jetmech05

I want to post this so the newer guys will realize that dead sticks are not that bad...this happened to me Sunday.....
I tweaked the high end needle on my 50CC gasser a tad too rich.....the engine is on a Pitts Python bipe weighing in at 18Lbs or so.....
So I do a High speed pass down the runway....into the wind......pull vertical, and as I climb out I begin to pull off power for a hammerhead turn....and wham nothing dead stick...
So there I was deep in a stall at the wrong end of the runway...too much altitude for a downwind landing....Whatever you do the most important thing to do is get or keep as much airspeed as possible......and get back to the field.....so I flipped her on her back, which gets her pointing toward the runway, and roll wings level and get the nose slightly down to get and keep airspeed......(I got enough airspeed when she was inverted to roll wings level)....now I am on the downwind leg in a slight descent.......Now all I have to do is turn upwind with a bipe....So I went as far as the runway, turned short final, and rolled wings level just above stall speed....I wasn't quite lined up on the runway but I didn't dare touch the rudder or ailerons again....flaired to touchdown and came to a stop on the near side of the runway in the grass....
So you see a dead stick while being kinda hairy...depending on where it happens...doesn't have to end in a dented airplane.....
Remember not to panic, remember airspeed, airspeed, airspeed, remember that you don't need to fly a whole pattern, nor do you need to land on the runway......and if you forget all of that do remember airspeed.....
Good flying to all

Dr1Driver

Congrats! Good job. You were in about the worst position you could be in.

When it gets real quiet up there - set up to land RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE. Anything else is gravy. Keep the nose down and the airspeed up. If you do manage to get lined up with the runway, take what you can get. Don't try to drag it in by holding the nose up with the elevator, you'll snap-stall it. Guess what - the elevator is NOT the "up" control.

cfircav8r

My Feedback: (1)

DR1Driver you are dead on. A lot of pilots don't understand that a higher airspeed (higher rate of descent) will give you a shallower angle of descent (more distance).

Gray Beard

My Feedback: (-1)

I wish I could land as well with the engine running as I do dead stick!! I think it has something to do with the tunnel vision I get when I only have one try?? Full concentration?

Dr1Driver

Actually, there are five:

Altitude above you, runway behind you, fuel in the can on the ground, airspeed you don't have, and a second ago.

cfircav8r

My Feedback: (1)

Yes you could probably add a half dozen others, but 3 is a nice easy number. I also believe the first three imply the others. Altitude can be converted to airspeed, and the three together indicate planning ie: a second ago.

ameyam

Graybeard is right. It tunnelling of vision. The minute you have a dead-stick, its an emergency and all else you were thinking of is put away temporarily.

I landed deadstick even before I did a powered landing on my trainer. Basically, saw that I was losing momentum even after I gave throttle, announced the event, lined up the best I could and let her settle in. Didnt land into the wind but cross wind but then there wasnt much wind anyway. Ever since I moved to an inverted engine on my third airplane, I have had so many deadstick landings, I may actually have equal number of powered and deadstick landings.

Some time back, I was test flying a low-winger for a trainee. The engine hadnt been used for some time and was still running rich. However, I was showing him what he could do with that airplane (think it was similar to Tower Hobbies Kaos). Was rolling when it went dead-stick and was just about to go inverted when it happened. I was in the middle of the field and quite low but had good airspeed, but was concerned I wouldnt have enough if I tried to head to the end of the field and then line-up. So I finished the roll and then flew a series of s-turns and after the third I turned into the wind and let her settle in. I landed at the other end of the field. It was only after I landed that I realised that I had an audience watching me fly. It is quite surprising how much you can make these semi-trainers fly after you have handled a more difficult airplane.

For the purpose of practice, I routinely fly my sim till it goes dead-stick. In fact after the 10 minute timer goes off on the sim, I intentionally fly high-alpha and hovering. So when the engine cuts, I have to make a quick decision on judging my airspeed and altitude and lining up my landing. Heli pilots routinely practice autogyro for when they have deadsticks, so why not us?[8D]

Ameyam

Charlie P.

Glider pilots are pretty good with deadsticks, too. ;-)

I learned R/C on a two-channel Sig Riser II. Only time I really mind a deadstick is on takeoff at about 20 feet up and most of the runway behind. But, being proactive, even then I have a route picked out should the engine go.

We get spoiled with R/C in that there is way more power available than scale private aircraft can muster. Ballistic take-offs and "punch it" escapes. You can spot a pilot with finesse and a level head in how they react to a dead-stick.

