Question from ignorance: if a plane is flying at full speed and the engine cuts out, won’t the momentum allow it to glide to a landing under pilot control?
Question from ignorance: if a plane is flying at full speed and the engine cuts out, won’t the momentum allow it to glide to a landing under pilot control?
Yes, the most important aspect would be what your glide ratio is compared to your altitude is when the engine quits. I’m not a pilot just the way I understand it.
I'm not a car driver, so pardon my ignorance: But if a car is traveling at full speed, and then the engine suddenly cuts out, won't the momentum allow it to "coast" to the nearest gas station?
Regards,
You are correct. Even big jets can glide as long as there’s enough airflow over the wing.
One of the common mistakes in large jetliner crashes involve pilots who pull up to try to regain altitude resulting in a stall. Pushing down and getting air over the wing results in lift which will save even the largest aircraft.
Early jet pilots, esp. in the Luftwaffe, learned quickly how fast their lift deteriorates in a bombing dive. They had to alternate their rudder to wiggle the butt of the plane and regain control, so there are situations where a dive could result in a loss of control; but you’d have to be straight down.
Depends on where they are at- too far out in the country and there may be no roads or airports or even fields nearby enough to make anything but a crash landing.
Gliding is fine for staying up, it's a beast for getting down alive.
“Question from ignorance: if a plane is flying at full speed and the engine cuts out, won’t the momentum allow it to glide to a landing under pilot control?”
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How do you safely land an aircraft in a pine forest—power or no power?
I read the other replies. The answer is ‘it depends’ on many factors: Altitude, aircraft type, pilot proficiency, gross weight, and center of gravity to name the primary factors (the latter also under pilot proficiency).
But isn’t that exactly what the pilot accomplished, “landed under pilot control?” Otherwise, the story would read quite differently.
This article is written purely from an emotional reaction. So it is hard to use it to draw any conclusions. But if it were night time then it would be very difficult to glide to a landing as you would not be able to see a place to land.
Yes, it’s a glider at that point. The trick is to find a landing spot for an emergency landing. You get one shot at that. A cessna has a lift / drag ratio of around 7:1. That means for every 7 feet of forward travel, you loose 1 foot of altitude.