Powerplant Failure (Simulated) (ASEL, ASES)

Only ASEL and ASES applicants — this task does not apply to the multiengine ratings, which get Tasks VII.D through VII.F instead. In practice that means an ATP applicant in a single-engine turbine or high-performance piston, often flying single-pilot part 135 cargo or air-taxi work.

Nothing about the aerodynamics changed since your commercial ride. What the evaluator is looking for at ATP standards is the discipline layer: recognition without hesitation, memory items before troubleshooting, a landing area chosen and committed to, checklists completed "in a timely manner and as recommended by the manufacturer or operator" (VII.C S8), and communication with ATC that is useful rather than narrative (VII.C S9).

±5 knots of the recommended best glide airspeed, established and maintained throughout (VII.C S4). That is tighter than the commercial standard, and it is the only numeric tolerance in the task — everything else is judged on outcome: positive control throughout (S3), a suitable landing area for the conditions (S6), and a proper flight path to it (S7).

Best glide speed itself is type-specific. Take it from the POH/AFM for your weight — it decreases with weight, and the published figure is normally at gross.

Safety of flight, explicitly: "No simulated powerplant failure will be given by the evaluator in an airplane when an actual touchdown cannot be safely completed, should it become necessary" (FAA-S-ACS-11A, Appendix 3, Area VII Task C). Appendix 2 repeats the principle for single-engine airplanes generally: the evaluator will not request a simulated powerplant failure unless it is possible to safely complete a landing.

So expect the failure within gliding range of a runway or a genuinely usable surface, and expect to be asked what you would have done had it happened somewhere else.

Best glide speed: the highest lift-to-drag ratio, giving the greatest distance for altitude lost — use it when you need to reach something. Minimum sink speed: slower, giving the greatest time aloft for altitude lost — use it when you are already over your landing area and need time to troubleshoot, restart, run checklists, or brief passengers.

Both decrease with decreasing weight. Choosing the wrong one is a classic oral trap: gliding at minimum sink toward a field five miles away wastes the altitude you needed to get there.

Wind does not change your airspeed target much, but it changes where the airplane can go. With a headwind, ground distance covered shrinks and a slightly higher airspeed than best glide recovers some of it; with a tailwind, ground distance grows and a slightly slower speed extends it further. Follow the AFM where it publishes adjusted speeds.

The bigger operational point is the one that decides survival: a landing area downwind of you is much closer in glide terms than the same distance upwind, and your gliding footprint is an ellipse, not a circle. Bias your selection accordingly, and remember the surface wind also sets your touchdown direction and groundspeed once you get there.

The specific memory items come from your AFM/POH and your operator's procedures, but the structure is universal:

1. Pitch for best glide immediately — trading altitude for a speed you were going to need anyway is the one irreversible mistake
2. Turn toward the best landing area you have already been keeping in mind
3. Run the memory items — typically fuel selector, boost pump, mixture, ignition/magnetos, alternate air — because the most common causes are recoverable
4. If altitude permits, determine the cause and whether a restart is viable (VII.C S2)
5. Then the checklist, then the emergency descent/secure and passenger brief, then the radio

Time is the resource you are spending. High and early, you can troubleshoot; low, you fly the airplane to the ground and nothing else.

Declare and use them. On 121.5 MHz or your current frequency, squawking 7700, ATC can provide:

• Vectors to the nearest suitable airport
• Terrain and obstruction information
• The nearest weather
• A discrete frequency so you are not competing with other traffic
• Alerting of crash, fire, and rescue services

Radar can vector you to a field you cannot see and confirm your position for search and rescue if you do not make it there.

Ask for what you need in the first transmission, then keep ATC informed as the situation develops — in the single-pilot 135 world this task frames, there is no dispatcher, so a running picture to the controller is the whole information chain.

