Woman "lands" plane after husband dies midflight

[Phil Perry]

Jill Bailey was running an excellent Partners Of Pilots Emergency (PoPE) course from Temora. Jill gave a briefing on the course at Natfly the year my wife went with me and we went along to the briefing together. The whole idea put the wind up my wife who up until then had been pretty comfortable flying with me. She could easily see the merit of the idea but not being even a keen car driver did not at all fancy the idea that she could one day find herself PIC.In my new Sling I have an autopilot that would keep her aloft as long as there was fuel and, with the press of one clearly marked button get her to the nearest airport. From there it is possible to invoke VNAV and get the aeroplane down to a few feet from the runway with just throttle control to manage. Probably survivable from that altitude. The radio also has a one button press to get to 121.500 mHz.

 

So, all I have to do now is work out how to do that myself and demonstrate and write a checklist/procedure and keep it accessible and revise it with my spouse from time to time. (Note to self: adjust up the rudder pedals on her side).

Gee Don,. . . .that was a really good story until you admitted that you'd gone and married a Girl with shorter legs than yours. . . . .! Mind you, I feel really sorry for guys like that poor US film star Alan Ladd,. . . who was around 5/2 ( in old money ) and most of his leading ladies were 5/10 or so ( in the same old money ) but it seems you have the reverse situation !

 

Get those pedals sorted my boy !

 

 

[rgmwa]

RACWA at Jandakot used to run a weekend Pilot-Partners course about 10 years ago. Partners were given both ground and 4 hrs of flight instruction aimed at giving them some basic knowledge of how to fly a plane and land it in an emergency. Cost was about $750 at the time. Would probably be up around $1,000 - $1,200 now, but haven't heard of the course being run since. It's a good idea, but regular refreshers would be important. I doubt that my wife would have any idea of what to do now, 10 years on.

 

rgmwa

 

 

[turboplanner]

I think that was a great idea. The point is the partner does not have to pull off a greaser of a landing, just a survivable one. If you think back to all the first landings you did with an instructor, I'd suggest even the worst would have solved this problem, but better to get an instructor to teach her than risk being an unnecessary victim just for the sake of $1,000

 

 

[facthunter]

Don, Under pressure, the more intuitive thing might be to hand fly the thing, rather than do the more abstract setting up the autopilot. Basic flying is pretty simple, though just setting up the autopilot on airspeed, (safe approach speed) and using the throttle will make it go (pitch) up and down nicely on throttle alone. Nev

 

 

[Ada Elle]

https://cce.sydney.edu.au/course/PPSU - $60 for 3 hours of groundschool.

[turboplanner]

https://cce.sydney.edu.au/course/PPSU - $60 for 3 hours of groundschool.

[facthunter]

Yes I saw that. If you got a few there it would pay the operator well. I paid about $300 for a 3 day Principles and Methods of Instruction course to sit the CASA exam. Nev