Power-Off 180 Maneuver Masterclass | In-Depth Guide with Flight Footage

today we're going to talk about the power off 180 maneuver we're going to introduce it to you in concept on the Whiteboard here and then we've also got some really great footage from a flight that we did showing you some of the some of the approaches you want to make some standardized approaches for how you want to set this maneuver up some of the errors that you might encounter and how to avoid them today we're going to be talking about power 80s uh we'll be introducing kind of some of the things that uh you should standardize the things you can you can handle yourself um and then some of the variables that are that are going to be thrown in and how you can address those and make appropriate decisions in order to end your maneuver satisfactory within standards so the first step to any good power off 180 is a great pattern you want to start at about 95 to 100 knots in the downwind uh right at traffic pattern altitude the ACs stipulates that we begin this maneuver at TPA 1,000 AGL and we want to be at about 3/4 of a mile to 1 mile off of the Runway so that's your beginning Point that's really where where you've got to start anything outside of that and you're going to be introducing uh external variables that you don't really want to be introducing uh if you can avoid it after that once you've flown your downwind nicely and you find yourself a beam your thousand Footers so right here a beam a beam your touchdown point we're going to slowly bring our throttle to idle once we've brought our throttle to idle we're going to slowly pitch back for uh VG which is 76 in the Piper Archer and it's we don't want to make it be an Abrupt change it we want it to be a smooth pitch back to slow to 76 I like to say uh just hold altitude until you get to 76 and then once you're at 76 you're going to keep 76 uh after we've reached 76 we're going to introduce flaps 10 and at this point all power of 180 should look the exact same we should be you know slightly past our thousand Footers at VG with flaps 10 in ready to begin our maneuver every single time because at this point this is where variables start to come into play and we've got to make decisions and assess where I'm going to start my turn and what other uh strategies I might use to get down to the runway because ultimately Power phone 80 is just a throttle idle Landing from the downwind um and so what we've got to account for in this at this point is the variables that are coming into play when we're trying to make this approach so assuming that we have entered our pattern and flown it in the way as standard as humanly possible following all of these steps we're really only worried about one one variable and that's our wind the direction of it and the speed of it all right so that's the only variable that's really going to affect us once we've reached that point of 76 knots and flaps 10 slightly past our a beam point in the downwind so the question is is how do I identify the direction of the wind and the speed of it there's mainly three different ways when we're flying in the downwind one that I really like probably the most is I like to look on the ground at the runway and located off to the side of of the runway on either the left or the right hand side is going to be a wind sock um your wind sock is going to be able to show you the direction the wind is coming from and you know how much it's sticking up you can tell how the speed of the wind and that can give you a really great rough estimate of about where the winds coming from and uh what you're going to need to respond with as a result for a little bit more precise information we can also use the mear so before we go to any airport we need to listen into uh our weather information either than adus or an awos or Asos um and that's going to tell us the wind direction precisely so it may say 140 or 1 180 and then the speed of it so it might be 140 at 10 or 1 180 at 15 gusting 20 um and then the last way is that on rg1000 we've got a really great tool and located uh on the PFD just to the left of the small moving map or just to the right of the small moving map is a wind vector and that points directly in the direction of the wind and gives you a readout of the Velocity or the speed of the wind uh as the plane is perceiving it um and a really great time to look at this is that when we're sitting in the downwind uh it will have a readout for us that's pretty accurate for what it's going to be on the surface as well it might change some as we come in but it's a really great way to estimate what we're experiencing then and what we might be experiencing as we come in and make this pattern right so those are the three primary ways that we can identify the wind and its direction and its speed being the wind sock our awos or Asos and then our wind Vector on the G1000 so the first scenario we're going to talk about uh as you identify this this wind variable is that you're sitting in the downwind you've pulled your throttle to idle you're sitting at VG and with flaps 10 and you've identified already that we've got relatively winds calm or gentle winds coming down the runway you might identify that with a wind sock that's Rel that's relatively flat and not moving much or you might identify it with the Wind being something to the tune of 160 at 5 or uh 170 at 5 or even winds calm or you might identify it with your wind Vector on the G1000 uh as you're sitting in the downwind it would be pointing from directly behind you with a velocity or speed of somewhere in the 5 to seven maybe 10 knot range so if you've got a conditions like this you've got relatively calm wind which means that on a standard power off 180 we want it to look as much like a standard traffic pattern as we possibly can so we're going to be throttle idle pitching for VG slowly reaching VG and introducing flaps 