a fatal accident at a rate 8 times more than those who elected to land straight ahead.

For that reason I teach no turnbacks below 1000 ft AGL for PPL and CPL students.

I think that there are 2 kinds of pilots. Those who have had an actual in flight life threatening emergency and those who have not. Until you have the no shit OHHH MMMYY GOD moment you will never really know how you will react. On the EFATO emergency IMO whether you live or die doesn't depend on whether you hold a precise pitch or bank angle on the turn back, it will be whether you immediately push over to the glide attitude or just freeze thinking "this can't be happening".........

You won't really know which category you fall into until the bad thing happens to you.

The problem is no matter how well you teach the manoever I believe the only way
you can translate that into doing the right thing when it happens for real to you, is if you have that background of total and recent hands on experience that gives you the latent skills to instinctively react correctly.

[Beefitarian]

I must add here. Everytime I brief or think about engine failure on climb out I consider runway 34 at YXD. I would probably do something I would not at many other locations, if not attempt a turn around. because the go straght option just does not seem like the best option to me.

Having looked on Google maps to figure out which runway it was makes it look like there's problems in every direction with the "normal" plan at that airport.

I have to think 80% or more pilots shouldn't attempt a turnback. I believe there is probably a lot a 172 can do that might be beyond the skills of 60% + of current pilots never mind all pilots.