You have just taken off and are climbing out on runway heading at 75 kts towards circuit altitude. At 1300 ft above sea level (a mere 540 ft above ground level), you lose engine power. What do you do?
You are cruising at 4000 ft when noxious smoke pours out from behind the control panel. What do you do?
Shortly after receiving ATC clearance into the control zone, you notice that you don’t hear any other traffic on your radio and all calls to the tower go unanswered. What do you do?
These are just three of the many emergency scenarios a pilot must be prepared to deal with at any time. These are also three scenarios I was asked to demonstrate today, without warning, while flying the circuit. In the first scenario, my instructor reached over and pulled the throttle back to idle (he later told me that he once had a student reach out and push his hand and the throttle back forward again, so strong was the student’s instinct for self preservation!) I remained somewhat more calm and went through the standard procedure: lowering the nose to maintain an optimal glide speed of 69 kts , applying carburetor heat, checking the fuel selector switch, checking that the electric fuel pump is on and mixture is full rich. Attempt a restart. Doesn’t work? Well, you are now too low to do anything but try and find a suitable landing spot, straight ahead, making only shallow turns to avoid obstacles. My instructor advanced the throttle back to full before I had to start dodging hydro lines. How long did this all take? Less than 30 seconds.
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