Impossible Turnback After Takeoff

[Big Pistons Forever]

Hed

There is plenty of AOA in your knife edge pass it just is not in the usual place

The issue to me is part of a tougher problem set. What you as the instructor can do is ultimately meaningless, the only thing that matters is what the student can do. I think I am a reasonably good stick but I also have 30 + times the number of flying hours of the CPL student. I think it is reasonable to conclude that threre are going to be manoevers which I can competantly execute every time, but are beyond the experience and judgement of a low(er) time pilot.

So the question I struggle with is "what is the point that a pilot could move from a rote response (ie no turn back below 1000 ft AGL under any circumstances) to a more nuanced approach that allows for increased pilot skill and judgement".

[Hedley]

Wings are at 0 degree AOA

Excellent!

hence they produce no lift

Yes, but that is only true because they are (rare) symmetrical wings.

Bonus question: What would happen if you tried to fly an aircraft with a flat-bottom wing (eg Pitts S-1C or S-1D) in knife edge flight? Hint: Look at the Cl curve.

deal with turbulence

I do.

Sorry, I am sure I have already crossed the line with the Powers That Be (tm) over my position on the turnback, and have said too much. Telling the truth in public is a very dangerous and expensive habit.

In the context of what has been mentioned in this thread, you can probably figure it out on your own.

what is the point that a pilot could move from a rote response

Excellent question. At the risk of more public heresy, the answer does NOT lie in total flight time. 10,000 hours of straight and level time, spent on autopilot, is NOT going to improve the skills and judgement required for the turnback.

Many years ago, I was shocked to learn that the Russian aerobatic pilots, who generally always kick our *sses in the Unlimited Category at the World Aerobatic Championship (WAC), only practice 40 hours before the WAC.

Now, 40 hours doesn't sound like very much, does it? Heck, a Canadian can't get his PPL in 40 hours, let alone get good enough to win in Unlimited at the World level. What's the difference?

Good training is the difference. Those Russian pilots would fly 120 twenty minute flights of a carefully critiqued unlimited category aerobatic sequence.

Speaking of training ... ever seen an F-18 at a Canadian airshow? Food for thought: even though he is capable of performing low-altitude aerobatics in a fighter jet, the F-18 demo pilot probably doesn't have enough hours in his logbook to fly a King Air straight and level in the civilian world. Hm.

[trampbike]

Bonus question: What would happen if you tried to fly an aircraft with a flat-bottom wing (eg Pitts S-1C or S-1D) in knife edge flight? Hint: Look at the Cl curve.

I guess you would have to push foward a little bit on the stick

[JAHinYYC]

I pulled the prop full fine

You mean full course?

(embarassed)

Yes. That is what I meant.

[HavaJava]

Lol, no worries...I'm embarrassed for spelling "coarse" wrong!

[Shiny Side Up]

No matter what a pilot decides to do he or she should be able to make evasive turns at or near stall without spinning and I'd hope that a well trained pilot's decision not to turn back is not based on a fear of a stall spin but rather on rational assessment of the best within gliding distance option.

Glad to see someone gets what I'm after here. No ammount of extra training makes the airplane glide farther than it can glide. A bit of planning and some excellent situational awareness about where you can go when you're in trouble are more relevant in my mind.

So the question I struggle with is "what is the point that a pilot could move from a rote response (ie no turn back below 1000 ft AGL under any circumstances) to a more nuanced approach that allows for increased pilot skill and judgement".

It weighs greatly in my mind as well. The problem being how many factors invloved. One could sum it up with some Sun-Tzu "If you know thyself and know thine enemy in a thousand battles you shall never perish." A pilot really has to be honest with themselves should the worst occur, we're also talking about a split second decision here.

An instructor unfortunately is put in the position where there is simply not enough time for everything to be passed to the student, or the student simply can't handle the truth, the truth being simply too large to handle so the information is unusable or unworkable at the moment of decision. So what do you give them? You need to give them that flash that they'll remember when the point of crisis comes.

PS: my apologies if I am not taking enough of a "motherhood and apple pie" approach. As an engineer and airshow pilot, I am far more technically interested in what an airframe is aerodynamically actually capable of, rather than preaching established dogma.

Mmmm, apple pie... Wait, what?

Oh, yeah that's right we were talking about turn backs. Who's preaching established dogma? No one's saying the turn back is impossible - well actually the original article does, but that point in a minute. All I'm saying is that sometimes - no matter how awesome your pilot skillz are, the plane won't make it back to the runway. And sometimes it may not be the best thing to do anyways, even if you can make it. Do you not agree?

I personally intensely dislike the presentation (hardly mom and apple pie) presented in the article featuring Mr.Shiff. Reads like the X-ray specs add on the back of old comic books or American phamaceutical commercials.

