Flying with Murphy on board

So today was a lesson in things breaking (or at least pretending to break). So I thought I’d talk a little bit about each one and what it involves.

 We went through a practice engine failure. Bob pulls back the power and announces “engine failure”, I resist the urge to push it back in and say “no look its fine!” Then I trim for 65(ish) knots point it towards the runway and hope for the best. We made it this time! Woo-hoo!

Next came a practice comms failure , which was very weird because despite the fact I was meant to be practicing what to do if my radio failed, ATC insist on talking to me via the radio. As well as shining a large green light in my face (we have ways of maiking you land?). Still we got the plane down intact. As a side note here, I’m not sure that I’d take this approach if my radio failed. I seriously think I’d call the tower on my cell phone. It has got to be better than relying on wing waggling right? Think I might ask Bob about that one.

 Finally came an Airspeed Indicator (ASI) failure. Simulated with the high tech, card over the instrument approach. Basically you don’t do anything different but you don’t have the ASI to help you judge your speed. You just have to point the nose at what you think is the correct angle and hope for the best. Despite ending up in two overshoots (more to do with approach height than speed), I did OK on this too, which surprised me somewhat.

 Seriously though I’m amazed at what can break on a plane and still render it flyable. Apparently you can land without flaps as well. Look forward to trying that sometime!