An open-ended engine out scenario

[tigisfat]

You're flying cross country single-pilot IFR in your Cessna 172, which is equipped decently with standard 1978 steam gauges and a newer aftermarket moving map GPS, the Garmin 430. The trip is going to be IMC from departure to arrival. Your route is planned across terrain with a system of desert ranges and valleys, similar to Nevada or parts of California. You're proud of yourself for stabilized flight the whole time in IMC. Everything is going great until your engine dies and can't be restarted. You have plenty of time for maneuvering before you reach the ground, but you are too far from the nearest airfield. The bases of the clouds are expected to be around 500 AGL in your area.

This time, we'll make it more open ended. What you do is entirely up to you, as you have tons of options. What tools at your disposal will you use? Where will you go, and how do you plan on putting it down?

Please outline your whole plan for us.

[wombat666]

Jump! Again!:173go1:

[tigisfat]

Jump! Again!:173go1:

Well, I did say it was open ended so I walked right into that one. :icon_lol:

I wonder what kind of spatial disorientation you'd get descending through clouds with a chute. Have you done parachuting through clouds before?

[wombat666]

Well, I did say it was open ended so I walked right into that one. :icon_lol:

I wonder what kind of spatial disorientation you'd get descending through clouds with a chute. Have you done parachuting through clouds before?


Cloud, Rain, Moonlit nights and Pitch Black nights, Rain Forest, Mountains, Water, Deserts, even Urban areas , Hi-Lo, Hi-Hi and Lo-Lo tig.

I can only speak for myself but disorientaion has never been a problem, it must be in my genes or maybe I'm just odd!

Don't forget, when I was in training for the 'Regiment' it was a mandatory course, as was the Navy Diving Team course, pass both or it was a 'fail and return to sender'.
A powerful incentive to focus one's mind on what had to be done.

[jmig]

This would depend on where I was. If I was out west, I would try to land on a road or pancake her in a field. If it was out east, where you have lots of Big trees and the roads are heavy with traffic, ditching in a lake or river might be the best course of action.

Regardless, I would first establish my max glide speed and contact ATC to see if they have any guidance.

[magoo]

Scottie, lock onto my coordinates and beam the Cessna into shuttle bay two with technical crew on standby. Kirk out.

[tigisfat]

This would depend on where I was. If I was out west, I would try to land on a road or pancake her in a field. If it was out east, where you have lots of Big trees and the roads are heavy with traffic, ditching in a lake or river might be the best course of action.

Regardless, I would first establish my max glide speed and contact ATC to see if they have any guidance.


These days, the only thing I believe ATC can legally do is give you vectors to an airport, and we know there are none in range.

There's gotta be more to your explanation than that, or is that it? You'd just fly 65KIAS straight forward until you popped out of the clouds and and pray for a field or road?

[teson1]

Just finished reading Richard Bach's "Biplane", on a cross country flight in a 1930 biplane.
Towars the end he faces a similar situation - clouds below, mountainous terrain, and no way to go forward. One of the options he considers is spinning down till breaking through the ceiling (as a kind of barnstormer's trick).
http://books.google.fr/books?cd=1&id=9j3bAAAAMAAJ&dq=biplane+bach&q=%22spin+down%22
He doesn't expand why he would do that, but one would guess it's to get down vertically to avoid flight into terrain.
Not saying that's something one should/could do, but food for thought, and who knows, maybe possible with a plane that spins stably, and is easy to recover?
Actually in the end he doesn't choose that option for fear of the spin developing into a flat spin, difficult to recover...

[jmig]

These days, the only thing I believe ATC can legally do is give you vectors to an airport, and we know there are none in range.

There's gotta be more to your explanation than that, or is that it? You'd just fly 65KIAS straight forward until you popped out of the clouds and and pray for a field or road?

You said I had a GPS. I would use it to study the terrain below, hoping to find a flat area or lake (in which to ditch). As far as I know that fancy Garmin won't land the plane for you.

It and the sectional, I would have, will show me what is below.

[tigisfat]

You said I had a GPS. I would use it to study the terrain below, hoping to find a flat area or lake (in which to ditch). As far as I know that fancy Garmin won't land the plane for you.

It and the sectional, I would have, will show me what is below.


Precisely my thoughts. I'd stabilize the aircraft and then search for a nice road on the GPS, and kind steer my way towards it. I probably wouldn't bother with the sectional though. Maybe I could even line myself up on the road with the GPS.