10 once we're at about a 35 maybe 40° angle to our touchdown point we're going to start a nice base turn our base turn should at this point be relatively squared off to final we're going to continue flying it all the way until we've reached final and we should be losing somewhere to the tune of maybe 3 to 400 ft on that base to final now once we've reached final we should be able to gently introduce flaps have a very stabilized approach coming in be fully configured at 200 ft AGL able to aim for our touchdown point of about 200 feet before the Thousand Footers enter ground effect somewhere around 65 knots and then float to our touchdown Point smoothly safely and uniformly every time now if we don't do this right if we say we misidentify or our conditions or we turn way way too early we might end up way too tight on the runway and having to slip and dive down for the runway uh ending up with a very unstable approach on short final entering ground effect at 85 90 knots where we float way way way way way down the runway and end up touching down outside of our 200t standards then also the other mistake we might make is we might extend our downwind a little bit too long so we don't want it to look exactly like a standard traffic pattern where we've got that 45° squared off angle every single time we are going to need to make it a little bit tighter because we have to remember that again we don't have any throttle in this in these conditions our power 480 is a power idle maneuver so we can't quite extend all the way to that 45 because if we do extend all the way to that 45 we're probably going to end up coming up short right and we'll be we'll be able to identify that pretty easily as we'll be on a longer final than we want to slow low and ending up needing to go around simply for safety sake now we've got a few different examples of this scenario of us uh flying a really good traffic pattern flying a great power off 180 and then also some scenarios of us maybe overextending our downwind and uh or turning a little bit too early and we'll be we'll give you the chance to watch those now so what was the target air speed that you'd want to bring in there 76 VG 76 and that brings a good point whatever air speed you'll bring in into ground effect that's going to directly correlate to the amount of fet that you have just like on a regular Landing here Here Comes Andrew Midfield left down all right so we're looking back over our shoulder not much in the way of tail ground speed only four kns over here we'll start ourway traffic 587 short approach Runway 16 [Applause] pattern and you can see where Andrew's eyes mostly are they're at his a point because that's telling how doing all right so I'm rounding out this approach here this looks pretty good I'm looking ahead at my thousand Footers I've got an eyesight for my 500 Footers which this Runway actually has and that's my aiming point I'm bringing it down to there and this approach looks pretty stable this looks great from here actually so I'm going to go one more Notch of flaps as we come in we're holding 76 we're a little bit high so let's go ahead and introduce that last Notch of flaps our power is Idle minimums minimums bringing it down this is great stable approach we're going to continue from here bringing it down we'll be entering ground effect at about 70 knots right and it flares nicely all the way to our touchdown point of Footers stall smoothly touching down even making a soft field touchdown there woo all right so flaps come out Full Throttle we'll do our Touch and Go air speed looking for 60 there she is and traffic Skyhawk 86 golf is 3 miles south going to cross over Midfield up down six full stop Sherman sh tra 587 up in six about to turn cross we going be making a short [Applause] approach great so Andrew held that stable speed all the way in he's using his eyes to gauge if he was high or if he was low he realized that he was a little bit high so he had a method to get down which was theing all right so we're aing our touchdown point which is going to be our thousand Footers we'll bring our throttle smoothly to idle and then pitch slowly for VG us we will introduce one notch of flaps and look back over our left shoulder looking for about a 35 degree angle or so towards our touchdown point we are about there we're going to make a left turnest last my air speed a little low speed left all right we're a little low here so I'm going to turn towards Runway this isn't exactly the greatest one cross over top yeah let's just go around7 going around say that one more time so why did you decide to go around so in that one we're we overextended our downwind a little bit more than we want to um and ended up long and it was pretty noticeable at that point that we were going to be low so the decision was easy one to go around at that point we got some traffic entering the pattern here so we're just going to extend our upwind accordingly and I believe he said he's full stop so we're good so Andrew saying that he extended his downwind a little bit long and so that resulted in coming in short so that can happen uh really easy easily if in your downwind you have a strong Tailwind right so there's a couple ways that you can tell uh that you have a strong Tailwind component while you're in down it's going to be your ground speed on the G1000 MFD you have a wind um component over here on the PFD and then you also have your eyes so your eyes tell you how quickly you're moving over the ground so if you're downwind and you could see that you're moving very quickly more quickly than usual you might need to think hey I need to turn from downwind to base a little bit sooner because delaying it um could mean so the second scenario that you might find yourself in is having to do a power off 180 on a relatively strong wind day with the winds coming down the runway so you might identify this using a couple