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Date: Sat, 28 Nov 1998 19:03:58 -0600
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Subject: Re: Emergency night landings
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J L Bolinger wrote:

> During my recent night XC, I asked my CFI what to do with an engine
> failure, assuming the normal mantra (air speed-carbhear-mixture-fuel, 
>  did not work?

> His answer was to pick a dark area, start a descent, and come in at
> minimal controllable airspeed, and hope that it is a clear field. 
> If it is not a clear field, at least you will be going at the minimum
> possible speed when you hit what ever it is in the way.

I'm not exactly sure what your CFI means by "come in", but I would
set up and trim for Vbg exactly as one would during daylight.  Your
CFI's advice (I assume he added "turn into the wind" somewhere) to
use minimal speed would best be applied near flare altitude.

The vast majority of crashes under control appear to be survivable,
often with minimal injury even if the plane sustains amazing damage.
The key is "maintain control", and remember that MCA is just that,
the minimal controllable speed with little margin for gusts, change
in wind speed, twitchy hand on the yoke etc.

It might be worth commenting, though, that choices at night depend
upon advance planning.

First, I want better vis for a night flight to be a 'go', and prefer
a full moon.  If the moon is full it's amazing what detail you
can pick up on the ground once your eyes adjust.

Second, I think it's worthwhile to plan a route and choose an
altitude such that an airport will be in gliding distance as
much of the way as possible.  Make that a lighted airport with
a beacon.  

Third, as you fly along, always keep track of where the closest
airport is, in what direction, and whether or not you could
glide to it (sort of equivalent to "feet wet feet dry").  Also
keep track of what the ground elevation is, so if you can't
glide to an airport you have a good sense of where the hard
objects will begin and when to slow up.  This is good practice day
or night, but especially important at night when off-airport landing
sites are harder to judge.

Snowbird