An emergency locator transmitter is designed to activate automatically on impact and transmit a distress signal so search and rescue can find you. ELTs operate on 121.5 MHz, 243.0 MHz, or 406 MHz (AIM 6-2-5):

• 121.5/243.0 MHz: analog — since Cospas-Sarsat stopped satellite monitoring of these frequencies on February 1, 2009, the signal is only heard if ATC or an overflying aircraft happens to be listening.
• 406 MHz: digital, satellite-detected within minutes, coded with the aircraft's data, and carries a low-power 121.5 MHz homing transmitter for the final search phase; it must be registered with NOAA, since the registration ties the signal to your aircraft and the people who should be called (91.207 sets the carriage, inspection, and battery-replacement rules).

If the landing is survivable and you are on the ground:

1. Activate the ELT manually if it did not fire, leave it on, and stay with the airplane.
2. Use the resources that reach someone immediately — tell ATC on your working frequency or on the emergency frequency 121.5 MHz (PHAK ch. 16), and squawk 7700.
3. Supplement afterward with what you carry — a personal locator beacon, a satellite messenger, or a phone, which works far better from a hilltop than from a valley floor.

Everything about site selection. You cannot see what you are gliding toward, so the resources substitute for the windscreen:

• Nearest-airport function on the GPS/FMS, cross-checked against the moving-map terrain page
• ATC for vectors, the nearest field, and terrain clearance — declare immediately, because you are trading altitude for information and altitude is finite
• Terrain awareness display to bias the glide toward lower ground and away from rising terrain
• The published approach, if the glide will support one; otherwise a straight glide toward the lowest terrain and the best chance of breaking out

Set the airplane up so that whatever you find when you break out, you are already slow, configured to the AFM's forced-landing recommendation, and pointed at the flattest ground available. Be honest with the examiner that this is the scenario with the worst outcomes, and that the mitigation is strategic — route selection, altitude, and fuel planning — long before the engine quits.

It means arriving at the flare with the energy you planned, not the energy that happened. Your total energy is fixed at the moment of failure — altitude plus the excess airspeed you can trade — and it only decreases. So manage it in this order:

1. Convert once, early. Excess airspeed can be converted into distance or altitude (AFH ch. 18); the pitch change to best glide is the first and most important trade you make.
2. Protect the glide ratio. Best glide is L/D_MAX; any speed above or below it increases drag and lessens the glide ratio (AFH ch. 3). Drag-producing items — flaps, gear, cowl flaps — steepen the path and shorten the distance, so they are spent deliberately, not scheduled.
3. Arrive with a surplus you can dump, not a deficit you must stretch. Aim to reach the key position high, then use a slip, S-turns, or flap extension to give energy away. Intentional slips dissipate altitude without increasing airspeed and are specifically useful in forced landings and where obstacles must be cleared into a confined area (AFH ch. 9).
4. Stabilize by short final — on the aim point, at the AFM's speed, in the configuration you have chosen, wings level. From there the only remaining variable should be the flare.

The failure mode this prevents is the stretched glide. Once you are low and slow, no technique adds energy back.

They change the numbers, not the technique:

• Density altitude — on a hot, high day your best glide indicated airspeed is unchanged, but true airspeed and therefore groundspeed and sink rate are higher. The glide ratio through the air holds; you simply cover the same air distance faster and touch down faster, which matters because doubling groundspeed quadruples the destructive energy (AFH ch. 18).
• Temperature and pressure also drive the same TAS effect, and a warm day means a longer ground slide once you are down.
• Turbulence forces a slightly higher speed for control margin and makes precise speed-holding harder — costly when the tolerance is ±5 knots (S4).
• Precipitation and icing add drag and weight and can degrade the glide substantially; ice on the airframe with no engine heat available is a compounding problem.
• Wind and its gradient — the shear as you descend into the surface layer typically reduces headwind near the ground, which shows up as a sinking, decaying-airspeed final if you did not plan a margin.

Then remember weight: variations in weight do not affect the glide angle provided you fly the proper airspeed — a heavier airplane needs a higher airspeed for the same glide ratio and gets there sooner (AFH ch. 3).

