You can certainly have a very high angle of bank and low airspeed without stalling ....Lazy-8's for example...I remember doing these in a 172 with high AoB and watching the ASI drop to near zero as the nose fell through the horizon....All good fun.
I read an article in the US AOPA Mag a while ago about the impossible turn and EFATO scenarios. Two things stick in my mind...
1) During take off normally you see two thirds sky and one third ground in the window. Your immediate action at EFATO should be to push so that the ground fills two thirds of the window and the sky one third. This will ensure you don't stall.
2) If doing a turn back, as long as you don't load up the wings you can turn very quickly...but sacrifice altitude. But sometimes it is better to really crank it round and complete the turn very quickly and actually lose less altitude in the overall process....if you have it spare that is.
I wouldn't try 2 at low level but I guess if you were a competent aero's pilot in a Pitts Special then you could probably pull it off.
As Peter mentioned about base to final turn - I fly with a chap and he is always really timid about the base to final turn as he "doesn't want to stall". This is a function of his original flight training which doesn't really explain aerodynamics very well. As long as you are not loading the wings up you can turn at any bank angle and not stall. So if you are descending base to final then your stall speed will be low. Just like in our Lazy-8's on Steroids the stall speed was non existent as the wings were completely unloaded.
'Not loading up the wings you can turn at any bank angle...' In the turn from base to final, I suppose that would that would cause a very serious vertical speed. Guess in which direction... I guess you mean to say 'not to overload the wings'.
Friend and I today leaving New Orleans Lakefront, she was P1 (her Grumman Tiger). Engine quit on takeoff at a bit over 400 feet.
What you don’t see on that Skydemon image is the very poor options for landing ahead (swamp, water, industrial buildings etc). My friend lowered the nose immediately — none of this 4 second delay you hear about. There was no time for running a checklist – flying the aeroplane was the primary concern. very soon in the turn it was pretty much assured that we had no problem getting on the airport property somewhere – the engine had surged briefly about twice during the turn. We actually had a bit too much altitude left once we were back over airfield property. We ended up touching down at about the same point we lifted off.
Observations: we could have taken an intersection departure when we left. Good job we used the full runway.
All the gauges were green during the power check and as we rolled on takeoff – I looked at them while we rolled for takeoff
Things we could have done better – turned the boost pump back on, but we were too busy flying the aircraft and ensuring we had sight of possible landing sites at all times and once we had gone around halfway it was clear we could make the airfield so it was best by then to have the throttle at idle.
We are pretty sure the engine driven fuel pump failed, but no one can look at it till tomorrow. My friend did an excellent job of flying the aircraft, no panic, airspeed was maintained etc. Both of us have glider ratings so it’s not the first time we’ve had to glide!
Congratulations on the cool heads and making it back. And fabulous to see the track diagram.
Do you think you’d have made it back to the runway if the engine hadn’t surged twice in the way it did?
From 400 ft that’s very good! Congratulations!
Well done! Brava! Another illustration that learning to fly gliders helps to make one a good pilot.
Congrats, well done!
Brilliant work! And thanks for posting this.
I have always believed it can be done, in the right conditions, and would probably do it myself if it looked at all possible.
Well done – you’ll enjoy a cold beer tonight! I wonder is it best kept quiet as its one thing for those who have mastered their aircraft to do but maybe a different thing for ‘most’ readers…? (Not taking away from a great flight though!)
I have always believed it can be done
Of course it can be done. You just need the right plane, awareness, weather and desicions. 400 ft with a 150 is not possible, especially if you have taken off from grass and have set 10° flaps.
Good job, obviously. There would have been two more realistic options: from the take off turning into the wind with a landing on 36R, or turning away from the wind with a landing on 09 (Is that what you had in mind and you did turn right at first? I don’t see the direction of the path, but it would make most sense.
Judging the image on google earth, every landing anywhere on the airfield property should be fine and propably much better than putting her down on Jourdan Rd or Interstate 10.
