Post by Tom Goodrick on Jan 7, 2009 21:00:42 GMT -5
In the December '08 issue of FLYING, there is an account of a pilot of a "Piper Malibu Jet Prop" that ditched at sea off the coast of Spain. To prepare for an approach, he descended from FL250 to FL130 using a low torque setting. When he attempted to level at FL130 by adding power, the engine gave no response. He had plenty of fuel but attempts to restart the engine were not effective. He ended up ditching at sea. The landing was successful in that the plane did not break apart and no one was seriously injured though the bumping was rough. They were able to exit in an orderly manner as the plane floated for a few minutes by opening the upper half of the rear door and jumping over the lower half into the sea. Their life raft failed to inflate and two of the life jackets tossed out drifted away before people could get them on. The pilot was the last out and he had sense enough to toss out two suitcases that floated and served as life preservers. An airliner passing over head heard the distress call and located the plane before it sank. That pilot transmitted the GPS coordinates of the site to rescuers. All four people were rescued before hypothermia set in.
To me, this story says one major thing about single engine flight over water. Don't do it! With any twin in similar circumstances, it would have been easy to continue level flight, probably at a lower altitude, to make a safe landing on a runway. No one would have gotten wet.
In my flight training days in New England, I took advantage of the varied terrain of that area to do some sight-seeing that can only be done well by air. (I had tried some sight-seeing by car and knew it had many limitations.) I flew on mountain areas and over portions of the sea. On one trip in praticular, I flew from my home base at Hopedale (1B6) to Montauk (MTP), detoured to Mattituck (21N) on Long Island for fuel, and then went as planned to Chatham (CQX) on the elbow of Cape Cod, then to Provincetown (PVC) at the fist of Cape Cod and then straight back across Cape Cod Bay to Hopedale. i was checking out places where I could do some surf fishing. I did all this in my trusty Cessna 150 trainer.
I was a bit nervous about flying over all that water. I did not even have life preserver onboard. I figured if the engine started and ran well during warmup, it would probably complete the trip. I had glanced casually at the fuel gauge which showed a good amount of fuel by my training standards of one-hour flights. As I taxied out, I got a call from the office saying I should probably fill up but they would not be unlocking their pumps for another hour. The schedule for the plane would not allow such a delay. I said i would get it when I got to Montauk. I did have the sense to plan my routes and altitudes so I would be out of gliding distance to land for only a brief period on each leg.
Flying over the Long Island Sound toward Montauk at 4,000 ft I was out of gliding distance for only about 5 minutes. But during those minutes I noticed I was passing over Real Ocean-Going Ships! At montauk I was bothered to find that they had no gas. This was in the early 1970's when there were gas shortages. I intended to continue. But, during climb-out, I discovered there really is a condition called "automatic rough" when you climb out over water. You start listening very carefully to the engine for any little hint of a problem. I turned back and landed at East Hampton, an airport with several runways. They had no gas. But a guy there told me about Mattituck. They did a lot of engine repair and usually had gas. He was right though Mattituck was just a little challenging to land at. You had to come in steeply over trees to a narrow runway. The rest of the trip was uneventful but made for a full day of flying. I saw a lot of water and trees. In New England you look for freeways and water to land in when the engine quits. Otherwise you land in trees!
OK so I did actually ladn in a field the one time my engine really did quit.
There have been aviation writers that have insisted that flying twins is more dangerous than flying singles. They site statistics that support their claims of higher fatal accident rates in twins. That is partly due to the general use of twins on business flights "to go anywhere at anytime." Also the training for twin engine transition involves a lot of dangerous loss of power demonstrations just after lift off when twins do not climb well.
Check it out with FS9. Try various planes with loss of power in one engine at various times during flight. I bet you'll pick a twin over a single every time. For the price of a single turboprop, you can buy a very good piston twin.
To me, this story says one major thing about single engine flight over water. Don't do it! With any twin in similar circumstances, it would have been easy to continue level flight, probably at a lower altitude, to make a safe landing on a runway. No one would have gotten wet.
In my flight training days in New England, I took advantage of the varied terrain of that area to do some sight-seeing that can only be done well by air. (I had tried some sight-seeing by car and knew it had many limitations.) I flew on mountain areas and over portions of the sea. On one trip in praticular, I flew from my home base at Hopedale (1B6) to Montauk (MTP), detoured to Mattituck (21N) on Long Island for fuel, and then went as planned to Chatham (CQX) on the elbow of Cape Cod, then to Provincetown (PVC) at the fist of Cape Cod and then straight back across Cape Cod Bay to Hopedale. i was checking out places where I could do some surf fishing. I did all this in my trusty Cessna 150 trainer.
I was a bit nervous about flying over all that water. I did not even have life preserver onboard. I figured if the engine started and ran well during warmup, it would probably complete the trip. I had glanced casually at the fuel gauge which showed a good amount of fuel by my training standards of one-hour flights. As I taxied out, I got a call from the office saying I should probably fill up but they would not be unlocking their pumps for another hour. The schedule for the plane would not allow such a delay. I said i would get it when I got to Montauk. I did have the sense to plan my routes and altitudes so I would be out of gliding distance to land for only a brief period on each leg.
Flying over the Long Island Sound toward Montauk at 4,000 ft I was out of gliding distance for only about 5 minutes. But during those minutes I noticed I was passing over Real Ocean-Going Ships! At montauk I was bothered to find that they had no gas. This was in the early 1970's when there were gas shortages. I intended to continue. But, during climb-out, I discovered there really is a condition called "automatic rough" when you climb out over water. You start listening very carefully to the engine for any little hint of a problem. I turned back and landed at East Hampton, an airport with several runways. They had no gas. But a guy there told me about Mattituck. They did a lot of engine repair and usually had gas. He was right though Mattituck was just a little challenging to land at. You had to come in steeply over trees to a narrow runway. The rest of the trip was uneventful but made for a full day of flying. I saw a lot of water and trees. In New England you look for freeways and water to land in when the engine quits. Otherwise you land in trees!
OK so I did actually ladn in a field the one time my engine really did quit.
There have been aviation writers that have insisted that flying twins is more dangerous than flying singles. They site statistics that support their claims of higher fatal accident rates in twins. That is partly due to the general use of twins on business flights "to go anywhere at anytime." Also the training for twin engine transition involves a lot of dangerous loss of power demonstrations just after lift off when twins do not climb well.
Check it out with FS9. Try various planes with loss of power in one engine at various times during flight. I bet you'll pick a twin over a single every time. For the price of a single turboprop, you can buy a very good piston twin.
