pulling the fuel valve on takeoff in a 152

"buttman" <nbvFOUR@> wrote in message
news:1175626271.599066.62770@l77g2000hsb. ...
> The way I see it (and yes I know everyone here disagrees with me) if
> you have 11,000 feet of runway below you, doing this in a SE is not
> unsafe at all, as long as the instructor keeps on his toes in case the
> student isn't.

The way I see it, if the student isn't on his toes by this stage, you
shouldn't be moving on to simulated engine failures at all. Best go back
over the more basic stuff until he _is_ on his toes.
Oz Lander

"buttman" <nbvFOUR@> wrote in message
news:1175667204.560009.312860@q75g2000hsh. o...

> People keep going on and on about how dangerous this is, and how it's
> basically the same thing as manslaughter. But honestly, what EXACTLY
> is so dangerous about doing this? Nobody has yet to give me ONE valid
> reason why this is just oh so dangerous. It's not something I'd do
> everyday, or even with every student, but I still think it could have
> some benefit to the student.

OK, lets say you have this student. We'll call him Steve.

Steve lines up on the runway, gives it full power, and starts his takeoff
roll. Just as he rotates, a gust of wind hits from the left. Steve, being
the superb pilot that he is, corrects with left rudder. OOPS, not he's not
over the runway anymore, but he's over the taxiway heading towards the
control tower, at ten feet AGL.

Is this a good time for his instructor to pull the power and play engine
out?

What if the instructor cut the fuel ten seconds ago (when everything was
fine)? Now Mr instructor HAS to play engine out because it just happened.

Please realize that this story is fictitious, and that Steve the student
would never correct the wrong way and end up over a taxiway.

On Apr 3, 2:05 pm, "Mortimer Schnerd, RN" <mschnerdatcarolina.>
wrote:
>
> I'd be very leery of actually failing the engine in a single. That is a recipe
> for disaster. Sometimes even when you do everything right you're going to get a
> bad result.

Agreed. Actually failing the engine reduces your options, and
we all know that power is a critical option when things go wrong near
the ground. When I took my training the instructor used to fail the
engine at altitude by turning off the fuel, then turning it back on
once I had the glide established and the throttle at idle. When I
became an instructor 25 years later we didn't do that anymore. When I
became a mechanic I understood why we don't do it anymore: fuel valve
controls break (have had it happen), mixture cables can fail the same
as carb heat cables can (have had that happen a couple of times, too)
and so on. Actually killing the engine at rotation or anywhere near it
is asking to get actually killed.
It's bad enough that stuff can fail at altitude, like the
throttle cable we had break when the student pulled it out on spin
entry. Pulled the knob and shaft right out of the panel. The
instructor set up for a forced approach, engine at idle, then decided
to stuff the thing back into its hole. The engine went to full
throttle and they came home that way and cut the mixture on final.
Dicey, but there weren't many options.

Dan

On 04/04/07 17:05, Roy Smith wrote:
>
> I once had a student who, after I popped the door on takeoff, quietly
> ignored it. It was the middle of the winter and the slipsteam was *cold*,
> so I asked him if he had noticed anything unusual. He said the door
> popping open was not an emergency and he was going to continue to fly the
> plane while he worked out a plan. Apparently his plan was to continue on
> to our destination, while my right buttock froze solid. Eventually, he
> agreed to turn around and land if I agreed to not do that to him again.

Gee ... so who learned the lesson there? ;-)


--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane, USUA Ultralight Pilot
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA

I agree with the others... Isn't it said that the most critical time
in flight is on takeoff, when your low to the ground at a slow
airspeed? Then turning off the fuel selector is setting an unknown
time when the failure is going to occur. If you're at altitude, you
have plenty of room to adjust your pitch for a safe airspeed and to
troubleshoot. Sure, maybe your student will lower the nose and land,
even if it's just after liftoff or higher above the runway, but I
think it leaves little margin for error and is unnecessary...

On Apr 3, 11:13 pm, "buttman" <nbvF...@> wrote:
> I agree pulling the valve AT ALTITUDE is needlessly dangerous without
> any educational benefit, but this specific instance isn't dangerous.
> All the factors that make pulling the valve dangerous everywhere else
> are not present when you're 50 feel AGL with 11,000 feet of runway
> ahead of you. This condition is (as far as I know) the ONLY time you
> could safely pull an engine without it being unsafe. So why not take
> advantage of it?