I’ve heard that over the Pacific Ocean, pilots have been known to “compete” to see who could glide the longest as they came into some airport in the Philipenes. Maybe apocryphal, of course. But, at what point to commercial pilots put those babies into neutral? Obviously, a few seconds after landing, he puts the whole thing into reverse - or at least the reverse thrusters kick in. So, when did he take the thing out of Drive?
Commercial pilots almost always use some power until they “flare”. This is the point in which the plane is just a few feet above the runway and a successful landing is certain. The pilot will then cut the power and gently pull back on the yoke to let the plane slow and settle onto the runway for a successful landing. You should be able to feel this if you pay attention the next time you fly.
For smaller planes, the pilot can choose to cut the power anywhere from a few feet above the ground to thousands of feet in the air. It depends on weather conditions (wind in particular), how they are going to manuever in for landing, and what they are trying to accomplish. Long range glides are mainly just a stunt or a training excersise to prepare for that fateful day when the engine quits.
Well, it also depends on what you mean by “cut the power.” If you mean pulling the throttle all the way back, I’ll only do that if I’m doing a short-field landing, where I have to get the plane down as near to the end of the runway as I can, and I can’t afford to “float” down the runway.
I can’t speak for commercial pilots, but the good pilots in my old squadron would leave an extra bit of power on (this isn’t to say there’d otherwise be no power) so that they can “grease” the landing. Pulling the power back all the way to idle before landing increases your chances of stalling the plane before you hit the ground, resulting in more of an arrival than a landing. I’ve seen this in commercial planes. My last flight into Norfolk the pilot was floating forever. I knew he’d used up a couple extra thousand feet of runway and he finally chopped the power. The plane fell the last few feet and we landed with a thud.
So as far as I know, pilots will reduce power, but not pull it all the way back before a typical landing. Pilots (commercial pilots especially) coming in from over the ocean would be a bit reckless to chop the power and try to glide it in. Where’d you hear this?
For light plane pilots, this can actually be a bit of a controversy. See, if you set up a glide path using power to carry you in, then if you have an engine failure you may not make the runway.
The old fashioned folks always claim that you should be able to lose an engine any time in a traffic pattern around an airport and still glide to the runway.
On the other hand, longer final approaches under power are more controllable and allow the pilot more time to adjust, so the argument is that it makes ALL landings safer. Plus, pulling the engine to idle can ‘shock cool’ and damage it, so most pilots like to leave some power on throughout the approach.
But as long as you are within gliding distance of the runway, you can pull the power whenever you want and land safely. I owned an airplane with a high power-off sink rate (a Grumman AA1), and I flew out of a military field where they allowed us to do ‘overhead break’ approaches to landing. That one involves pulling the power to idle 2500’ above the ground and then turning 270 degrees to land.
When I was flying fixed-wing, almost all of my landings were done “power off” (i.e., the throttle pulled to idle) in a Cessna 172. When I flew the 182 I carried a little power to avoid shock-cooling the engine.
In the helicopter you add power to land. That is, you set up your approach by reducing the collective lever (which reduces the throttle through an interlink – but you still have to use the throttle to maintain around 100% rotor RPM), flaring (reducing the collective more), then adding power and bringing up the collective to come to a hover.
We’ve always been recommended to use low-power, high-angle approaches. This means coming in sttep and slipping if necessary.
I’m all for being able to make the field. Keep it high. And a shallow approach will put you closer to the ground, and can amplify illusions. It’s a lot easier to fly into something (like the trees short of the runway) horizontally than at a steep angle.
Even an engine pulled back to flight idle, whether piston or turbine, will still produce a small amount of positive thrust, and thrust can be increased immediately if needed. If an engine is actually shut down, it produces a lot of drag instead - even a feathered prop will be drag. An in-flight restart can take more time than you have available if something bad happens.
For pilots to actually shut an engine down just to see if they can make it the rest of the way over the water without it, they’d have to be suicidal.
I used to be a strict adherant to the power-off, high angle approach as well. But once you take some IFR training your perspective changes a bit. I realized the value of nice, stable approaches. And in Canada in the winter it’s really not a good idea to have the engine idling for any length of time while lots of -30C air is blowing past it. Not good for the cylinders, and you may find that it won’t come back to life if you advance the throttle.
Finally, I bought an airplane with an 1800 ft/mn power off sink rate, and the only way you could fly the pattern at a normal 1000’ altitude and be certain of making the runway if the engine quit was to fly so insanely close that the turns exceeded rate one and became hazardous. That’s why high performance military aircraft do those overhead breaks at 2500’.
I still get annoyed at those guys who seem to fly downwind until they are almost out of sight, then turn base and final 3 miles out. There’s no excuse for sloppiness.
I think the moral is to fly the pattern that makes you comfortable, allows for safe turns and stable approaches, and doesn’t screw up the pattern for everyone else. For some planes this may mean fairly steep power off approaches, and for others more gentle power-on approaches.
But once I was in Navy training and got to the point of having to land on a carrier. We were trained to approach downwind and turn at the end of the runway or in this case the carrier. As you came around you would pick up the {b]meatball**, which had replaced the fellows with the flags.
That is all you watched: if the ball went off the bottom you were high and let off power; if it went off the left side you turned right (and so on), but that was all you watched. As you came in there was a flagman and when he signaled it was all power off. On the first pass, once you hit it was all power on and away you went for the second approach. The second time around it was all the same, except the cable was out and instead of putting power on it was a sudden stop. They turned you into the wind and off you went. I loved that kind of flight, but will not post on a helicopter thread.