Precision Approach (Manually Flown) with a Powerplant Failure (Simulated) (AMEL, AMES)

Prior to beginning the final approach segment (VII.F S9):

• Desired altitude ±100 feet
• Desired airspeed ±10 knots
• Desired heading ±5°
• Accurately track courses, radials, and bearings

On the final approach segment (VII.F S12, S13):

• Fly and maintain a stabilized approach, adjusting pitch and power as required, allowing no more than ¼-scale deflection of either the vertical or lateral guidance indications
• Maintain a stabilized final approach from the FAF to the DA/DH with no more than ¼-scale deflection of either indication and the desired airspeed ±5 knots

Compare that to the instrument rating, where a precision approach allows ¾-scale deflection and ±10 knots. Same approach, same airplane, three times the lateral and vertical precision — with an engine out and no autopilot.

Four explicit requirements govern it (Appendix 3, Area VII Task F):

• At least one precision approach must be flown without the use of an autopilot
• You should begin manually flying prior to the final approach segment — not at the FAF, and certainly not at the DA
• Manually flown precision approaches may use raw data displays or may be flight director assisted, at the discretion of the evaluator
• The simulated powerplant failure should occur before initiating the final approach segment and continue to a landing or a missed approach procedure, at the evaluator's discretion

So the sequence you should expect:

1. Failure
2. Secure and stabilize
3. Brief the approach in its degraded configuration
4. Hand-fly the intercept
5. Hold ¼ scale to minimums while single-engine

To prove you can fly the airplane, not manage it. Everything else in a modern ATP profile is autopilot-coupled by SOP, and the single failure mode that most reliably ends badly is a crew that has to take over by hand, at low altitude, in a degraded configuration, having not done it recently.

Practical consequences for you on the day:

• Trim relentlessly — an out-of-trim airplane on one engine will not hold ¼ scale
• Set up the flight director in a mode you have verified, if the evaluator allows it, and cross-check it against raw data rather than following it blindly
• Use the pilot monitoring — the ACS explicitly grades coordinating with crew and completing the approach and landing checklists (VII.F S7)

Hand-flying does not mean doing everything yourself.

You must apply adjustments to the published DA/DH and visibility criteria for the aircraft approach category, as appropriate, for factors including NOTAMs, inoperative aircraft or navigation equipment, and inoperative visual aids associated with the landing environment (VII.F S10).

At ATP level, add the ones your operations specifications impose that the chart does not show:

• An operator's higher-than-published landing minima
• Restrictions when an autopilot or flight director required for a low-visibility approach is inoperative
• The fact that your approach category can rise with the speed you actually fly — which is a live issue when an engine-out approach speed pushes you into the next band

The examiner will hand you a NOTAM and a chart and expect the arithmetic, not a recital.

A predetermined one — the ACS wants a number you computed, not a needle you chased. Establish a rate of descent at the point where vertical guidance begins which approximates that required for the aircraft to follow the vertical guidance (VII.F S11).

Compute it from groundspeed, not airspeed, and update it for the wind you actually have. The rule of thumb, from AFH ch. 16's stabilized approach discussion: half the groundspeed times 10 gives the fpm for a 3° path — a 130-knot groundspeed gives about 650 fpm, with typical rates between 500 and 700 fpm. Setting the rate at glidepath intercept means the needle centers and stays there; hunting for it means you spend the first mile outside ¼ scale.

One of two things, immediately:

• Initiate the missed approach procedures if the required visual references for the runway are not distinctly visible and identifiable — or if in a seaplane; or
• Transition to a normal landing approach only when the aircraft is in a position from which a descent to a landing on the runway can be made at a normal rate of descent using normal maneuvering

"Immediately" is the operative word. Appendix 3 makes both halves explicit: continuing a precision approach below DH/DA without the runway environment in sight constitutes unsatisfactory performance. However, even when you initiate the missed approach at the DA/DH, most airplanes briefly descend below DA/DH due to momentum, and that descent does not constitute unsatisfactory performance as long as it does not continue (FAA-S-ACS-11A, Appendix 3, Area VI Task I).

The published missed approach was designed for an airplane with all engines running. With one out, ask three questions before you ever start the approach:

• Can you make the climb gradient? The standard missed approach gradient is 200 ft/NM; where a procedure requires more, the chart says so — and some approaches now publish two sets of minimums, the lower requiring a climb gradient greater than 200 ft/NM and the higher requiring none (IPH ch. 4). Your one-engine-inoperative gradient at this weight, altitude, and temperature comes from the AFM.
• Can you make the turn? A missed approach with an early turn toward the failed engine, or into rising terrain, may not be flyable at your available climb rate.
• What is the alternative? If the answer to either of the first two is no, you need a published or company engine-out missed approach, a different runway, a different airport, or an agreement with ATC ahead of time.

