Emergency procedures

What do you do if your engine fails? What about an engine fire? What if the wings fall off? Questions like these are necessary to answer if you're going to be flying an airplane and want to live through an emergency.

For the the day's breifing, Andy quizzed me on a few things about the main emergencies we need to worry about. The first being, what should you do when your engine quits? Go through the ABC's of course. Not that you are going to recite the alphabet song, but do your checks - (A)irspeed, (B)est field, and (C)ockpit checks. Airspeed is set for best glide (65 KIAS) so you can get plenty of distance to reach your...Best field, an appropriate landing in a field or airport runway that you think is most appropriate. Cockpit checks are to determine the problem that is the cause of the engine failure and if it can be fixed.

We went up in 425ER and headed for the practice area. I had not flown in two weeks and didn't remember a few things, but nothing too serious. I had not flown this particular plane for over two months. It's a 1998 172S and was well used by another flight school before being acquired by Oklahoma Avaiation. The armrests are cracked and the interior has been stressed by many would be private pilots. Cosmetics aside, the plane handled well.

We got set up at 4000' MSL for our beginning maneuvers. Andy put the engine on idle, simulating engine failure, and asked what I should do....

I had been practicing mentally for these procedures for two weeks prior and felt prepared. I set the plane for its best glide at 65, looked for a best landing field 1.5 miles in front of us to the north (we had a south wind that afternoon) and began my cockpit checks, simulating any levers being pulled or switches thrown.

As we got closer to my chosen landing field, Andy asked me "do you think we're going to make it?"

"Yeah, we can make it," I replied. I kept heading straight north to the field, just like I saw in the instructional video I saw for ground school.

We approached closer to the field. Floating gently down at 500 feet per minute.

"Okay, are you going to land downwind? There are much closer fields that you can use to land into the wind instead of one so far away with the wind behind us," Andy told me.

One thing I've noticed about my flying, is that if I try to do something like I've just seen or heard, from an instructor or a video, and apply it in the airplane "just like I saw or heard about how to do it," there are always pieces of information missing that would make something more logical, simpler, easier or safer. The way you do it, is not exactly the way someone else is going to do it. But it doesn't mean you are wrong, just different.

Of course, there is always something you don't know because you're a flying noob with 14 hours under your belt!

We continued flying emergency approaches and did a complete power off descent all the way down to the tarmac at Sundance Airpark. Andy's preference is to get right over the airport as quickly as possible, as not to come up short of the runway, and implement a forward slip to lose the altitude, get down quick and use up plenty of runway for a safe landing. In this particular case, the forward slip to reach the runway was fun.

Landing can be an exciting affair. I've always liked them, and the more awkward the approach, the funner it gets. Forward Slip - High over the runway, put in full right rudder, a bunch of left aileron and you do a diagonal skid through the air that causes a quick loss of altitude. Roll it out and line up with the runway, then the final landing flare. Not bad, nothing like an emergency, and there is always complete control of the aircraft.

We did maybe two more of those and headed back for a normal landing at Wiley Post to conclude the lesson.

I sat down in the office for the de-brief and look down at my shirt to see that it was soaked with sweat. "Well, I just survived four or five engine failures. I guess I should be sweating."