No engine landing protocols. Attempt 2

[il2crashesnfails]

Seem to be getting abit better at dead stick landings. I still find at the end I have some problems controlling the aircraft where I spin around.  Any suggestions on how to stop that would be great

 

 

Special thanks to the below for there help in previous thread.

 

AndyJWest

II/JG17_HerrMurf

SYN_Requiem

ZachariasX

SeaSerpent

TWC_SLAG

 

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

First thing is to keep that stick all the way back "in your belly" after your plane is settled.  Keep it there until you are fully stopped. The up elevator will help keep your tailwheel planted and less likely to come around on you (until you run out of airspeed). You need to anticipate the swing of the nose and stay ahead of it by moving the opposite rudder a little early.

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

2 hours ago, II/JG17_HerrMurf said:

First thing is to keep that stick all the way back "in your belly" after your plane is settled.  Keep it there until you are fully stopped. The up elevator will help keep your tailwheel planted and less likely to come around on you (until you run out of airspeed). You need to anticipate the swing of the nose and stay ahead of it by moving the opposite rudder a little early.

Yes. And once you're down, raise your flaps too.  There's a lot of airflow being directed downward by the flaps that's trying to push the tail back up.  You get the tail wheel to 'dig in' better without them.

[LP1888]

Use wheel brakes to stop u from spinning 

[Raptorattacker]

5 hours ago, LP1888 said:

Use wheel brakes to stop u from spinning 

No right and left, just controlled by the brake and rudder combi...

It's pretty much what II/JG17_HerrMurf and =AVG77=Mobile_BBQ said.

Edited January 18, 2019 by Raptorattacker

[IckyATLAS]

Be sure to lock your tailwheel when the plane allows it. You will be less prone to ground looping like you did. And do not hurry to use your brakes. Let speed go really down before braking.

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

Keep in mind that if you fly a P-47, training films actually recommend letting the plane ground loop during an emergency landing due to the landing gear being so wide and sturdy.  I guess it stops the plane in a shorter distance and lets the ground crew get to it and drag it off of the runway quicker. 

[il2crashesnfails]

I never retracted the flaps nor did I pull the control column fully back.

I think I'm going to do as suggested and let the plane roll down runway and wash of abit of speed before i do anything else

[IckyATLAS]

14 hours ago, il2crashesnfails said:

I never retracted the flaps nor did I pull the control column fully back.

I think I'm going to do as suggested and let the plane roll down runway and wash of abit of speed before i do anything else

One additional thing with landings, is that the quality of what happens on the runway that is after touch-down, is in fact entirely depending on your approach (direct or landing pattern). The speed prior to touch down and the the aimed touch down point on the runway, have to be correct. Perfect landing is when you stall the plane at ground contact. Try to aim as much as possible right after the beginning of the runway (around 30 meters after the start is ok with our type of fighters) so that you have the full length available. Come too high or too fast and then instead of doing a go around (that you should do) you may be tempted to force the landing at any cost and then you get into problems, like a hard landing with one or multiple jumps back in the sky, or not having enough runway left to bleed the speed. I have seen this many times at the airfield were I used to fly real airplanes, and it ends up with damaged landing gears, propellers hitting the runway, and various other niceties. There is no miracle, learn to know perfectly the behavior of your airplane and then training makes perfect.

 

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

Just for general knowledge - and sorry to be "that" guy...   (a.k.a the terminology monger) 

 

Having a stopped and non-restart-able engine is either a "dead prop" or just "failed/dead engine".

 

Having absolutely zero ability control the plane with stick, rudder and/or throttle, with no chance of recovery (regardless of engine condition) is "dead stick". 

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

On 1/18/2019 at 7:04 PM, il2crashesnfails said:

I never retracted the flaps nor did I pull the control column fully back.

I think I'm going to do as suggested and let the plane roll down runway and wash of abit of speed before i do anything else

 

Remember, even doing that you will still have to be active with the rudder pedals and stay ahead of the nose swing.

 

Mobile: I won't challenge your technical expertise but in the common vernacular, deadstick is a landing with the engine out. It may not be technically correct but it is linguistically correct.

 

Icky Atlas: I've found if I nail the perfect landing I can simply roll out on any airfield without applying the brakes. Even the short strips are long enough - at least in all of the German crates.

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

Roger that HerrMurf.  Hindsight being 20/20, I meant to say "If you didn't know, but cared to know... here you go!"  I had no intention of saying "This is the real way. Get it right."  Sorry if it came off that way.  

Edited January 21, 2019 by =AVG77=Mobile_BBQ

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

No offense taken whatsoever.