different ways first would be wind sock that's that's relatively stick straight pointing down the runway maybe you'll use the uh awos or the Adis and it'll say something to the tune of 160 at 15 gusting 20 or 160 at 18 gusting 25 right then the last way you might identify it is using your G1000 that wind Vector would be again pointing at your back and you're when you're in the downwind reading a speed of 25 30 knots maybe even in this condition if as we enter our uh pattern again we want to make it very standardized throttle idle pitch for VG flaps 10 at TPA smoothly slowing down right once we get to here if we continue are downwind too far it's going to be very similar to that scenario of overextending even on a wind's calm day and we're going to end up short Slow and Low right so under this condition because that wind is pushing me away from the runway I'm going to naturally have to cut my pattern a little bit tighter so I may be making a turn at about a say 20° angle to the runway it's going to come relatively early because what's going to happen is in that base the wind is going to hold me off of the runway and as I turn final whoops uh as I turn final I'm going to have a headwind that is really slowing me down my ground speed is going to be substantially low and as I come in my ability to get to that point may be a little bit challenging if I've extended myself too far but even in this condition if I turn immediately a beam thousand Footers I'm still going to end up high I'm still going to end up high and fast and no matter pretty much no matter how much headwind I have I'm not going to be able to touch down smoothly and safely on the thousand Footers so we will have to extend a little bit and try and make it look as much like a pattern as we can but if we extend too far we're still going to end up low or we're still going to end up low and slow and having to go around so the last scenario we're going to talk about is what how this maneuver might change if we have a crosswind and we'll discuss a crosswind coming from the right to left and also one coming from the left to right as well on this pattern so here's an an instance where we can introduce another thing that you can do standard to keep your pattern and keep your power 180 as uniform as possible so one thing we like to talk about here is that in our downwind whenever we have a crosswind we're naturally going to be be being pushed into or even off of the runway depending upon the direction of the wind so we want to in the downwind again identify the direction and speed of our wind as well so we can use the wind sock that might be pointing at an angle towards or even away from the runway our wind from the Adis or awas might be indicating something like two or one0 0 or even 280 at 12 gusting 17 and then our G1000 wind Vector is going to be pointed directly to our left or to our right maybe at a speed of 15 knots or so in order to to account for this we want to think about what our reciprocal heading is in the downwind so our heading in the downwind which is in this instance going to be 340 we're going to bug that heading and we're going to fly the ground track so our pink diamond on that heading that'll keep us at that uniform 3/4 to one mile off of the runway if we don't do this and we simply fly a 34 Z heading with a heavy crosswind coming left to right we're or from we're going to end up being pushed off the Runway way out here trying to make this base turn and being slowed down by having a crosswind that's slowing us and we'll have an extreme descent rate in this base turn and we're going to end up having to go around because we're going to be low and slow so we can standardize this a little bit by flying that ground track Vector in the reciprocal heading for our Runway and then be able to identify okay which way is this crosswind coming from is it pushing me into the runway is it pushing me away from the runway you can identify that using any of these methods and then also you can identify it thinking about which way am I crab so in this scenario with my wind coming from 1 at 12 gusting 17 I'm probably going to have a relatively substantial crab where my nose is aiming a little bit into the runway now if I had it coming from the opposite direction and I'm trying to fly that 340 ground track my crab is going to be a good bit off of the runway now once we get to that a Ab beam point we pull a throttle idle we pitch for 76 and we have flaps 10 using this information that we've identified via our windsock our aw our a sauce or our crab we're going to need to make some adjustments based upon the direction of the wind that is as it's coming at us if the wind is pushing us off the Runway we're going to have to expect that when I turn my base turn I'm going to be slowing down I'm going to have an increased descent rate and I'm probably going to end up lower and slower than I might expect otherwise with a standard headwind now if my conditions are different and I'm being pushed pushed into the runway so I'm crabbing away from it and say my direction is 280 at 12 gusting 17 this base turn is going to be very fast and I'm going to be pushed very quickly from that downwind through the base and onto final so how do I account for that one let's take let's talk about this scenario with the one at 12 gusting 17 when I get slowed down in this base turn and I am going to an increased descent rate I need to make my turn from base to final a little bit earlier and I may need to in that downwind accommodate as well thinking I'm going to expect this slowdown and I'm going to expect this increase descent rate and so I need to make my downwind to base turn earlier as well there too now in the other in the reverse condition where I've got a crosswind that's pushing me into the runway this base final leg or this downwind to base leg could potentially be a little bit extended we don't want