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Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1998 17:49:42 -0600
From: Snowbird <snbird@ibm.net>
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Subject: Re: landing on highway?
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Sam wrote:

>    My guess is that all of these careful deliberations (including
> mine) would be annihiliated by the shear horror of the
> situation---engine out, you've got one chance to put her down--no go-
> around. You may die. Others may die.
>    Things probably get pretty reflexive, unless the pilot is an
> unusually cool character.

Oh I don't know.

For one thing, the point of any good emergency training is to make
important considerations reflexive.   You practice or review the
procedure regularly enough when it's calm, and when the fit hits
the shan the horror/fear/whatever is kind of irrelevant it's
BAM-BAM-BAM through the procedure and the shakes hit later.  At
least that's been the way in the emergencies I've experienced.
Maybe you're afraid but it it doesn't matter, the point of the
training is to put the reactions on the automatic level.

I don't know about engine failure, never been there (yet, knock
wood); listen to people who have (John Galban is one of them).

If you play the "where would I land if the engine died right
now?" game any time you're flying in VFR conditions, you
already *know* what your current choices are, whether or not 
there's an airport within gliding range and in which direction.
So "if the engine died right now, the best landing site is that
highway" is IMO a calm-time, nothing going on kind of decision.

Snowbird


