Neat, no engine

moxiepilot

moxiepilot

Well-Known Member
After having taught for a while now it was bound to happen. A student pulled the mixture on a single engine up at altitude. No big deal about shoving it back in and it starting back up, but I think my heart thumped for about 3 more minutes.

Funny thing was it happened TWICE yesterday, different students. I think because DA is getting higher now, they're leaning a little aggressively, I mean no fuel??? That's a little lean for my taste. :)
 
its just a loud noise maker anyways. I like to turn it off every now and then.
 
I had a student completely shut down a twin on me once. It gets real quiet in a Seminole when BOTH engines are shut down. Funny thing is, he was one of my international students from China and he now has nearly 1000 hours in the right seat of the A-320.
 
I once had a student **coughTramcough** accidently pull the mixture on power off 180's...

He kept his hand on it the whole time so I didn't even notice it... until we landed... and the prop stopped spinning! Doh! :eek:

That made us both just stop for a moment and look at each other like... "WTF just happened here..." ;)

Thank goodness he didn't really have any problems with power off 180's!!

Bob
 
Bob, he was just giving you a definition of "confidence".

I did it once flying through some bumpy clouds from Jax to ATL. Tried to pull the power back to get below Va and we hit some turbulence right as I reached for the throttle. Well my motion was to reach and pull, I did just that but I missed putting my hand on the throttle and ended up grabbing the mixture and it got really quiet.
 
Captain_Bob said:
I once had a student **coughTramcough** accidently pull the mixture on power off 180's...

He kept his hand on it the whole time so I didn't even notice it... until we landed... and the prop stopped spinning! Doh! :eek:

That made us both just stop for a moment and look at each other like... "WTF just happened here..." ;)

Thank goodness he didn't really have any problems with power off 180's!!

Bob
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Wow, just wow! ...........scary! :yar: :insane::insane::insane::insane:
 
My private pilot examiner would pull the mixture instead of the throttle for "simulated" engine outs.
 
Berkut said:
My private pilot examiner would pull the mixture instead of the throttle for "simulated" engine outs.
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I strongly discourage this practice in any single engine aircraft. I'll shut down the engine in the air once with the mixture during a student's training (and always over an airport) just to show them how it's *almost* always harmless, but if the engine doesn't restart for some reason, I don't care to explain myself to an accident investigator.

There are a few reasons the engine might not restart, but the biggest evidence I've seen to support my view came when I saw a student pull the mixture to idle-cutoff during shutdown in the parking area. The entire knob came off in her hand. These old trainers have strange ways of breaking. Have fun with that if it'd happened in the air!
 
I had a DE show me how to do a 180 degree/zero altitude loss power out turn in a C172. It was pretty amazing. The funny thing though was that he killed the engine with the mixture and couldn't get it started. We were all set to put it down in a field when he got the engine going at about 200 feet. Good times.

A few DEs that I used to send students up for multi rides would kill the engine with the fuel cut off valve. That was pretty sneaky as it took a minute or so to starve the engine and normally by then they would be demonstrating something with their hands just to show they had no part in killing the engine.
 
I had a buddy on a multi check-out and owner shut the fuel off on final. They crashed about a mile short of the runway. They all lived, but my friend had 3rd degree burns on 50% of his body.
 
During my multi training almost all my engine cuts were done with the fuel selector. Weird thing though, I actually restarted an engine and ran it for a couple of minutes with the selector still in the off position. That really cemented the whole checklist procedure--my instructor at the time didn't even really notice it because the engine was running but just not producing a lot of power. I guess those valves aren't really all that tight . . .
 
I know, especially when hot. It surprised me that it started pretty normally from feathered position and then kept running with such little fuel flow. I always check that stuff now, lessons learned in training . . .
 
jrh said:
I strongly discourage this practice in any single engine aircraft. I'll shut down the engine in the air once with the mixture during a student's training (and always over an airport) just to show them how it's *almost* always harmless, but if the engine doesn't restart for some reason, I don't care to explain myself to an accident investigator.
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Contradicting a little there? Lol, just messin' with ya man. You should tell us all your story. ;)

By the way, gimme a call sometime. We've got catching up to do. Have fun out there!
 
jrh said:
...the biggest evidence I've seen to support my view came when I saw a student pull the mixture to idle-cutoff during shutdown in the parking area. The entire knob came off in her hand. ... Have fun with that if it'd happened in the air!
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That could happen with the throttle, too.

Dunno if things have changed now, but at MTSU a few years ago it was quite common to kill one in the Seminole with the fuel selector.

We had a 152 go swimming near Knoxville one day when a CFI used the fuel shutoff to "simulate" an engine failure over Watts Bar reservoir. As far as I know, they never did find the plane.
 
MSNFlyer said:
Weird thing though, I actually restarted an engine and ran it for a couple of minutes with the selector still in the off position.
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What type of plane did you do your training in? If it had an accumulator, the prop might have started windmilling once taken out of feather, but not be producing any power.
 
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