Say the answer out loud during the approach brief. The ACS grades "missed approach with a powerplant failure" as its own risk element (VII.F R7), and the mitigation is a plan, not a technique.

Establish the appropriate airplane configuration and airspeed considering meteorological and operating conditions (VII.F S8) — and for an engine-out approach, take both from the AFM's abnormal procedures section, not the normal landing page. That typically means a reduced flap setting and a higher approach speed than normal.

Two constraints that follow from it: a reduced flap setting means a more nose-up deck angle and a longer landing distance, which feeds runway selection. And the higher speed may move you up an approach category, which changes the minima you may use (VII.F S10). Neither number is one you should carry in your head from another type — this guide is type-agnostic, and the AFM and the FSB report are the authorities.

Proceed toward the nearest suitable airport (VII.F S6) — which under part 121 is not merely good practice but the rule after an engine failure or a shutdown to prevent damage: land at the nearest suitable airport, in point of time, at which a safe landing can be made (121.565(a)), with the narrow three-or-more-engine exception in 121.565(b).

Make radio calls as appropriate (VII.F S5):

• Declare the emergency and state the failure
• Ask for the approach and runway you want, and why
• Request equipment standing by
• Tell ATC what you can and cannot do on a missed approach before you need to fly one

Under 121.557(c) you are obliged to keep ATC and dispatch fully informed of the progress of the flight, and 121.565(c) requires the shutdown itself to be reported to the appropriate communication facility as soon as practicable.

The gates do not move because you have a problem. AFH ch. 16's criteria still apply:

• In the landing configuration by 1,000 feet AGL
• On profile before descending through 1,000 feet on about a 3° path
• Indicated airspeed between zero and 10 knots above target by 500 feet AGL
• A descent rate matched to groundspeed

"Every approach should be evaluated at 500 feet... If the approach is not stabilized at that height, a go-around should be initiated" (AFH ch. 16).

What does change is what "landing configuration" means — the AFM's engine-out flap setting and speed — and what the go-around from that gate would cost you. Decide before the approach which of those two facts governs, and brief it.

Small, early, and trimmed:

• Trim continuously. On one engine the rudder demand changes with every power change. An untrimmed airplane produces a slow heading drift that shows up as a localizer deviation you then over-correct.
• Fly heading, not needle. Establish a drift-corrected heading that holds the localizer and change it in 1 to 2° increments. Chasing the CDI with bank produces a divergent oscillation, especially as sensitivity increases near the runway.
• Set the computed descent rate at glidepath intercept (VII.F S11) rather than pitching to center the needle. Then correct with rate changes of 50 to 100 fpm.
• Change one thing at a time. Power for path, pitch for speed, or the other way per your training — but not both at once while also retrimming.
• Use the pilot monitoring. Deviation callouts exist so the pilot flying does not have to detect small errors while also holding the airplane straight.

Carry the ¼-scale standard as what it is — a stability gate, not a geometric guarantee. Treat it as the working rule of thumb that it is the largest deviation you can correct with small inputs without destabilizing the approach; how much lateral distance a quarter scale actually represents varies with your distance from the localizer antenna and with the individual facility's course width, so it is not a fixed number of feet.

As a cross-check, not as a source of truth. Appendix 3 permits manually flown precision approaches to be raw data or flight director assisted, at the discretion of the evaluator — so establish which one you are flying before the approach, and brief it.

If you use it:

• Verify the mode and the source. A director slaved to a failed or mis-tuned source is worse than nothing, and with a powerplant failure you may have lost the systems feeding it.
• Cross-check raw data continuously — the CDI and glideslope, the altimeter at the FAF, and the DA on the altimeter bug. If the bars and the raw data disagree, believe the raw data and say so.
• Do not follow the bars through a failure. If the director commands something the airplane cannot do on one engine, the airplane's limits win.

If you are on raw data, say that too, and expect a slightly larger scan workload. Neither choice is worth more points; being unclear about which you are doing costs you.

Start from the legal floor: under part 121 an engine failure or a shutdown to prevent possible damage obliges you to land at the nearest suitable airport, in point of time, at which a safe landing can be made (121.565(a)), with the narrow three-or-more-engine relief in 121.565(b). "Nearest" is the constraint; "suitable" is the judgment, and on this task it is driven by the approach you will have to fly:

• Approach type and minima — an ILS you can hand-fly to ¼ scale beats a non-precision or circling minimum with an engine out; the lowest minima and the most stable guidance win
• Runway length for a higher engine-out approach speed, a flatter reduced-flap path, and possibly degraded spoilers, reverse, or anti-skid
• Wind — a strong crosswind from the side of the failed engine adds rudder demand you are already spending
• The missed approach — pick the airport whose miss you can actually make on one engine, with the least turning and the lowest required gradient (K2, R7)
• Terrain around the approach and missed approach paths
• Aircraft rescue and firefighting, and whether you can stop on the runway rather than clear it

Note the coupling: your K2 and R7 answers depend on this choice, so make it before you brief the approach, and say why you rejected the closer field if you did.

