Lesson #10: Emergencies and other nasty occurrences

On the menu today is emergencies, of the we're-all-gonna-die sort. Simulating engine failures in a private plane is easy. You pull the throttle back to idle, and pretend your engine stopped running. Then you find a place to land. What you can't simulate is panicky, screaming passengers grabbing your chest and clawing your eyes out for dear life. So, that will have to wait until after I get my license.

I would like to make one thing clear: Bicycles, all bicycles, can slowly burn to a crisp cinder of the course of a thousand years in Bicycle Hell. A single shard of glass honored its ancestors by undertaking and succeeding in a suicide mission to rob my rear tire of its life. As the tire exhaled its final breaths, I had an opportunity to reflect upon all the misfortune bicycle use had brought me. This reflection occurred well into my scheduled lesson time, as I was forced to walk to the Old T's from there.

Finally arriving late, I once again flexed my paperwork muscle and impressed exactly no one with my ability to write personal information into a form. I nabbed the keys, preflighted 854AC, and Stephen and I were off into the blue.

At work, a couple of friends remarked that, so long as I was flying in the Oakland area, I should take some pictures of the MacArthur Maze collapse from the air. I thought this was a swell idea, and seeing no specific restrictions against it, decided I would bring the idea up with Stephen and see if he thought it was safe.

Stephen said sure, we could swing by there on the way up. However, shortly after getting taxi clearance, it was obvious this wasn't going to happen. Another aircraft eagerly piped in over the radio.

"Oakland ground, Cherokee niner zero one five juliet, request taxi to runway 33, we'd like to take some pictures down at MacArthur."

"Cherokee one five juliet, uhhh, well, you're cleared to taxi, but be advised there are numerous aircraft in the vicinity of the accident. Expect frequent collision warnings."

Stephen and I looked at each other. Sure, maybe a licensed pilot might be able to handle the airborne zoo above the freeway, but as a student pilot, it's the FAA's opinion that I wouldn't be able to tell my ass from a hole in the ground I created with my airplane. Stephen remarked that they won't fix the overpass overnight, and there will be plenty more opportunities for rubbernecking.

As we climbed out, NorCal Departure was flooded with traffic advisories for the gawkmobiles hovering above the freeway. CHP helicopters, news helicopters, traffic watch planes, and of course, shameless and opportunistic private pilots such as myself. We were instructed to fly well clear of the area, but Departure didn't talk much to us, since they were so busy keeping people from crashing into each other.

"Five sierra romeo, traffic alert at your three o'clock, numerous targets above the Maze."

"Five sierra romeo, numerous targets in sight." That didn't sound like the world's most helpful radio exchange, but whatever.

After taking off from 33, I was to enter the pattern for 27L where I would do touch-and-goes. See, Stephen never gives up an opportunity to drill more landing practice into me.

Today, however, was an off-day for me. My landings were much worse than I expected from myself. Whereas yesterday I wasn't even scared at some touchdowns, today every landing felt like a near-death experience. My heart pounding, my palms sweaty. Each time the aircraft touched the ground, it was with a precariousness that made it seem as if the slightest gust would topple the whole thing over.

On one or two landings I really thought I would damage the airplane, or otherwise incur some serious injury. I mean, sure when Karla or someone thinks I'm going to kill myself, it's not exactly unusual or cause for alarm. But when I think I might not make it through this landing -- well, now it's time to worry.

I would later admit to Stephen that I was not pleased with my landings today. Not to my surprise, he agreed with my assessment. Almost in passing, though, he mentioned that the 15-knot, 60-degree crosswind made the landings harder than most student pilots are used to. That was a source of some relief.

After five runway kisses, we departed Oakland for San Pablo Bay. I was instructed to maintain a 3,000-foot cruise, and during the languorous traversal of the water body below, Stephen explained the basics of engine-failure procedure -- S.P.E.L.:

S is for speed. Immediately work to put the airplane on an 80-knot glide. Eighty knots is the best glide speed, meaning you can glide the furthest distance. The further you can go, the more options you have for places to land.

P is for place to land. Locate a place to land, near enough that you can get to it. Obviously if your engine quit above a nice airport, good for you, but of course part of the emergency training is landing in fields, on beaches, in dirt, etc. Stephen discussed some of the techniques I should use if I ever need to land "off-runway" -- how to spot suitable (or at least acceptable) landing spots, how to choose a farm field, etc.

E is for engine. Is fuel getting to the engine? Check the fuel switches. Are the magnetos on? Check the ignition switch. Has the carburetor iced up? Check the carb heat switch. You get the idea.

L is for land. If you are still unable to start the engine, it's time to land. Talk on the radio if you have time, call Mayday and the like, but remember the old saying: AVIATE - NAVIGATE - RADIATE. It says your first priority is to fly and keep control of the airplane, second to know where you are, and only third to talk on the radio.