[czech693]

5 hours ago, =AVG77=Mobile_BBQ said:

Just for general knowledge - and sorry to be "that" guy...   (a.k.a the terminology monger) 

 

Having a stopped and non-restart-able engine is either a "dead prop" or just "failed/dead engine".

 

Having absolutely zero ability control the plane with stick, rudder and/or throttle, with no chance of recovery (regardless of engine condition) is "dead stick". 

 

I'm sorry, but I have to totally disagree with you on that.   "Dead Stick" refers to a dead engine and the "dead stick" is the prop not moving.  It's left over from when props were wooden, i.e. the "stick".  In 45 years of flying I've never heard anyone refer to a total loss of control function as a "dead stick".  And, if you had a total loss of control function how could you perform a "dead stick landing"?

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

20 minutes ago, czech693 said:

 

I'm sorry, but I have to totally disagree with you on that.   "Dead Stick" refers to a dead engine and the "dead stick" is the prop not moving.  It's left over from when props were wooden, i.e. the "stick".  In 45 years of flying I've never heard anyone refer to a total loss of control function as a "dead stick".  And, if you had a total loss of control function how could you perform a "dead stick landing"?

As HerrMurf explained above, the common terminology people use can mean that a "dead engine/prop" can be referred to as "dead stick", making a "dead stick landing" possible. 

 

I'm pretty sure that when non-propeller (jet) planes lose engines, the term is not "dead stick".  If it is, I'll be happy to learn something new.

 

In reality, "dead stick" refers to the control column (a.k.a the "stick") and all other flight controls giving zero response whatsoever.  In that scenario, a true "dead stick" is a bail out or pray situation. 

[il2crashesnfails]

15 hours ago, =AVG77=Mobile_BBQ said:

Just for general knowledge - and sorry to be "that" guy...   (a.k.a the terminology monger) 

 

Having a stopped and non-restart-able engine is either a "dead prop" or just "failed/dead engine". 

 

Having absolutely zero ability control the plane with stick, rudder and/or throttle, with no chance of recovery (regardless of engine condition) is "dead stick". 

 

ok thanks,  have to admit I wasn't sure if the terminology as correct

[unreasonable]

2 hours ago, il2crashesnfails said:

 

ok thanks,  have to admit I wasn't sure if the terminology as correct

 

You were correct the first time. Plenty of contemporary mentions of "dead-stick" referring to unpowered but controlled landings and here is the wikipedia page  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadstick_landing

 

Also you should ignore the advice about trying to land 30 m in from the end of the runway: that may work when you have power but for a deadstick landing you are committed, you have only one go at it, and there is no benefit whatever in misjudging your sink rate and falling short, so you should aim to touch down about 1/3 of the way down the runway. With no power on you would have to land quite near the far end of the runway to run off it before you come to a stop, even without using brakes.

 

 

 

 

[Bullets]

Okay after watching your clip, noticed a few things. You are far to "aggressive & jerky" with the stick. Fly smoother with less jarring inputs, this will help prevent stalling and wasting energy. Personally with that amount of height I would have slowly glided over to the airfield until I was above it, and then circled down until I could put myself at the correct place to start my final approach. Landing with a bit of extra speed is always good practice on emergency landings however we are talking 20/30kph you rounded out at 250 and was approaching at 300+ This led to your round out not working properly and you flew back up into the air with all that extra speed. Then with the ground roll. Don't be afraid to use full rudder if needed, quick snappy inputs (in this situation its okay  ) to correct any drift left and right will keep you nice and straight on the runway.  

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

4 hours ago, unreasonable said:

 

You were correct the first time. Plenty of contemporary mentions of "dead-stick" referring to unpowered but controlled landings and here is the wikipedia page  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadstick_landing

 

 

 

 

 

 

MW Dictionary sides with this as well.  But both articles give zero information about the origin of the term - only what it means. 

Sorry for the wrong info. 

 

I'm still going to say it my way for terms of the game.  ie:  "You were 'dead prop' and gliding. I let you go.", "You were 'dead stick' and out of control, but your prop was still good. I shot at you some more."

 

...Really though... What is it called when all controls become useless?  

 

[unreasonable]

A crash?

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

When do we teach him about slippinig to scrub extra speed/height if he's carrying it on final?

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

59 minutes ago, unreasonable said:

A crash?

Well, yes - if you hit the ground.  What do you call it when the plane is in flight with no functional controls and not in immediate danger of hitting the ground? 

[unreasonable]

Time to get out?

[69th_Mobile_BBQ]

Yep. I'm asking for the correct technical term.  You apparently insist on trolling.  Thank you for being such a shining example of usefulness.

[czech693]

Sorry to have started that discussion!