Change your mind at most once, and only for an option that is obviously better. If the emergency starts at a considerable height, be concerned first with selecting the desired general area rather than a specific spot, because terrain appearances from altitude can be very misleading and considerable altitude may be lost before the best spot is pinpointed. Do not hesitate to discard the original plan for one that is obviously better — but as a general rule, do not change your mind more than once (AFH ch. 18).

The reason is the closing line of that passage: a well-executed crash landing in poor terrain can be less hazardous than an uncontrolled touchdown on an established field (AFH ch. 18). Indecision costs altitude, and altitude is the thing you are short of. Commit, fly the airplane to the field, and spend your remaining attention on attitude and sink rate rather than on second-guessing the choice.

For the oral, state the decision gate out loud: "I will reassess once, by [altitude]; below that I am committed."

S5 says it plainly: configure in accordance with the POH/AFM and existing conditions — the manufacturer first, the terrain second. The AFH's guidance (ch. 18):

• Flaps improve maneuverability at slow speed and lower the stalling speed, so their use on final approach is recommended when time and circumstances permit. But the added drag and reduced gliding distance mean premature use of flaps may jeopardize an otherwise sound plan. Extend them when the field is made, not before.
• Landing gear has no hard and fast rule. In rugged terrain, trees, or a high sink rate, an extended gear protects the cabin; against that, weigh a collapsing gear rupturing a fuel tank. On level but soft terrain or a plowed field with ample stopping distance, gear up may produce less damage. Follow the AFM/POH.
• Electrical and fuel — deactivating the electrical system before touchdown reduces post-crash fire risk, but do not turn off the battery master until you no longer need electrical power for vital systems. It is generally better to switch the engine and fuel off just before touchdown.

And the priority that overrides all of it: positive airplane control during the final part of the approach has priority over all other considerations, including configuration and checklist tasks (AFH ch. 18).

Because the accident record says so, and the mechanism is always the same. The AFH's summary of engine-inoperative landings: there is a very high success rate when the airplane is landed under control, against a very high fatality rate in stall-spin accidents when the pilot attempts flight beyond the performance capability of the airplane (AFH ch. 13).

The specific errors the AFH names (ch. 18) are worth quoting to the examiner:

• Failure to lower the nose to maintain flying speed, and delay in selecting a landing area — both products of reluctance to accept the emergency
• Making a 180° turn back to the runway when available altitude is insufficient
• Stretching the glide without regard for minimum control speed to reach a more appealing field

Then the touchdown itself: loss of initiative over attitude and sink rate is the most critical and often most inexcusable error in an emergency landing. An excessive nose-low attitude risks sticking the nose in; steep bank angles just before touchdown increase the stalling speed and the likelihood of a wingtip strike; and a flat touchdown at a sink rate well in excess of 500 fpm on a hard surface can injure occupants without destroying the cabin (AFH ch. 18).

CFIT is the same error with terrain instead of the ground: fixating on the field and descending into what is between you and it.

Your flightpath is about to become unpredictable to everyone else, and your eyes are inside the cockpit running memory items. Both halves matter:

Airborne traffic: you may cross altitudes without clearance, glide through a pattern from an unusual direction, or arrive at an airport on a straight-in nobody expects. Declare, squawk 7700, and tell ATC or the CTAF your position and intention in plain language; ask for traffic to be kept clear rather than assuming the emergency did it for you.

Ground obstacles on the chosen field: the ones the AFH warns are hardest to see — most highways and even rural dirt roads are paralleled by power or telephone lines, and only a sharp lookout for the supporting poles gives timely warning. Manmade obstacles beside a road may not be visible until the final portion of the approach (AFH ch. 18).

The mitigation that pays best is the geometry: it is sometimes better to plan the approach over an unobstructed area regardless of wind direction, because a collision with obstacles at the end of a ground slide is far less hazardous than striking one at flying speed before the touchdown point (AFH ch. 18).