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It's not a "dead man's turn". All it is is a turn. If you don't have enough altitude, don't do it. If you can't make a 60 degree banked turn without stalling, better practice.
It's a non-event, why would you hear of a successful one? But no, I'm the only one I know who's done a no power landing for real, and I was a couple of thousand feet when the engine quit. But, I have practiced these things and know I can do it.
I didn't hear it called a "dead man's turn" in the Air Force, but I'll grant you that you may have. I flew the OV-10 for a couple of years, and we didn't practice engine out landings in it. You could drop it in almost as slowly as my Lancair 320, and it had very rugged gear. The only engine failure we had while I was flying it, the pilot died -- not doing the dreaded "dead man's turn", but not letting the plane glide straight ahead (he was a couple of miles out on final approach).
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Date: Sat, 17 May 2008 21:52:24 -0400
From: mjrav@comcast.net
Subject: [LML] Re: Turn back to the Airport after engine failure
In Air Force Flight school I learned this maneuver was
known as the "dead man's turn".
A couple years ago Jim Rogers died on the first flying day
of his 360. He called the tower on takeoff with problems and couldn't make
it back to a runway. He was a veteran of 13 forced landings in Nam flying
helo's.
I personally witnessed a fatal crash where it was
attempted by a C172 while developing full power (and inadvertent full
flaps).
Does anyone know of an actual occurance of this ever being
done successfully - with a real power failure?
Mark Ravinski
360 1439 hrs
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