So, I was flying the A2A Comanche (Simulator) tonight out of a small strip near Seattle.

I did the proper walk around, everything was good. The temperature was nice and warm but not too warm.

The aircraft was heavily loaded, near max takeoff weight. The runway was nothing special, not too long nor too short.

Full power, everything looked fine. Rotate and start climbing. I pull up the landing gear, we're at climb speed.

The engine quits as soon as I pull up the gear. I immediately think electrical or fuel trouble. But there's no time to do anything. I am exactly 100 feet off the ground. There's no remaining runway to land on. I start a turn thinking about trying to land on a taxiway but quickly stop, remembering past stats and recognizing the plane has not enough speed nor altitude to make it.

I leveled the wings and pushed the nose down to unload and put it on the ground, sort of on a road, in a belly landing just beyond the outer taxiway. Wrecked the prop and the right side flap, but no other damage. I came extremely close to hitting a house, but managed to avoid it. From the engine out to touching the ground took 11 seconds. I considered this to be a VERY interesting learning experience, something that can only be replicated in a sim BY ACCIDENT. This was the most important point.

So to the other pilots out there, what would you do in this situation? I know everyone does practice for engine failure on takeoff, but how about it the failure happens when you're at 50-100 feet with no more runway, what is your personal strategy? How about for unfamiliar airports?

Additionally, what are your plans if this occurs in an IFR takeoff?

For the curious, I did an investigation after the crash to see what happened. It turned out to be a "mechanical" problem - I use a Saitek hardware switch panel for gear up and gear down, but generally don't use the other switches except when in a Cessna, because the board is laid out for a Cessna. The magneto switch on the hardware panel was turned to OFF. I had turned the mags on inside the sim cockpit, not using the hardware. When I brought the gear up using the hardware lever, the board sent the magneto switch state to the sim causing the engine to instantly cut off. There was not enough time to even think about messing with switches. I did try to put the gear and flaps down but they did not come down or didn't come down in time. Unavoidable incident but a very good learning experience.

Between trying to avoid a stall, pick a suitable landing spot and troubleshoot there was not enough time to go through a full engine out checklist. I got as far as checking the fuel pump switch and mixture lever. If I had been higher, mags would have been next on the list, but alas, not enough time.

I was pretty satisfied with how I handled the event given the very limited time for troubleshooting. It would have been survivable and the aircraft probably would have been able to be flown again with some reskinning, new prop and engine inspection.

Never try to turn around with an engine out shortly after take off... Sounds like ya did good!

Should clarify, the turn I started was to try to get to a parallel taxiway that extended past the end of the runway, not a turn back to the airport.

In those conditions there are really very, very few choices. And all of them are: where (pretty much straight ahead) can I put this down without killing others and having the best chance of surviving. No altitude, no power, no choice. Not even enough time to do engine restart.

Agree with the other posters -- you did the right thing --- take the safest landing you can find straight ahead.

My instructors drummed into my head that the ONLY thing you're trying to do in a low level engine out is:

Don't Die or Kill anyone (if possible).


Even in night ops or IFR -- at that level, the options are the same...

In fact, for night ops, the joke my instructor used to say was -- "If you have an engine out at low level, at night, flip on the landing light. If you don't like what you see, turn it off..."

With height comes options... without it, you're just trying to get back on the ground with the fewest amount of fatalities and damage.


Regards,
4 <S!>


PS> Two other things you might do (if you have time) are: shut off the fuel flow, and open the doors. One to attempt to minimize fire hazard and the other to prevent being trapped in the cockpit due to stuck / crumpled metal

Very very funny....

My instructor once said "The prop is there only the keep the pilot cool. Don't believe me? Let it stop and watch him begin to sweat."

Aren't you supposed to use the least amount of runway so that you'll have more in front of you in case such an event occurs? There was something about 3 things that are of no use to a (fighter) pilot.... the altitude above you, the gas that's not in your tanks, and the runway behind you... or something to that extent.

Nice job handling that.

The only things I might add are that I might not put gear and flaps down. As you can see, depending on how your gear is actuated, it might not come down or only come down partially.

What gear will do is increase drag and dangle out the bottom to snag on things. In the T-34C IIRC, soft surface landings were always gear up. If of course you know that you can make a prepared surface, then gear (if it's working) becomes more useful. But the plane does land just fine on its belly as long as you don't bash it on, in which case it hardly matters.

Flaps is more uncertain I think. Full flaps will allow you to fly more slowly. But it will also steepen your glide...not the best thing if you don't have a surplus of altitude.

I'm just thinking that from 1000' or less (much less 100') the odds of me not needing every foot of down range travel are pretty slim. If I have the landing area made, then I'm all about flaps to crash as slowly as possible.