For me, flying has always been about getting ahead of the plane. I’ve made some good decisions based on mentally thinking through the consequences of things going bad. In this case I would be thinking I couldn’t depend on the engine so I would trim for the longest possible distance and look for landing spots that met the criteria. Circling back to catch the grass strip is a possibility but there have to be alternatives before I get there. And by that I mean I assume the engine is done and I need alternatives along the route to the preferred destination or that destination doesn’t count.
And I was always told 1000 ft agl pattern altitude and that’s what everybody flies in my area. I say this because I pick the same altitude as the person in front of me to keep them in sight easier and it’s pretty consistently that altitude.
AIM 4-3-3 is a bit vague. At most airports and military air bases, traffic pattern altitudes for propeller-driven aircraft generally extend from 600 feet to as high as 1,500 feet above the ground.
My fear of getting caught short of a runway has of late led me to climb as high as possible off a runway and then enter a pattern around the airport as I climb out. So if it’s a left base pattern I’ll climb out to the right and parallel the runway for a reverse landing.
Keeping the passengers alive is of course the main concern when flying. I will address the engine and its ability to make some power.
Once again, not all cracked cylinder heads are the same. In general, you lose a noticeable amount of power. The engine will still produce power, but for how long is the question. If the crack propagates (grows longer) the effect on engine power will also grow. If, in the rare case the head separates from the cylinder, then oil will be thrown from the engine at an alarming rate, and will lead to catastrophic engine failure. The intake and exhaust systems can be torn apart, causing more loss of power and eventually either a seized engine or a huge extra hole in the crankcase. None of the above is good, but as long as the pilot gets the aircraft on the ground fairly soon, the engine can usually be saved. Hot exhaust gases from a broken exhaust pipe can cause a fire in the engine. This is very bad. If the aircraft is turbocharged, the loss of power is increased, the growth rate of the crack is faster, and the chance of a fire is also greater.
Did the pilot know that his cylinder head was cracked and that it was fairly likely to get him back to base? That is a good question. If the pilot was also a mechanic, there is a good chance that he may have suspected so. If not, there is less of a chance. Military pilots IME study the aircraft systems more closely then their civilian counterparts and are more likely to make this determination.
In any case, unless the engine is causing some very serious vibration, using the remaining engine power to get on the ground safely is the thing to do. We can always repair or replace an engine or an aircraft. Sacrifice the aircraft to get your people back on the ground safely. Your pilot did an excellent job!
1,000’ AGL is recommended pattern altitude unless established otherwise. That is verbatim from AIM 4-3-3, there is nothing unclear about it. In fact, it is in there twice. If TPA is ‘established otherwise’ it will be denoted in the A/FD.
Also, traffic/terrain considered, you should continue straight ahead after takeoff until you are beyond the departure end of the runway and within 300’ of TPA. Again, this is spelled out clearly in AIM 4-3-3.
The problem is that there is no way to know the mechanical state of the airplane when this happens. Committing to a return to an airport has been shown to be fatal quite often. We had a crash 3 years ago that killed a father/daughter. It started out as a cargo door problem and then became an engine failure. He banked 45 degrees back to the airport and at some point ran out of lift near the runway.
It’s a very hard decision to make because the airport is the DESIRED place to land. It’s always going to cloud one’s judgement because it puts the plane at a location with maintenance.
I’ve had an impulse coupler fail on runup and the engine simply would not produce more than about 1200 RPM and it was rough as hell. It should have run fine on one mag but it didn’t. I tried leaning it out. I don’t know if it fouled the plugs or what but it ran like crap all the way back to the hanger. I was rattled by this because I was literally getting ready to take off. 20 more seconds and it would have been a bad day.
Did you (or did you consider) jettisoning the 'chutes? I know they’re expensive, but once you’ve decided you’re too low to jump, all they are doing is adding weight to an aircraft that is only going to go in one direction. Or would that not have made an appreciable difference?
I’m not a pilot or skydiver so forgive me if this is a hopelessly ignorant question. To add another one to it, along the same lines: do all planes have the ability to release fuel in flight, or is that reserved for jetliners?
No, we never considered jettisoning our gear. As I said, we were still buckled into our seat belts so taking off our rigs would not have been easy. Plus, opening the door would have significantly increased the drag on the airplane. It would have taken additional time as well. And finally, yes they are expensive- of course, I would toss my parachute out the door in a heartbeat if I knew that doing so would save my life.
Edit: Five skydiving rigs only weigh about 125-150 pounds total so I don’t think it would have helped much.
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actually some small planes can dump fuel from inside the cockpit. That’s how you purge water out of low wing Piper twins. Not sure anybody ever used it as such.
Yeah, that’s actually the seating arrangement in most jump planes, especially the larger ones. In small Cessnas the person sitting against the rear bulkhead will often sit crossways or facing forward with everyone else (except the pilot) facing the rear.