Richard McSpadden, of AOPA Air Safety Institute killed in crash

Impossible turn is very possible, subject to limitations.

No, the “you better be fuc king sure that’s gonna work turn”…

PS
It’s been done a few times (yes, had one too…), but you better have all the right cards in your deck, and play them right.

I’d say that in my heavy cessna the only time a turn back would be possible, is at a huge airfield with multiple runways, having taken off from the longest runway, 1800m +, into a 10kt headwind and commencing the turn 500m past the upwind threshold.
Other than that, I’m going straight on. (Ish)
Other types (my immediate thoughts are microlights or higher powered RV types may open up wider tollerances.
But I’m trying to keep the turn back out of my mind.
I don’t want the alure of it causing brain-fog at a critical moment.
So if I find myself somewhere with perfect credentials, I may brief for it, but I’m mainly sticking to take what’s infront of me.
RIP guys.

in my heavy cessna the only time a turn back would be possible

I don’t know what kind of Cessna you fly. In my much-missed TR182, I did some experiments. At 800 feet, I would overshoot the runway, so it would take some manouvering to land successfully.

At 600 and 700 feet (flown correctly) it was no problem.

At 500 feet it worked, though it was bit sphincter-stretching on short final.

I did all this at Vs*1.2 + 10, 1.e. 10 knots above the stall speed in a 45 degree bank.

At altitude, I tried it at 400 feet “AGL” doing it at Vs*1.2 +/- 0, and in theory it would work. I made an interesting discovery – if I flew it 5 knots SLOWER, the plane buffeted like crazy but the result was no worse than at the original speed of +10. So the idea that if you stall you will fall out of the sky is not correct, at least in a TR182.

These were all flown gear up until short final, and flaps up. Better to land gear up on the runway than gear down 100 feet before it.

I haven’t been able to repeat these experiments in my TB20, for want of suitable deserted, uncontrolled airfield. I suspect 500 feet wouldn’t work, and maybe not 600 either.

In real life… I’m landing straight ahead, more or less. Except at KRHV (Reid Hillview, San Jose) where you just have to accept that if the engine stops, it will be very bad.

In his famous 1995 paper “The Possible Impossible Turn”, David F. Rogers analysed this problem using an A36 Bonanza as example. One conclusion was that in zero wind with a power failure at 650 ft AAL and a runway of only ≈700 m, you will be able to return. This requires a turn with 45° of bank at a speed of 5% above stall.

He further referenced a simulator study which showed that with “minimal training” 90% of pilots with more than 100 flight hours were able to carry out the manoeuvre successfully.

Airborne_Again wrote:

In his famous 1995 paper “The Possible Impossible Turn”, David F. Rogers analysed this problem using an A36 Bonanza as example. One conclusion was that in zero wind with a power failure at 650 ft AAL and a runway of only ≈700 m, you will be able to return. This requires a turn with 45° of bank at a speed of 5% above stall.

He further referenced a simulator study which showed that with “minimal training” 90% of pilots with more than 100 flight hours were able to carry out the manoeuvre successfully.

Thanks for sharing that reference.
I do want to state the obvious, as a reminder, that many maneuvers practiced and evaluated in a simulator (study) are not indictive of what you may expect in the real world – in particular not when it involves aerodynamic maneuvers such as the subject “impossible turn”. The now a days well establish focus on the “startle effect” is one of the key elements to consider when evaluating older simulator based study reports (I have not yet read the referenced study!). Were the case study pilots instructed on what they were going to be subjected to and were their goals already defined? Or were they in fact surprised (startled) into engine out scenario? I´m assuming that the mentioned simulator study was prepared knowingly – which is totally unrealistic and as such only interesting from an aircraft performance point of view .

Yeager wrote:

he now a days well establish focus on the “startle effect” is one of the key elements to consider

I totally agree. I would not attempt a turnback below 1000ft AGL, unless to a very large airport where, while not necessarily making a runway, I’d at least crash in the vicinity of emergency services.

We will hopefully know in due time what happened in this sad accident. Initially I wasn’t aware that Richard McSpadden was RHS, but from what I’ve read the pilot in the LHS was also experienced. What I could imagine is a struggle / lack of clarity about who is flying the airplane, especially with someone like Mr. McSpaddden in the RHS and thus losing valuable seconds. Anyway, RIP.

turnback debate is quite pointless

The debate is pointless, the training, as in forced landings, probably not. The more so with a CSP equipped machine…