*ahem*

IMPOSSIBLE TURN BACK COMPLETED BY PILOT!!!

Local pilot survives death defying odds with simple amazing technique!

Secret technique once perfected by the Military and airshow monks of Tibet can now be yours for but a small commitment of training time!

NEVER WORRY ABOUT ENGINE FAILURES AGAIN!

Now you too can fly like a pro! Easy to learn! Simple to remember!

Use it to: SAVE YOUR LIFE! Save your plane! Impress your friends! Stun your co-workers! Be the hero at the next Christmas party! Get a date! Make the newspaper! GET ON TV! Write a book!

So easy, you'll wonder why your instructor didn't teach it to you in the first place!

Don't Wait! Learn it TODAY!
Experienced pilots warn that training time may vary per individual to learn this capability. They also warn that practice may be regularly required to maintain proficiency. Manuever may or may not be completed successfully in all conditions one might encounter during a typical take off. Failure of manuever may result in, but not limited to: bent metal, embarrasment, lawsuit, personal injury, grievious personal injury, complete destruction of aircraft, injury of passengers, grievious injury of passengers, financial loss, lifetime disability, loss of pilot's license relating to the above, and death. Especially death.

[Hedley]

Who's preaching established dogma?

The people who claim that the turnback is impossible.

Generally they are the same instructors who claim that Angle of Bank is Evil and in the circuit should be no more than "X" degrees (where X is some random number).

Of course, what ends up happening is that their students use rudder to increase their rate of yaw instead of bank, and they spin at low altitude during an overshooting turn onto final. This is considered safer than using "X+10" degrees of bank in the circuit, because as we all know, Angle of Bank is Evil.

I'm not sure it's always possible to dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator, for the hamburger pilots. My apologies if I am interested in creating "steak" pilots, to push the metaphor. I can see how some people might see developing a high level of skill as elitist, and thus undesirable because of the inherent lack of egalitarianism.

[trey kule]

My recollection of Pitts cockpits is they are not all that big. Amazing that there is room in one for some posters here and their egos.
Hamburger pilots? Steak Pilots?

Lets look at the realiity of an engine failure for the non super pilot (the non super pilot is based on those who do not feel the need to post how many planes they have flown and their supreme expertise....you probably dont know who you are)
If one loses an engine in a single engine airplane there is reaction time...then analysis, and then an executed plan...for an ab initio student particualrily, they should be taught to immediatley lower the nose to maintain flying speed and for the most part, land straight ahead. If you want to teach impossible turns (by definition not a good idea) then one has to learn to do a pre takeoff briefing based on the conditions that day...if we have engine failure above xxxxx feet we will attempt to turn back to the airfield....

K.I.S.S.. get the basics to the students and then teach them the finer points. I dont have any stats but my gut feeling is that the results would be better if everyone in this situation landed pretty much straight ahead. Last thing we need is some pilot stalling in a turn or turning into the ground when they could have landed straight ahead without a big problem.
If it really does happen to a student pilot or inexperienced pilot the stress factor is such that putting a another option in their brain is not neccesarily a good idea.

[. ._]

Yesterday I was fooling around with MS Flight Sim and tried a bunch of Impossible Turns with different angles of bank (15, 30, 45, 60, 90 degrees), wind speeds and directions.

Depending on how you do it and the conditions, sometimes it works, sometimes you crash. A pretty neat exercise. I highly recommend it.

[alctel]

Who's preaching established dogma?

The people who claim that the turnback is impossible.

I think people are saying that its a lot safer to teach 'no turnbacks' to budding young PPL and CPL pilots (like myself) since it will lead to a non-fatal accident 90% of the time, rather than the manoeuvre itself is impossible.

Later on when they have more time, experience and understanding of aerodynamics they can go on to learning about turnbacks.

[Hedley]

some posters here and their egos

Sigh. My apologies if my posts lack sufficient egalitarianism for you, and if my interest in the technical matters, and lack of false modesty (which is the refuge of the incompetent) is viewed as un-Canadian.

IMHO, we are discussing surface level aerobatics, wrt the turnback.

Perhaps some day, I will be as skilled at surface level aerobatics as you are, TK. In the mean time, since you know more about surface level aerobatics than I do, we shall go with your opinion on the matter.

Hamburger pilots? Steak Pilots?

Again, my apologies if a metaphor is too complicated for you to understand. We could define a "Hamburger pilot" as a pilot who does not have the skill to perform the turnback, and a "Steak pilot" as a pilot who does have the skill to perform the turnback.

I will remember in the future not to use metaphors on this website.