 

In response to the OP, you dove for the airfield as soon as you lost the engine.  You gave up the one thing you had going for you, potential energy, which you may have needed later if there was a headwind or those German bombers trashed the runway and you needed an alternative plan.  That also left you with excessive speed to kill on final approach (The prop was wind milling on the way down), which wasn't a distraction you needed when making your dead stick landing.

 

I would have set up best glide speed and headed to the field, and if that left me high I would have circled the landing spot until I could set up a normal approach at the normal speed.  Flaps and landing gear would have be deployed when I felt I could make the runway.  Know your aircraft's flap and gear deployment speeds as they vary in this sim and you want to make sure they're down and locked in time.  Flaps don't always have to be fully deployed.  Use them to maintain angle of decent without increasing your speed.

 

As far as the ground loop, correct landing speed would have helped, but slight rapid presses of the rudder pedals during flare and roll out help you to keep your feet awake and moving on the rudders.  You can't be slow on response or it's too late to correct.  A trick I learned from a lot of tail dragger pilots I have flown with (and by tail dragger I'm referring  to a tailwheel aircraft and not strictly a tail skid aircraft) is to get your feet on the pedals on final and start wagging the rudder back and forth slightly to get them ready for active use during flare and landing.  Anyway, don't worry about the ground loop on that landing.  Your engine was blasted and your airframe looked like Swiss Cheese, so the plane was headed to maintenance or more likely, the scrap heap.  Practice landings with a whole airplane.

[Requiem]

Just echoing what others have said. You had a LOT of altitude to make it the field and then slowly spiral down which would have led to a more stable approach to landing. If you do the whole "dive straight to the runway" thing and waste that altitude you better be right 100% of the time or else you fall short/land too long and the plane is likely a wreck. I've had students do that when I "failed" their engine and they just go off trying to dive to their chosen landing area without caring about airspeed and altitude. You can tell they will either blow right past where they want to go or they would simply not make it.

 

As for the ground looping, make sure you touchdown coordinated and at a slow enough speed. If you do that and use the rudders/brake differential proactively you have less problems.

Edited January 22, 2019 by SYN_Requiem

[ZachariasX]

14 minutes ago, SYN_Requiem said:

You had a LOT of altitude to make it the field and then slowly spiral down which would have led to a more stable approach to landing.

This.

 

You have a lot of altitude. You glide to your desired landing area/airfield and you arrive high enough to spiral down until you are 300+ m above ground (use more with fast aircraft that sink fast as well). You then fly a normal downwind leg and you deploy gear and maybe 50% flaps to keep the nose down (if possible). During the downwind leg, you will be able to visually assess your sink rate as well as wind. Just before you spent half your remaining altitude, you turn into base and final leg. If you judged your altitdude correctly, the glide will bring you absolutely spot on the runway with you doing nothing but maintaining correct glide speed.

 

During the entire procedure you will not play with your flaps or your gear. It will confuse you with changing sink rate and variation in airspeed and mess up your approach. You are in a delicate situation now. Make it easy for yourself! You will glide this approach at steady speed and you will straighten out your tail dragger (in case of side wind) before you flair out by crossing controls and land on one wheel, nose pointing exactly in direction of the runway. It will keep you from ground looping. To stay straight, differential brakes will help. It will be a nice landing like that.

 

Everything else is stunting. You will maybe arrive, but never ask if the landing was nice. Unless you are Bob Hoover. Then again, then you wouldn't have asked how to land dead stick.

 

Without engine help, you have arrived at the exact location of where your current altitude is required to fly a full pattern to land below that point. Everything else is a (more or less) controlled accident.

[IckyATLAS]

On 1/21/2019 at 5:45 PM, II/JG17_HerrMurf said:

 

Icky Atlas: I've found if I nail the perfect landing I can simply roll out on any airfield without applying the brakes. Even the short strips are long enough - at least in all of the German crates.

Two things I did not mention before is the wind speed at landing, and the runway type. There is also a third one the air density that plays too.

 

First it is excellent if you can avoid using the brakes. This will economize them (less wear) same for the tires. So better just rolling and come to a natural stop.

 

About air density:

It will impact your landing speed. The WWII fighters had a very high wing load factor I mean kg/m2 of wing surface. In the siberian winter at -30 degrees C you had very high air density and this is excellent because you have a higher wing lift for the same speed, which means that you can fly slower. Sure you have more drag too, but your engine will have more power. Generally cold air conditions are good for flying. After all you have a 1000+ Hp engine one meter and half in front of you in a small cockpit. Some natural cooling is welcome.

At the opposite during full summer time there were scorching heats (continental weather) with over 40 degrees C. Air density is low so danger. You need higher landing speeds and you have less power. It becomes more critical at take-off, where you need higher take-off speeds and thus more rolling distance with less power on the engine.

