AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2020 - 96

P&E

TECHNIQUE

As the runway comes up to meet the aircraft,
trim the nose up and use power as needed to
pitch the nose up.

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because a set of keys got tangled in the control cables of her aircraft.
The thrust line of your aircraft relative
to the center of gravity and lateral axis, the
effect of flaps and landing gear configuration on center of lift and center of gravity,
the elevator/elevator trim system, and an
understanding of lift vectors when flying in
a level attitude versus banking are all key elements to surviving loss of elevator control. In
teaching landing with no elevator control in
the Cessna 150, a good technique is to do so
at altitude in straight and level flight with the
aircraft trimmed. State that the elevator has
failed and go through the Landing Without
Elevator Control checklist.
The aircraft is trimmed to stabilized
flight with the flaps set to 20 degrees. For
practice, pitch oscillations can be induced
by reducing or increasing power. Idle thrust
causes the pitch attitude to decrease rapidly
and full thrust causes the pitch attitude to
increase rapidly. Throttle movement alternating from high power to low power causes
the aircraft to make a sine wave across the
sky. The key to recovering from a rapidly
decreasing pitch attitude is to increase
thrust, preventing a negative pitch attitude.
In rapidly increasing pitch situations, reduce
thrust as the pitch attitude increases. Doing
so with progressively smaller power changes
dampens the pitch oscillations and the aircraft should return to level stabilized flight.
Fly a simulated rectangular traffic pattern at altitude to the flare for practice. Use
what works: ailerons, trim tabs, throttle,
and rudder. Give yourself a greater margin
of error by flying a larger traffic pattern
than usual because of decreased aircraft
maneuverability. Configuring the aircraft
at a higher altitude offers a greater margin
of safety should the aircraft pitch excessively with configuration changes. Greater
altitude offers more room to recover the
aircraft to stabilized flight before continuing descent for landing. Minimize lateral
weight imbalance by balancing wing fuel
96 | AOPA PILOT January 2020

tanks via use of fuel crossfeed. Pick a runway that is aligned with the wind. Fly a
long final approach, stabilize the aircraft
in a shallow descent, and visually estimate
your touchdown point. Use the longest
runway available.
In teaching no-elevator-control landing in the traffic pattern in a Cessna 150, the
Landing Without Elevator Control checklist is completed and the aircraft is stabilized
on the downwind leg. Turning downwind to
base leg, power is reduced slightly, which
reduces pitch attitude, and the aircraft is
banked to induce a horizontal lift vector.
The vertical lift component decreases, and
the nose pitches down. In a normal situation, we pull back on the yoke to stabilize
the downward pitch and trim the nose up
to take the weight off the yoke for a stabilized descent. With no elevator control,
thrust is added to keep the nose of the aircraft from pitching down too much during
the turn. Rolling the aircraft level on base
leg requires reducing power to continue
the stabilized descent. Use the same roll/
power technique when turning from base
leg to final. As the runway comes up to meet
the aircraft, trim the nose up and use power
as needed to pitch the nose up to decrease
the descent rate and place the aircraft in a
more proper pitch attitude for touchdown.
The instant the landing gear makes contact,
bring the power to idle.
Use the approved manufacturer's checklist for your aircraft to meet emergency
needs. Should you decide to practice this
maneuver, do so at your own risk; I recommend flying this maneuver to a few feet
above the runway and then landing using
all flight controls. Should an elevator emergency befall you, the above description of
flying with no elevator control should help
you live to fly another day.
AOPA
CHARLES SCOTT WILLIAMS is a Boeing 737

captain, flight instructor, and former U.S. Air
Force air traffic controller living in Texas.

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - January 2020