to overdo it we don't want to end up low and slow because we've overshot but we can expect as we turn this base to final that we're going to be pushed relatively quickly onto final so we won't be able to expect a good slowdown and an increased descent rate until we finally swing ourselves around and get on that Final Approach there now in any of these conditions we may have to use some methods to descend a little bit quicker or extend our flight path so as to lose some altitude and we're going to talk about some of those scenarios next come in a little bit High yeah and just kind of show different methods of ways we can get down okay so we we'll come in a little bit high and we'll probably end up going around still but we're going to utilize some tools that we have in order to descend and 757 our goal here here take off all right so we're at our Target altitude Target air speed look looking pretty good throttle comes idle all right that play all the roll Roger sh tra 587 making short approach only6 Sher all right so we're going to turn a little early here all right so if I'm high which this this descent profile already looks High here right I've got a couple options one stall stall that's nice make a really squared off patter really Square That Base to final and start using flaps right so we got a really squared off base to final here square that final turn and then if I'm still feeling high right I can use S turns on short final like turns here L an altitude that way we're going to bring it back in traffic Skyhawk if I need to I can use a slip so aon's into the wind this looks good last Notch of flaps and we still actually are able to probably have a decent touchdown here we'll be a little bit fast but we got plus 200 ft stall end of this line here within standards would you concur y all right sh traffic 587 on the go 16 left Clos traffic so Andrew showed us multiple different ways we could lose altitude if you sense that you are coming in high flaps squaring off your pattern squaring off your base to final s turns and the forward slip so if you're high don't just pitch down and start nose bombing it towards the runway because you're going to build up air speed and we already talked about a build up of air speed is what you're going to bring into ground effect and you're going to float long so there's all sorts of ways that you can lose altitude so one of the final things we want to talk about is that naturally on this power off approach where we don't have any throttle to get us to the runway it is a natural tendency to want to be high right we have tools at our disposal in order to descend in order to lose altitude but we don't really have any that allow us to gain altitude so naturally people end up coming in high and fast now ideally we want to avoid this by flying a well adjusted well tested pattern that is relatively uniform and makes a nice squared off base to final turn and comes in perfectly but that's not going to happen every time and the tendency that we see on uh stage checks and on eoc's is that students come in high and fast they enter ground effect way too fast and they end up floating way past their point so we want to talk about some of the tools that you can use in order to descend early on so as to avoid that problem the first thing we want to talk about is if you enter your pattern properly right we have throttle Lial VG flaps 10 and we turn base to final and you're starting to feel that you're a little bit high and you might be a little bit fast maybe in that calm wind condition or maybe in that crosswind condition that puts points you pushes you into the runway what we don't want to do is turn immediately for the numbers we want to fly a really nice Square pattern so we want to fly a good solid base to final leg and turn final squarely with the runway way we want to use all of that real estate in order to lose altitude some other things we can use is the introduction of flaps right we approach it with the with the attitude that flaps 10 is kind of a given but we might introduce flaps 25 or flaps 40 a little bit earlier we don't want to commit to flaps 40 too early because they're very hard we can't really take flaps out but if we're very high and very fast that may be something we have to do our other options is s turns on Final so if we're high and on Final or High On That Base turn we may make some s turns on Final in order to lose some altitude as we come down but we want to still end up on the approach short final 200 AGL nice and stable ready to smoothly touchdown the other option we have is a slip now often times this is a uh tool that is over utilized I would say sometimes when we approach this maneuver we approach it simply Through The Eyes of using a slip all the way down to the runway and slipping it into ground effect and trying to make that really great fast touchdown and that's really what we're trying to avoid here that's not a stabilized approach which is one of our criteria for the ACs we want to have the slip be a tool that we use say we're on Final high and we need to get down to having a stable descent we can introduce a slip in order to lose some altitude to get back down to our approach profile that's going to be that appropriate 200 AGL stable continuing to land like we want to so we don't want to be slipping all the way into ground effect and touching down at a at a very high air speed but instead we want to use the slip as a tool to get back to that appropriate approach path so the last concept we want to talk talk about is air speed and how much we want of air speed we want to carry into ground effect and our a float in ground effect uh to our touchdown point so ideally right we've flown our standard pattern we've maybe had to use some of our tools to descend right but we often times find ourselves on short final with a little bit of extra air speed and we want to talk about how