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Too Close

What altitude should a plane be 2.2 mi from the runway? Like a little single engine Piper.
It depends on the glide ratio and amount of weight you have loaded in the aircraft. You always want to have enough altitude to make the runway should you have an engine failure (at least I do). If you are at 1000 feet you should be able to glide about 2 miles with a lot of variables. I would rather land mid runway than just shy of it :)
 
SanCap I can tell you not an ex Navy pilot, lol. Study some of the accidents where pilots ran out of runway. I agree with you to a point, and I once had a bad habit of being too low. After getting yelled at by ATC a few times I changed my ways.
As for dead stick it depends on the aircraft. Our family has a old 402 and at a 1000 feet and loss of both engines it isn't going to make a runway two miles away.
As Cessna 172 will glide 1.5 miles dead stick from 1000 feet, and that aircraft has one of the better glide ratios. now if you are going into a headwind those numbers go out the window depending on windspeed and direction.
 
Thanks guys. I had another plane come right across the middle of our site again today. I saw them about a quarter-mile north looping the east side of the airport a bunch of times so I thought maybe they were training or something. The grid in the area I was at was 100ft and admittedly I was at about 125-130ft to get over some power lines that are at about 80ft and luckily right when I started to land they came running across the site. It's hard to tell really what altitude planes are at, but they we low enough to bear away from the drone. We really weren't that close to each other but I could tell they saw it. I can't wait until this project is done.
 
Oh, one other thing, the glideslope on aircraft carrier approach is 3.5 because your runway is running away from you.
 
SanCap I can tell you not an ex Navy pilot, lol. Study some of the accidents where pilots ran out of runway. I agree with you to a point, and I once had a bad habit of being too low. After getting yelled at by ATC a few times I changed my ways.
As for dead stick it depends on the aircraft. Our family has a old 402 and at a 1000 feet and loss of both engines it isn't going to make a runway two miles away.
As Cessna 172 will glide 1.5 miles dead stick from 1000 feet, and that aircraft has one of the better glide ratios. now if you are going into a headwind those numbers go out the window depending on windspeed and direction.
Yea, we are not talking about Ex Navy pilots, this thread was about a new private pilot. I remember doing some stupid things on my first few solos as a student and private pilot :) I believe the FAA is forgiving on what a pilot does during takeoff and landing unless there is a noise sensitive/terrain issue. I have a few hours in a 421C.
 
Yea, we are not talking about Ex Navy pilots, this thread was about a new private pilot. I remember doing some stupid things on my first few solos as a student and private pilot :) I believe the FAA is forgiving on what a pilot does during takeoff and landing unless there is a noise sensitive/terrain issue. I have a few hours in a 421C.

I was just kidding with you, I had always been a land on the numbers guy but in civil aviation that practice is frowned upon to say the least. Making mistakes is all part of the learning process, just don't make the ones that will kill you. I did crop dusting for many years until I used up eight of my nine lives. clipped a power line, went back landed, then changed my shorts, that was the last day of that.
 
I was just kidding with you, I had always been a land on the numbers guy but in civil aviation that practice is frowned upon to say the least. Making mistakes is all part of the learning process, just don't make the ones that will kill you. I did crop dusting for many years until I used up eight of my nine lives. clipped a power line, went back landed, then changed my shorts, that was the last day of that.
I know you were kidding, it is all good. I only fly now when my FAA 61 comes due every 2 years which keeps my 107 current.
 
I'm 72 so my commercial flying is long over. The families last annual on the 402 was over 35k, along with the thirty to 38 gallon's per hour it is getting pretty expensive to fly for pleasure anymore.
 
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You are close to being fossilized as well as that 402! It could be worse, it could be a 404.

The 402 would have never been my first or even second choice in aircraft, but it wasn't mine, nor was I included in the decision to purchase it.
 

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