Emergency Procedures

Saturday April 11 – My Birthday flight!

I got a chance to move my lesson up to 2:00 pm from 5:00 pm and I was ready to go. We started with some ground instruction with the Diamond manual going over the various engine problem checklists and decided that we would have a simulated engine failure on our flight. Winds were again a bit strong and gusting out of the north today so we took off on runway 6 and headed to a new practice area to the north east around the Lebanon area. After climbing to 3000 feet and getting to our practice area Cameron pulled the throttle to idle and said “engine out failure” The first step it to trim the plane for maximum glide speed which on the DA-20 is 73 knot with the flaps in cruise setting. Next step is to pick a suitable landing area and make an emergency radio call. Then, if you have time, you should go through an engine re-start checklist to try to get the engine going again. I picked a pretty long field and was in a gliding decent toward the field when Cameron told me to power up and climb back to 2500 feet. After I got back to altitude, we did the simulation again. This time I pick a closer field to the north, into the wind and made a descending turn toward the field. I was having a little trouble maintaining proper airspeed and I realized I was going through the rest of the steps before setting the trim for proper glide speed. After we had this field made, we climbed back to 2500 feet and headed toward Lebanon-Warren county airport. The runway there is 1-19 so it was perfect for the wind today. Cameron talked me into the pattern while I made the radio calls and I made a very nice, unassisted landing! One tip that really helped was when Cameron told me to look at the far end of the runway after I cut the power to idle over the end of the runway. That gave me a much better perspective for when to round out. I hope I can make many more landings like that one! After a short wait for some skydivers to land from their jump, we were back on runway 1 for another takeoff and to head back to Blue Ash. On this pattern I was behind from the time I turn on base. The crosswind pushed me past the centerline of the runway before I got turned to final and I had to crab the plane to get back on center. I was able to get lined back up, but I was really fighting the cross wind and I started the round out too soon. Cameron had me apply a little power and I gave it a little too much and started to float back up. I was still battling the cross wind and bounced the landing a bit and ballooned back up. At that point Cameron said”I’ve got the controls” and took over to finish off the landing. What a stark contrast in landings from the previous one! I felt pretty good about the flight up until that point. I just remember reading somewhere that there are just three simple steps to a perfect landing, but unfortunately no one knows what they are. I’m sure with some more practice and many more landings I’ll be able to handle the gusting crosswinds with ease.