Here is a little safety trick for all you guys with
GPS.  This is particularly important for all of us
doing non aircraft engine installations.

Climb up to about 5000 feet AGL over your air port
and kill the engine. Note how far you can glide

from the GPS

data for a 1000 foot decent at best glide speed in

a straight line.

Then do the same for two 90 degree turns. This will

give you

a feel for altitude loss as a function of distance

when

making dead stick landings. It would help if you

have

your landing field lat longs in a way point in your

GPS just

in case. this will give you a glide ratio for your

particular

airplane rather than assuming it is the standard

for light

planes of around 7:1.

It would be great if Greg Richter allowed specific

glide ratio data

to be entered into his moving map program. If your

engine quit

your moving map program could then tell you if you

could make it

to a particular emergency landing field. Assuming

of course the lat longs

are in his moving map program for all possible

landing fields.

Paul Lamar

Well, not having a starter, I've been too chicken to

do this.  I know that

they are supposed to airstart just fine, but call me

yellow and I'll

answer, "Yes, sir!".  A good idea if you have a

starter on board.  Fortunately

both of my engine failures have been partials with

one in a nice field,

not a scratch on anything and the other onto an

airport, ditto.  The second

used my loran "nearest airport" feature ("10.2 miles

at 245 degrees" is

forever

etched in my brain!) a REAL life saver.   I suspect

that realiable "nearest"

features may have saved more butts in the last 15

years than any other

aviation development EVER -- for bad WX and rough or

failed motors.

I personally know of many saves, one total engine

failure that landed on

an airport, many partial failures that lasted long

enough to make that little

field you didn't even know was there, plus

several, "will you look at how

bad the vis just got, boy, I gotta get this crate on

the ground NOW!" for

me and several friends.

Bill Freeman
Long EZ builder & pilot
BSME, MSME
EAA Technical Counselor

BILL?????!!!!!........No starter on your bird?....I'm
surprised at you, I thought you were a Chicken S--T like
me? :-)
                                   Butch

 
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