C-47 "Thats All Brother"

[Paul S.]

Can I ask something Bob in some of the books I have read they say the fatal thing to do with engines in trouble is to execute a turn back to the airstrip which may induce a spin in, no doubt some pilots have affected the turn with dying engines then again he may have had no choice in the matter if he was over buildings rather than crash into suburbia. RIP to your dads pilot friend and passengers.

There are two things about turning aback to the departure runway with an engine out in a multi-engine aircraft. First, turning into the 'dead' engine can - as in almost always - cause a spin since you have less thrust, and therefore, less lift on that wing. Second, and this applies equally to single engine aircraft, you normally take-off into the wind (runways are usually arranged to align with the prevailing winds), to take advantage of 'free' lift provided by the flow of the wind over the wings. Given a 5 Knot wind, it's like having 5 knots more airspeed at take-off. So, turning back to the runway means making and 'upwind' landing. You lose that extra airspeed times two, so that hypothetical 5 knots of wind in the previous example becomes a 5 knot tailwind. With that, say your landing speed is supposed to be 120 knots, your actual airspeed with the 5 knot tailwind is 115 knots and your ground speed is 125 knots. Higher wind speeds obviously could get you close to stall speed. I've seen it happen. That said, I did an upwind/crosswind landing in a Cessna 150 during a simulated engine out on take off once, but it was a calm wind day so airspeed was not a factor.

[Bob Womack]

The thing to remember here is that he eventually lost both engines. At that point you are in a so-so glider and have spent a good amount of time and flight energy trying to diagnose the problem. Charlie was literally the safest guy I ever personally flew with. I was there once when he rehearsed single-engine flight characteristics of the Commander in flight, at altitude. He was the kind of guy who did the same pre-flight after a five-minute ferry flight as he would after a two-hour mission. I saw his fuel check several times, including after a ferry flight. It was never perfunctory. This was when I was learning to fly so I was watching. I was sorry to see him go.


Bob

[Paul S.]

Flying is a potentially dangerous activity as all of us who fly, or have flown, know too well. We've all lost friends to aircraft accidents or mishaps that were not their doing. I had a mate with thousands of hours die when his student botched a engine out landing. Too sadly, it happens to the best all too often. It's the same with skydiving. I lost a mate with over 500 jumps killed when he had a bag wrap during a low opening freefall jump.