Emergency descent in an Arrow

bretthullrampage

bretthullrampage

Well-Known Member
I have the flying portion of my CFI initial coming up next week and my examiner told me to prepare for an emergency descent. This isnt anything that I have practiced and am curious as to the proper procedures. Id assume idle throttle, prop forward, gear, and flaps? Should this be done over top an airport or field? How low do I need to descend? Appreciate any help.
 
bretthullrampage said:
I have the flying portion of my CFI initial coming up next week and my examiner told me to prepare for an emergency descent. This isnt anything that I have practiced and am curious as to the proper procedures. Id assume idle throttle, prop forward, gear, and flaps? Should this be done over top an airport or field? How low do I need to descend? Appreciate any help.
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Arrow hu?

collegehumor.42d1751c6370cadd35b319944902f84e.jpg
 
bretthullrampage said:
I have the flying portion of my CFI initial coming up next week and my examiner told me to prepare for an emergency descent. This isnt anything that I have practiced and am curious as to the proper procedures. Id assume idle throttle, prop forward, gear, and flaps? Should this be done over top an airport or field? How low do I need to descend? Appreciate any help.
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Don't exceed any aircraft limitations! 30-45 degrees bank, drop gear when you can for drag, then drop flaps, don't shock cool the engine (going to idle in a fast descent is bad), prop not to exceed redline. You want to have the prop full RPM once you slow down, and slowly power back the engine. Vne, Vle, Vfe are the big limitations to watch, Va if in rough air. That said, you want to be as fast as possible to maximize drag.

Refer to the FAA's Airplane Flying Handbook (it is in there), the POH for the airplane supersedes that though. I think it is fine to brief the examiner that in a real emergency you would go power idle/prop pitch immediately, but not for a practice demonstration. Also, the nature of the emergency changes things - for a structural failure, we would want to minimize loads on the aircraft. For a fire, we would want maximum airspeed, etc.
 
Throttle Idle, Prop High, Mixture Rich, Gear Down, 45 Degree Bank, pitch for a few knots below Vle. When you level off at the end, make sure you are below Vlo before retracting the gear.
 
Okay, I bothered to look it up. P28R Emergency Descent Checklist:

Throttle...... IDLE
Prop...........HIGH RPM
Mixture.......FULL RICH
Gear...........DOWN
Flaps..........40
Airspeed.....MAX 125 MPH INDICATED


EDIT: For an engine out emergency descent, the POH calls for Prop LOW RPM, presumably you wouldn't want the engine braking. So I'd ask which one the examiner wants.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Okay, I bothered to look it up. P28R Emergency Descent Checklist:

Throttle...... IDLE
Prop...........HIGH RPM
Mixture.......FULL RICH
Gear...........DOWN
Flaps..........40
Airspeed.....MAX 125 MPH INDICATED
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Throttle idle, roll inverted and pull.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
Okay, I bothered to look it up. P28R Emergency Descent Checklist:

Throttle...... IDLE
Prop...........HIGH RPM
Mixture.......FULL RICH
Gear...........DOWN
Flaps..........40
Airspeed.....MAX 125 MPH INDICATED


EDIT: For an engine out emergency descent, the POH calls for Prop LOW RPM, presumably you wouldn't want the engine braking. So I'd ask which one the examiner wants.
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Thanks for looking that up for me! The plane will be gone all weekend else Id look it up myself. Any idea what altitude I should level off at?
 
bretthullrampage said:
Thanks for looking that up for me! The plane will be gone all weekend else Id look it up myself. Any idea what altitude I should level off at?
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Ask the examiner, but 1000-1500 would seem reasonable to me.

I would be shocked if they say anything about deciding to recover too high. Best bet, brief the recovery altitude before you go up.
 
For the life of me, I can't remember doing one on my initial. Not saying that you won't, just a factoid.

Arrow 40Tango is gone isn't it?
 
It's been a looooong time since I did one of these in the Arrow....refresh my memory, what was this procedure used for? Fire?
 
///AMG said:
It's been a looooong time since I did one of these in the Arrow....refresh my memory, what was this procedure used for? Fire?
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I honestly can only think of two reasons - fire or structural failure. In either case, this ain't what you would do...

Medical emergency maybe?
 
drunkenbeagle said:
I honestly can only think of two reasons - fire or structural failure. In either case, this ain't what you would do...

Medical emergency maybe?
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If structural failure, the emergency descent might not be anything you'll have control over :(
 
MikeD said:
If structural failure, the emergency descent might not be anything you'll have control over :(
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True, but a lot of pilots have also walked away from some very damaged airframes because they didn't panic.

Let's say we lost part of a wingtip, aircraft still controllable. Get down and on the ground ASAP, but we are more worried about airspeed and load factor than rate of descent.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
True, but a lot of pilots have also walked away from some very damaged airframes because they didn't panic.

Let's say we lost part of a wingtip, aircraft still controllable. Get down and on the ground ASAP, but we are more worried about airspeed and load factor than rate of descent.
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Oh sure. Agree. I was just giving a worst-case scenario that would really suck.
 
drunkenbeagle said:
I do admire your optimism!

Sounds like it is time for another MikeD writeup on structural failure, I'm sure you can find a good one that happened at altitude.
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I can think of a couple of the top of my head, and in both, the pilot and jet met their end very quickly
 
///AMG said:
I can think of a couple of the top of my head, and in both, the pilot and jet met their end very quickly
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The ones coming to mind for me did not end well either... MikeD - interested in an accident article about exceeding load limits and wing spars?
 
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