In a nutshell higher air density = less landing speed and rolling distance, and lower air density just the opposite.

 

Now about wind speed:

If you land against a strong wind, you will measure a normal landing speed relative to air, but it will be much less relative to ground. This will shorten your landing and then the rolling distance until a halt.

This is why it is better to train with no wind at all to maximize your speed relative to ground basically identical to the one relative to air in this particular case.

Do not land with tailwind, otherwise problems kick in, but I do not know how well this is simulated ingame.

 

About runway type:

Grass (depends on height of grass) or soft dirt runway will naturally brake your plane much more and so the rolling will be the shortest. Beware of sand, it can brake very brutally, and make you do a nice ground vertical loop.

Hard dirt runway will have less friction so longer rolling distance.

Concrete runway is the longest rolling distance. If in rainy conditions on concrete runways extend the rolling distance a little more and with icy conditions  you will skate for a long time.

 

Now I do not think that all this is modeled in terms of physical behavior in the game, but it can be tested.

 

A last word, about flying the real ones. All what I mentioned before is normally well know to pilots, but again and again every year we have private plane accidents (with deaths) in summer time when you combine low air density, altitude airfield (even less air density) grass runways (do not forget it brakes well so at take-off you need much more rolling distance), overloaded airplanes and no wind. If you do not estimate it right you will buy the farm.

This is why I never say that someone is a good pilot. I will say that he is an old pilot, and this means it all.

Edited January 23, 2019 by IckyATLAS

[il2crashesnfails]

ok, I will try and apply what was said next time. The spiral  maneuver kinda has me worried.  When I circle down the plane just gets faster and faster.

 

[ZachariasX]

4 hours ago, il2crashesnfails said:

ok, I will try and apply what was said next time. The spiral  maneuver kinda has me worried.  When I circle down the plane just gets faster and faster

 

Once the engine quits, just pull up the nose until you reach your desired glide speed. That one is always a compromise between best glide angle and control. Once you reach that speed, trim your aircraft for that speed and keep flying like that, regardless whether you fly a circle or a straight line. That needle on the speedometer is not supposed to move until you flair out. Also, you don‘t really „spiral“, you fly a circle. Without engine help it will automatically be a spiral.

 

[unreasonable]

5 hours ago, il2crashesnfails said:

ok, I will try and apply what was said next time. The spiral  maneuver kinda has me worried.  When I circle down the plane just gets faster and faster.

 

 

The best way to get this right is simply to practice. Just turn off the engine at about 3,000ft above the airfield and land deadstick every time until you find it easy, RFC style. I usually used to land in RoF this way, and after a while it becomes natural.  Having the engine off is one less thing to worry about.  if that is too radical, arrive at 3,000ft as before, then set the engine fully to idle and rpm full forwards and leave them there.   

 

Having said that, this is easiest with planes with a low wing loading, like Spitfires. (Or WW1 planes).  LaGG 3, Yaks, 109s etc are OK: deadstick landing in a Fw190 might be a bit hairy. (Now I feel the urge to go and try). 

[Bullets]

I too transferred a lot of skills learnt from ROF, great way to transition to these faster aircraft. Still remember my first flight in the lagg in BOS. I thought I was going lightspeed and I was struggling to handle the power of the engine, barely made it up into the air and my landing was less than graceful. The only way is practice practice practice  

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

3 hours ago, unreasonable said:

 

The best way to get this right is simply to practice. Just turn off the engine at about 3,000ft above the airfield and land deadstick every time until you find it easy, RFC style. I usually used to land in RoF this way, and after a while it becomes natural.  Having the engine off is one less thing to worry about.  if that is too radical, arrive at 3,000ft as before, then set the engine fully to idle and rpm full forwards and leave them there.   

 

Having said that, this is easiest with planes with a low wing loading, like Spitfires. (Or WW1 planes).  LaGG 3, Yaks, 109s etc are OK: deadstick landing in a Fw190 might be a bit hairy. (Now I feel the urge to go and try). 

It's not

 

Signed, 

 

An old Fw driver.        

[unreasonable]

1 hour ago, II/JG17_HerrMurf said:

It's not

 

Signed, 

 

An old Fw driver.        

 

I will trust you on that then.   

 

 I expect that it requires you to keep your speed up more than anything else, which I might find a little nerve wracking, but I have had very little time in 190s since the AI used not to be able to take off in them, which made SP campaigns rather pointless.  

[II/JG17_HerrMurf]

Approach is 220, cross the fence around 200, flare 180, stall into the three point at 167. It’s relatively the same for engine out or 1500 rpms. I think below 1500 rpm’s probably gives you flat plate drag.