Even better (or worse) is the situation when something falls off the airframe. Never stop flying until all the pieces are on the ground.

shaggy48

good job.  but i have a more luck than skill deadstick story.  doing this on my phone so excuse the brevity and fat finger typos.   my  beloved yak deadstiked about two months ago.  way too far away to even consider coming back and way too low already.  to make things worse, we fly on an airforce base and near old weapons storage area so it has those big burms.  little hills that look like bunkers.  well guess where my yack was going down.  quarter mile away and behind a bunker.  as i was about to loose sight of the plane i quickly flipped to high rates and imagined her in my mind and gently put her down on the other side of the bunker.  after i got the cops to escort me into the area i realized how lucky i got but were it not for my last minute fly it till the last piece is dowm.  she could have been a total loss.  she wa sitting right side up. and the main landing gear was about 3 feet behind her.  otherwise she was perfect.

CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

I would hope that beginners read my posts as well as the fine posts placed here by the many highly qualified RC seasoned veterans.

One point that I try to emphasize is practice. I seem to say it an awful lot.. practice. Jetmech did not just come by this dead-stick solution by dreaming it up on the spur of the moment, but at times, it comes down to a split second decision for what we have to do in a situation like that.

What I do myself is set up a practice dead-stick situation that is in a range of easy to very difficult, and then get the plane in the position to land it safely without touching the throttle until I am absoultely sure that the approach will lead to a safe landing. It doesn't matter if it's pretty or not, or it it ends up with the plane at your feet, and up-right.. but that it's down, and in a safe location and recoverable, without damage.

So, I will purposefully take off, do a couple of orbits, then pull the throttle to minimum and say to myself, "Dead-stick.. land it". Then, I proceed to get it in a position where it will be where I want it to be, just as Jetmech did.

This is all part of learning to fly RC, and part of being a practiced expert in the hobby... practice. And, you can make it a fun task by dreaming up a situation that will make it quite a challenge.. always remembering that it is a practice and you can add throttle and get out out of it. But, always remember that at some time or other, as Jetmech can attest to, it isn't a drill, but it's real and you gotta land it AND bring it home in one piece!!!!

Practice.. practice.. practice!!!! You never know when it will come in handy, as I am sure Jetmech wasn't ready for the dead-stick, but was very well prepared. GOOD JOB, Jetmech!!

CGr.

ps. how is that Coastie doing?

417mack

 I will start by saying I am a beginner but my flying partner is not 20+ years exp.  He coached me very well I think and my first dead stick with my trainer he said just like the above post get pointed into the wind keep airspeed , the runway is not a nessity and get the wings level for touch down .  I have since had a lot of practice at dead sticks with a plane with a K&B 28 that I cannot seem to keep running but every time those same words come to mind. I might add that we fly in a wide open area except for fences and one tree.  I thought a story from a beginner would be good.

Charlie P.

A few years back I bought a cheap, Chinese .50 size glow engine. Put it in a plane I was familiar with. In two days I had more than two dozen consecutive dead-sticks that each occurred two minutes into the flight. GREAT practice. Even the tireless resident club engine kibbitzer developed an eye twitch. I practiced my avaition and nautical vocabulary with such enthusiasm that it blighted the nearby corn crop and cows at the dairy farm at the east end of the runway produced curdled milk for months thereafter.

PS - that engine lives on but with a Perry carbureator.

molokaiboy

Ifly mostly helis and practicing deadsticks are like Autorotations for me. Ialways try to get some kind of deadstick practice with my planes too. Itry to do them in attitudes that are the most difficult. Like taking off and near the end of the runway, or downwind far from the runway.

The field Ifly at can be challenging. There are big burms at our field too. Most landings you come in from the south into the winds out of the north, only problem is you need to fly over these pretty big burms then drop altitude to the runway. There are burms directly in front of us as well, come in from the northandthere's no obstacles,one catch95% of the time you can'tbecause your going downwind.

Also goodto practicelanding in all directions and conditions. Gettingused to coming in the same way all the time can provedisasterous when conditions won't allow for it.

Aloha,
Les

jetmech05

You know CG you reminded me that I used to pratice dead sticks just the way you described.....Funny I had forgotten that until you menitioned it.
CG is correct when he tells you to pratice dead sticks...pull back power every where in the pattern and try not to touch the throttle until you land....another good pratice is to do as many landings as possible as quick as possible...do a dog bone and land then go into another dog bone and land the other way.....You will learn airspeed management.

CG, My coastie is doing great she got married to a fellow coastie May 8th....and transfered back to Elizabeth City from Yorktown....The Coast Guard extended his tour at Elizabeth City so now they are on the same rotation for orders......she is torn about re-enlisting right now, but I kinda think she will.

