AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - February 2015 - 80

P&E

PROFICIENCY

Training for
emergencies
Going beyond the 'surprise' throttle close
B Y J I L L W. TA L L M A N

TWO MILES FROM THE AIRPORT on an
otherwise uneventful flight review, it
happens: Your flight instructor closes the
throttle, makes a radio call, and waits to
see what you will do. What you do is sigh
inwardly, trim for best glide speed, and see
if you can make an acceptable approach
and landing.
It's hardly a sweat-inducing event, but
sometimes that is the nature of practicing an emergency scenario. It can't be too
realistic, because we don't want to turn
a simulated emergency into a real one.

(Just ask the NTSB how those situations
turn out.)
Still, there are ways to enhance the
emergency training scenario to give it-
and you-greater benefit.
About that throttle. Longtime CFI
Amy Laboda recommends, "Don't close
the throttle completely.
"The only engine failure a solo student
of mine ever had was a partial engine failure," said Laboda, who is an FAA Safety
Team representative. "In fact, most problems result in partial-power situations.

[Pilots] need to recognize that and deal
with it, and it can be much more insidious than a complete engine failure."
Conor Dancy, an instructor with
Aviation Adventures in Leesburg, Virginia,
said he will briefly click off the alternator side of the airplane's master switch so
that a pilot can see what an alternator failure looks like.
In a simulator, you can muddle through
any number of emergency scenarios. "I
like to use our simulator to demonstrate
what to do with engine failures on takeoff,
inadvertent VFR into IMC, and various
systems failures," Dancy said. "I'll give
them vacuum system and electrical system
failures, engine failures in various phases
of flight, and I will demo why the 'impossible turn' is generally a bad idea. I also like
to take [pilots] to high altitude airports to
demonstrate density altitude.
"Practicing these procedures in a sim
is a lot more realistic than practicing in the
airplane, because you can surprise the student and not have to worry about safety of
flight," Dancy said. A vacuum failure in the
sim also looks more authentic than covering the attitude and heading indicator
with Post-It notes, he said.
Speaking of covering the instruments,
CFI Dan Namowitz believes that you
should practice handling a blocked airspeed indicator on takeoff.
"People feel like they're at rotation
speed, and they look at the airspeed indicator and it's showing 10, and they get all
confused," said Namowitz, who is a contributing writer for AOPA publications.
"Sometimes there's not enough runway
to abort, so they run off the end screeching the tires, but if they stay calm and fly
around the pattern using familiar power/
pitch combinations, they're fine."
Namowitz recalled a flight instructor
who would quiz him on various emergency scenarios while they were flying.
"What would you do if-the first answer
was always to 'fly the airplane.'"
Just getting yourself into the emergency mindset can help. When flying over
inhospitable terrain-or any terrain, for
that matter-ask yourself, "Where would
I land right now?" This is particularly
www.aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 80
http://www.aopa.org/pilot
AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - February 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - February 2015