much we're going to float and some of the effects ground effect on this so on on an Ideal scenario we enter ground effect say 200 ft before our th Footers at 65 knots and we can float perfectly to our thousand Footers and touchdown exactly how we want to now that's obviously not going to happen every single time but what we want to do is we want to be able to identify some of our issues earlier of being high being a little bit fast use some of our tools to get down so that we can hit that ground effect at 60 65 knots and Float to our 200 Footers or to our th Footers one error that I've seen a lot on eoc's and on stage checks is that often times our students will be on a short final or maybe on a short base to final and they are high and fast they maybe have already introduced all of their flaps and rather than using some of our other tools of a square pattern or maybe an S turn or maybe even a small forward flip they decide that in order to not enter ground effect 200 ft beforehand and Float to their thousand Footers they want to enter ground effect earlier in order to float to their thousand Footers by in by making that uh that aiming Point earlier on in the runway now in theory that's not a bad idea right you know if I'm gonna float 200 feet and now I've got a little bit of extra air speed well now I'm going to float a th000 feet right what the error is here is that it's a lack of understanding of what occurs in ground effect in ground effect when we are one wingspan from the ground we have increased lift and reduced drag so if I'm short final and I or short base to final and I decide that I want to nose the plane over to enter ground effect say 1,000 ft before my thousand Footers right if I do that I'm going picking up a lot of air speed as I come in and I'm going to be entering ground effect at 85 even 90 knots sometimes and when I have that reduced drag and increased lift I'm going to float way way way past my thousand Footers as opposed to using some of my other tools to descend getting my air speed down to that 65 knots so that I can enter ground effect at the appropriate 200 F feet before and Float to my thousand Footers that's a much better option than nosing over for the runway and trying to quote unquote save it all in ground effect by extending that float time normal approach here but carrying just a little bit too much air speed in the ground effect we're going to go one notch of flaps and we're about 30° from our touchdown Point making a base turn approach looks pretty stable here we're carrying about 80 knots like we were saying and reasonably stable at this point right one more one more Notch of flaps we're carrying just a bit too much air speed in so let's go that last Notch of flaps right and rather than using some of our tools like the S turns like the slip we're trying to carry too much air right yeah not necessarily unstable just a little bit too far too fast approaching our touch down Point good weekend traffic and we float it and we float and we're still able to make a safe touchdown right right this touchdown is going to be fine but it's way further down the runway than we want to be all right right and let's do a full stop taxi back for this one yeah should we drive this 587 going to be a full stop taxi back to6 off Echo yeah so ATS stands for powerful 80 is that you're executing OB see a power off approach um where you are stabilized and you touch down within 200 ft of your um touchdown point so for us it's what it's whatever you establish with your um examiner or CFI whether you want to touch down on the numbers or the thousands but you get 200 ft after that point um the tolerances for being short are zero okay so it's minus 0 plus 200 ft for the tolerances on the power of 180 um now one thing to emphasize is always going to be safety right so yes we want to pass our check Rod yes we want to pass a stage check or whatever it is but we never want to do that to the expense of safety so uh if it feels like you're going to be you have that excess air speed that we talked about you realize you're floating a bit too much uh it's like man I really want to hit that thousand Footers and you forc the plane down that could lead to you know collapsing a strut popping a wheel that could lead to pping right and so never sacrifice um uh a safe landing just so you hit a standard and and CS standard okay so today we've talked about the powerof 180 with the main focus on standardizing it in every way that we can with our standard pattern and our approach that looks uniform every time as best as possible we also highlighted our key variable the wind its direction and its velocity and some of the tools that we can use and the approaches we we can utilize in order to counteract that in order to make a safe and stabilized approach to Landing every time out of this maneuver and then lastly we talked about some of the toolss that you can use when you find yourself high and fast in order to lose altitude safely and securely to end up at that nice 200 feet AGL point being able to come into ground effect at 65 knots and smoothly touched down on our aiming point of the Thousand Footers ultimately the approach to this maneuver should be the same every time standardized approach with slight changes as necessary accounting for our primary variable

Channel: Thrust Flight

Views: 3,264

Keywords: Power-Off 180 Maneuver, Power-Off 180, Aviation Training, Flight Training, Pilot Training, Flight School, Aviation Maneuvers, Landing Techniques, Cessna Training, FAA Training, Aviation Safety, Flight Instruction, Pilot Skills, Flight Techniques, In-Flight Footage, Flight Lesson, Student Pilot, Private Pilot, Maneuver Masterclass, In-Depth Guide, Real Flight Footage, Pilot Tips, Flight Tutorial, Aviation Education, Checkride, EOC, CFI

Id: S7LttYy4244

Length: 34min 28sec (2068 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 09 2024