CGRetired

My Feedback: (1)

Jetmech.. well, Congrats to your Coastie Daughter and her new Hubby!!! I hope she ships over. She could do worse, I can tell you that. I retired CWO4. Made CWO2 at the same time I was selected for E8. And, that wasn't long into my career.. I made E7 after 6 years in the Coast Guard, 10 years total active duty. I did a lot of very interesting things during my career.. went to places not many have ever seen. Great career.

Meanwhile, not to hijack this thread, you are absolutely correct. Everything we do in this hobby takes practice, including safe dead-sticks. Some, like Charlie P. did it the hard way.. sorry Charlie (oops.. ) But, the end result was the same thing.. safe landings.

All beginners should read this thread and take heed.. anything worth doing is worth doing well.. even a darned dead-stick landing!!!

CGr.

HighPlains

My Feedback: (1)

Only thing to add is to position your prop so it is level when coming up to compression. Helps prevent breaking props.

Charlie P.

If you look close you'll note the propeller is in pretty good focus and there is no puffy-puffy coming out the muffler. Showing the horizontal "park" mode HighPlains refered to. Also a good shot to show the approach of a dead-stick: slightly nose down and back home.

HighPlains

My Feedback: (1)

Charlie,
What is that model pictured in your last post?

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

All very good posts about dead sticks. I practice them all the time, except I kill my engine completely. No sense faking it right? LOL. But I know that this saved my Somethin' Extra the other day. I was making an upwind, inverted low pass about 10 feet over the runway and the engine quit about middle way down the runway. I was able to roll it back over and land down wind on the far side of the runway. If this had happened to me a couple years ago, I probably would have crashed, but I've practiced dead sticking so much, I just landed it without thinking twice about it.
BTW. Found the reason for this deadstick was the fuel pressure line had split a little and pulled loose from the muffler. A good time to go ahead and replace fuel lines!

cfircav8r

My Feedback: (1)

I would recommend practicing dead sticks at idle. Yes it will be slightly different, but a lot less risk to the airframe. If your idle is set correctly and your plane has the right propeller it will actually have more drag then a stopped propeller, making it even a little more challenging, increasing the margin for error for a true dead stick. Also you can practice several without the need to walk out to get the plane and restarting it. I once met a gentleman in Texas who used to practice dead sticks in his ultralight by shutting it down, after 2 weeks in the hospital, 6 months in a brace and 1 year of rehab for a broken back he was finally back flying.

Luchnia

My Feedback: (21)

Whoa! That is SOOOOO not good!

I have had my share of dead sticks. I don't mind them on certain planes, but when they occur on a new sport plane I am trying to maiden that really gets me angry [:@] You ever notice the old junk bucket airplane rarely dead sticks and if it does you can usually skate that puppy in like a pro?

I usually practice dead sticking with the engine idling at almost a shut off speed and in a variety of altitude and different locations. Pretty wild, too. I have had some that just about "plop" right down on the runway.

Charlie P.

Kangke Super Kraft 50 (ARF). I highly recommend the model. Only complaint I ever had was while on skis it tended to weathervane as it was taxied or on roll-out (ski-out?) unless I kept blipping the throttle for rudder authority. Stay away from the S/K .50 engine, however (IMHO). I would recommend a TT Pro-46 and 11 x 6 APC. Would make a great pattern trainer. Very stable straight flight (and the tapered wings look sharp). It's a very clean design and with a .50 or .51 engine and a 10 x 8 prop it will scoot.

Sadly, it was killed by testosterone. Mine was being pulled by a SuperTigre G.51 & 11 x 6 APC prop when I tried to do an eye-level inverted limbo at full speed at a club picnic. Caught a wing-tip trying to half-roll to upright and cartwheeled into oblivion. Pieces were still falling and one of the wifes watching said: "Did he mean to do that?"

hugger-4641

My Feedback: (6)

Yeah, I think I would feel a little different in a full scale plane. Maybe once just to be sure I have the skill, but why tempt fate too many times? With models however, its good to practice the real thing from different points in the pattern. The plane may have more drag with a slowly spinning prop when the airspeed is above stall, but not below, that spinning prop is still putting out thrust that can, depending on the airframe, still keep you flying when you enter ground effect. Not the case in a true deadstick.

cfircav8r

My Feedback: (1)

I understand you feel its more valuable to practice dead sticks with the engine off, but the slight difference between a good low idle and not running is not worth the risk for those of us not willing to spend the time/money to fix/replace a plane. The key to being able to pull out a successful dead stick is learning to recognise exactly how the plane is responding to your inputs and how to judge the best rate of descent and the best angle of descent. Learning that to extend the glide you may have to drop the nose, and dropping into a small area right below you may involve raising the nose. All of this can be learned very easly with the engine at idle. Learning to "feel" the plane through visual cue's will get you out of more trouble then practicing 100 different scenarios. By the way I learned this from flying models, not full scale.