2.2 Forced Landing 1

Lesson 2.2 - Forced Landing 1Date: 24-08-2026

Introduction

Today we did the Forced Landing 1 lesson and exercises. The main objective is to have a landing plan and field within reach at any given moment as an engine can be failing unexpectedly. Training this procedure can save lives, not only of pilots but also from the passengers and even for people on the ground.

The weather was perfect today, with 3 knots of wind which is very calm. We also had almost zero clouds and minor to zero thermal/turbulence.

We skipped the first solo lesson for now, because I found the forced landing exercise important to have done prior to be alone in a plane and I still had to perform the medical assessment for the class 2 certificate which I will do after this lesson.

The Forced Landing exercise

The Forced Landing exercise is something flight instructors will do and then sometimes randomly cut the throttle to let the student pick a field and demonstrate how they would land there. Some basic information we must know:

• Wind direction
• Best glide speed is speed of minimal drag means highest gliding distance (somewhat slower decreases distance but increases time)
• Downwind increases distance, headwind decreases distance
• Flaps ensure steeper descent

A diagram of the exercise can be found here:

So basically from the beginning of the engine failure we have those 5 steps, where best glide speed and simultaneously looking for a field are the two most important steps.

1. Pitch for 65 knots (vGlide) and trim ~5 times for nose up which is down
2. Check for possible causes in the cockpit
3. If engine doesntt start, you are commited to landing and should have a landing point by now
4. On the end of downwind set Flaps 10 and keep field in reach
5. Turn to base/final and set Flaps 30 for a steep descent and land the plane
6. Evacuate (if not simulated)

So suitable fields are fields that are somewhere about between light-green to yellow.

• Dark green mostly means thick grown crops or sweetcorn for example
• Earth-colored mostly means sand and wet earth

We did this exercise about 4 times, and the first time was more like a demonstration. Then I had the controls and it went allright with some room for improvement to get a better descent path but the plane could be landed at all attempts if done better. We will contintue exercising this in the following lessons till it will be done good to perfect, as this is one of the most important lessons.

After the forced landing exercises we also did 3 circuits where 2 of the landings went very great with a clapping instructor during the second landing, where you know you are on a great pace :)

Remarks

Altough I got an applause, this doesnt mean that everything went perfect of course. The remarks of this lesson are:

• Better remember the memory items of the Forced Landings and better preparation on the forehand
• Speed on final must be kept at 65 knots at all times all the way till the runway threshold
• Better steering with the rudder during the round-out and flare
• The centerline is not a holy grail which must be hit at all times, some feet of is no problem. Safe landings is number 1 priority so do not correct for this

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