And, did I use any words that you didn't understand? If so, you could try this:

http://dictionary.reference.com/

to help you with the polysyllabic words that trip you up. 

[KK7]

[trey kule]

Goodness grief hedley. Did you think I was referring to you? If so I have to apologize...I did not think you would make the connection. I think you have alot to offer here, but it does get a bit tiresome having to wade through the litany of planes you have flown, and your distain for the 1/2 of us that are below the median.

As to surface level aerobatics..I really am not exactly sure what that means, but I am pretty sure I am not an expert in it, unless you are referring to my ability to recover from Guiness record breaking bounces.

My viewpoint was based on the position that it is best, at least initially to have a plan in mind before you start the takeoff roll. When/If something happens to that only engine on the plane, it is not the time to have some little thought pop up....I can land straight ahead or I can return to the field, be a hero, save the plane, and walk confidently up to the clubhouse for a few well deserved allocades.. All great fun if you are an instructor charging for dual, or on a sim..but the fact of real life is straight ahead is the way to go in almost every situation (note the weasal clause). Training does not introduce the pucker facter in the decision making process.

If you want to see a really impossible turn made by an amazing pilot..CADORS 1998C0959

Here are a few facts not indicated in the CADORS..The Wx was at minimums..the turnback was done in cloud. The plane was at gross weight.
The engine actually stopped 1200AGL and the weather was at minimums.(did I mention that).pilot did a turnback and landed .....a real super pilot...such was the difficulty that SIMCOM subsequently included this in their sim program...because they knew it could be done..

Now guess how many types of planes this guy flew? Humility is not always a cover up for incompetence. Sometimes it is just being humble. And being humble is not considered to be a fault by some of us...on the other hand, the constant need to self promote is seen by some of us to be a bit of compensating for a real sense of worth......or, as we call, instructor inflated syndrome.

BTW..The pilot has since passed away from brain cancer...A real loss to our aviation world.

[Hedley]

TK: Amongst my many, many faults and failings of mine in comparison to you, I did not give that pilot cancer, ok?

[trey kule]

So you say. But TC tells me differently

As to the comparative faults and failings..that is just your ex talking

[erics2b]

that is just your ex talking

Which one?

[Shiny Side Up]

IMHO, we are discussing surface level aerobatics, wrt the turnback.

This actually is where this conversation should have started. My main arguement then, maybe saving us both some grief is that it often isn't presented as such when its discussed. Articles like Mr' Shiff's make no mention of it, and his isn't alone from ones I've read.

Part of it I feel is irresponsible on the part of experienced pilots because they forget the audience they're presenting it to. I've sent a fair bit of angry mail to a few flying magazines in the past over it. Plane and Pilot notably is particularly bad. How does one justify an article about this being next page to "SO you want to be a pilot" and "What to do after getting your license"? American trained pilots I've found in this particular area are very scary because they've had no spin training, yet are often taught by someone how to do this manuever - contrary to what I assume their flight training syllabus indicates. In a majority of cases I've seen it attempted (and with to date no successes and Canadians being equally as guilty of trying) when asked the pilot's answer was: a) I've read about it being done, b) A buddy of mine who's a real good stick showed me once, or c) I seen it on the internet...

Monkey see, monkey do. For being an "impossible" manuever to pull off a suprising ammount of people out there are willing to give it a shot. For many of them with their experience and recency it might as well be.

A heroic display is very influential on people's decision making. Now we can't stop people from watching youtube and reduce c), but a) and b) in my mind are irresponsible acts almost always on the part of someone who knows better - often an instructor. Shiff's presentation leaves out one very important bit that Hedley has already touched upon, and that's practice, practice, practice, both frequently and recently - which lets face it, unless you primarily fly as an aerobatic pilot, is outside the realm on 99% of pilots out there. That, it should be noted, would when the time comes that you decide its your best option to try will give you the absolute best chance of surviving it. Bob Hoover after all became as awesome as he was because he flew all the time and practiced all the time. This is a piece of information that could really get through the heads of the general pilot population, then we could disseminate the information about turning back to a properly knowledgable audience.

[Big Pistons Forever]

I find it interesting that when Bob Hoover had the double engine failure shortly after takeoff in his Shrike (it was refueled with Jet A instead of 100LL) he didn't turn back.........

[cgzro]

The risks are not the same for everybody .. Bob Hoover has done numerous safe dead stick landings in all manner of planes when bailing out was a perfectly viable option. Presumably he felt more confident in his abilities to glide back as compared to the statistically safer bail out.

Also of interest - Skully was making a 180 when about 160 degrees through it he seems to have decided he could not make it back to LaGuardia. Check out the actual flight path traces here which are superimposed with the cockpit recordings.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Events/2010/Hudson- ... iption.htm

Peter