So once we had that squared away, Stephen cut the power to idle and told me the engine just quit. It was time to find a place to land. We were still a mile or so out from the shore, but beyond the shore was Hamilton Field, a long-abandoned airport with a dilapidated, unkempt runway. Should the plane land there, the landing gear would almost certainly be destroyed, but options were thin at this point. Hamilton was right up against the shore, and if I couldn't make that field, I was gonna have to put her in the drink anyway.

So, I put the aircraft in a shallow bank to line up with Hamilton, but doing so ate up about a thousand feet of precious altitude, leaving me with only 2,000 left to glide to the threshold. For most of the approach I was positive I would fall short of the field and splash into the sea, but my not-yet-honed powers of perception were wrong, and at 500 feet above the ground and 1,000 feet from the threshold, it was obvious the landing was assured. Stephen "magically" brought the engine back to life by pushing the throttle back in, and I performed a go-around.

It was almost -- almost -- disappointing to do the go-around. It was a very suspenseful approach and I wanted to know how it would have ended. In fact, that would be a theme for each go-around I would later do. Each time I would be set up for landing, and then the engine would "magically" spring back to life, and I'd abort the emergency landing. Of course it's always better not to put the airplane down in the grass, but still -- you spend so much effort thinking and planning about how to best survive this emergency, that it's disappointing to see it all disappear and be for naught (sort of).

I shouldn't say that, or the gods of aviation will grant me my wish with an actual in-flight emergency, and I will get to see how it ends.

So, Stephen told me to climb again to 3,000 feet, and again he then cut the engine back to idle. This time I had a choice of two "good enough" landing sites -- two fields that seemed reasonably flat. One was a mile away, another three miles away. I opted to go for the one three miles away, since the approach would be simpler (less turning). I made the approach well, and as expected the engine sprang back to life at 500 feet. I expected praise from Stephen. However, I got a scolding. I chose the wrong field. You should always choose the closest suitable landing spot, even if you are sure you can make a further one. You never know what else could go wrong, and the sooner you are on the ground, the better. OK, lesson learned.

Again, I was instructed to climb to 3,000 feet. This time, around 1,800 feet or so, with the airplane in a maximum-performance climb, suddenly -- WHOOMP! Without warning, Stephen cut the power back to idle, and I lurched forward in my seat from the sudden deceleration. The wily bastard had also altered the fuel settings, as a test to make sure I was doing my checklist.

So at 1,800 feet, you have a lot less time, and there's a lot fewer places you can glide to. I quickly chose a "probably-not-safe-at-all-but-better-than-the-ocean" landing spot. The thing about picking landing spots is, you only get to do it once. Once you commit to a landing spot, you cannot change your mind. To change your mind would require turning, and turning wastes altitude, and altitude is your best friend right now.

"It's always better to land at a terrible spot, and break a few bones, than it is to change your mind and try for a better spot, and die."

So, with probably only a minute or so to pick a spot, I chose a "terrible" spot -- one where the airplane would no doubt be destroyed, but its passengers might be OK. Having committed, I did not change my mind. The other problem was this spot was very close by, but not so close that I could make some turns and then return at a lower altitude.

I performed a forward slip to burn off altitude, then lowered the flaps to 40 degrees when I knew I would make it. Flaps are a very thorny rose in an emergency situation. Flaps are good because they slow you the hell down. If you land at 30 mph, you're less likely to break something than if you land at 50 mph. So, if possible, you should lower your flaps for an emergency landing.

On the other side however, once you put the flaps down, you can't put them back up. Flaps generate extra lift. If you raise the flaps, you dump that lift, and the airplane sinks. The airplane sinks, you miss your landing spot, and ... well you know the rest.

So, you can only put the flaps down if you're absolutely positive you will make the landing. So I put my flaps down. After all, this was a very-less-than-ideal landing spot and I wanted to hit it as slow as I could go. This, combined with my forward slip to bleed off altitude, meant my airplane was as dirty and you could possibly imagine. ("Dirty" here refers to wind resistance; a dirty plane is one with lots of aerobraking.) My approach angle was very steep, probably 30-40 degrees.

I would have liked to know if I would have survived that approach. Of course, at 500 feet, like clockwork, Stephen put the throttle in and I performed a go-around.

This will not be the last time my engine suddenly "fails" in flight. Stephen said, "From now on you are fair game." He will fail the engine randomly from here on out and challenge my ability to salvage the situation.

So, I got one more opportunity to land the plane at Oakland. We flew back, I got myself into the landing pattern, got my clearances, and put her down on 27R. We refueled at Kaiser and then I brought her back to the Old T's.

It's obvious that my coveted solo sign-off will have to wait a bit. Landings are my big bottleneck right now, though my steep turns could use some work too.

My next lesson is Wednesday. The next thing to practice is airspace rules, and for that we would be doing a "Bay Tour," a flight around the Bay Area in and out of many airports' airspaces. However, Stephen decided to postpone that, and do a few more landings first. Have to work out that "fear of the ground," I guess.

Cost so far: $2,948.71
Time so far: 38 days
Hours so far: 12.7

Projected certification date: August 20, 2007
Projected total cost: $11,609.09