You are flying a nonstandard profile with the crew's attention divided, and in IMC you cannot see and avoid at all. Name the mitigations:

• Tell ATC what you need and what you cannot do — the speed you will fly, the runway you want, and whether you can accept vectors or a hold
• Ask for traffic to be kept clear rather than assuming a declared emergency has done it, and request a discrete frequency
• Expect to be slower than the traffic behind you on final at an engine-out approach speed with reduced flaps — the spacing ATC planned may no longer work
• Use TCAS and ADS-B In deliberately, and remember your own maneuvering may be generating alerts for others
• Break out into a busy VFR environment — at the DA you may be joining a pattern nobody sequenced you into

If you go missed, your climb gradient and turn will not match the published expectation, which is its own separation problem — say so before you fly it.

Because the final segment of an engine-out approach is exactly where the multiengine accident record concentrates. The AFH is blunt: a very high success rate for engine-inoperative landings when the airplane is landed under control, and 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 mechanism on this task is specific:

1. Holding the glidepath by pitch alone lets speed decay
2. The pilot adds power on the operating engine to arrest the sink
3. Asymmetric yaw increases
4. The correction goes in with aileron
5. Drag rises and speed decays further — at low altitude, in IMC, with no horizon

That is why S13's ±5 knots matters more on the low side than the high: the floor is V_MC and the engine-out climb speed — a controllability limit and a performance floor, not tolerances.

The CFIT half is the missed approach you briefed but cannot fly. If your one-engine-inoperative gradient will not make the published 200 ft/NM — or more where charted — then flying it is a controlled descent into terrain with the autopilot off. The countermeasures are all upstream:

• Set the computed descent rate at intercept
• Trim continuously
• Hold the engine-out speed until the landing is assured
• Decide at the DA without deliberation
• Never accept an approach whose miss exceeds your climb capability

Every cue you would otherwise get for free has to be manufactured. There is no horizon to hold the wings against while you sort out asymmetric thrust, no runway to bias the approach toward, no visual check on the terrain you are descending over, and no easy answer to "where should I go" other than what is on the chart and in the FMS.

The mitigations are procedural rather than clever:

• Stabilize before you navigate. Control, configuration, then the plan — the AFH's warning about fixation applies with more force when the instruments are the only reference (AFH ch. 13).
• Use ATC as an instrument — vectors, distance to the field, terrain, and weather, so the crew's capacity goes to flying.
• Pick the approach that demands the least of the airplane — the lowest minima, the longest runway, the least turning in the missed approach.
• Brief the failure case of the failure case. What if the approach does not work out? With one engine, "we will just come back around" is often not an available answer.

Go missed, and say so. There is no version of this task where you continue a precision approach without valid vertical and lateral guidance — Appendix 3 makes continuing below DH/DA without the runway environment in sight unsatisfactory, and continuing on a failed signal is worse.

The practical response with an engine already out:

1. Initiate the missed approach at your current position
2. Climb on the profile you know your airplane can make
3. Tell ATC immediately what failed and what you can accept next
4. Reassess the airport choice

If the approach that just failed was the only one at that airport within your capability, the decision to divert has already been made for you — the question is only how quickly you recognize it.

Maintain directional control and appropriate crosswind correction throughout the approach and landing or missed approach (VII.F S14), and make smooth, timely, and correct control application before, during, and after touchdown or during the missed approach (VII.F S16).

Note what the task does not carry: unlike Task VII.E, there is no touchdown-point tolerance here. This task is scored on the approach and on the transition — either to a landing at a normal rate of descent using normal maneuvering, or to a missed approach initiated immediately (S15). The landing quality standard is qualitative, but "smooth, timely, and correct" with asymmetric thrust and a possible rudder trim change in the flare is not a low bar (AFH ch. 13).

• Taking the autopilot off too late. The ACS wants you manually flying prior to the final approach segment (Appendix 3). Clicking off at the FAF means your first trim inputs happen while the tolerance is already ¼ scale.
• Arriving unconfigured. Every configuration change on final costs trim, speed, and needle position.
• Chasing the glideslope with pitch alone instead of setting the computed rate at intercept (S11).
• Missing the minima adjustment for an inoperative component or a category change driven by the engine-out approach speed (S10).
• Hesitating at the DA. The decision is binary and immediate; deliberation is what turns a legal miss into an illegal descent (S15, Appendix 3).
• Briefing a missed approach the airplane cannot fly on one engine (K2, R7).
• Letting airspeed sag toward the low side. The tolerance is ±5 knots (S13), but the floor — V_MC and the engine-out climb speed — is a controllability and performance floor, not a tolerance.