On an another question, an answer said:
You don't need an engine to fly as airplanes are designed to glide without it.
I suspect this heavily depends on the type of the aircraft, so lets assume we are considering a small airplane.
I suspect this heavy depends on the type of the aircraft, so lets assume we are considering a small airplane.
Absolutely right, it does vary widely. The parameter you're asking about is called glide ratio and it is directly related to another parameter called lift-to-drag ratio or L/D ratio. This is a fundamental characteristic of the aerodynamics of a particular aircraft. L/D ratio varies with airspeed; for determining best engine-out glide performance, the L/D ratio at "best glide airspeed" is used. "Best glide airspeed" is the speed that maximizes the L/D ratio, and this maximum value is known as L/Dmax.
The maximum L/D ratio (L/Dmax) of a Cessna 172 is about 9, so its glide ratio is about 9:1 - for every 9 units traveled forward it will lose 1 unit of altitude. So, it will glide about 9,000 feet for every 1,000 feet of altitude available. This is a fairly typical value for small planes.
To show you how widely variable this is, a modern glider can achieve ratios above 60:1, while the Space Shuttle ranged from about 1:1 at high speed, early in reentry, to 4.5:1 on final approach.
Notably, large transport aircraft tend to have significantly higher L/D ratios than small aircraft: a 747 can achieve an L/Dmax of about 17:1. With an altitude of 33,000 feet (~10,000 meters) that would mean a gliding distance of 100 miles (~170 Km).
What governs the 'glideability' of the plane?
As above, its lift-to-drag ratio. Very casually speaking this is just a measure of how "aerodynamic" the airplane is, comparing its capability to generate lift with the drag it creates in the process. The better its lifting capabilities, or the less drag it generates, the higher the ratio.
For more information, I highly recommend a free online book on aerodynamics called See How It Flies by John Denker. It is written for pilots, not mathematicians or physicists, so it explains the concepts very intuitively without a lot of equations. It talks about L/D ratio and explains some of the factors that affect it. (I would recommend this book to any pilot anyway.)
Is it possible, for an airplane with an engine/engines, to leverage this to save fuel while flying, or are they too heavy/otherwise unable to do this?
Since glide ratio is directly related to (indeed it's the same thing as) L/D ratio, you could say that airplanes already do take advantage of it. The higher their L/D at cruise airspeed, the more fuel-efficient they will be (because less thrust will be required to counteract drag in steady-state flight).
If you're asking about shutting the engines off during approach/landing to save fuel, there is another question here on ASE which specifically addresses this. (The answer, in short, is no, it's not practical.)
To give some concrete examples:
A Cessna 172 might fly at 2000 ft for a short hop, or at 12500 ft for a longer cross-country flight. My rule of thumb is about 1.5 nautical miles glide per 1000 ft altitude above ground level, thus:
A big jet flies higher during cruise, say at 38000 ft, and has a better glide ratio.
Glide is measured in what's called "glide ratio". For every foot of altitude the airplane loses, how far forward can it go? Sailplanes (gliders) have a glide ratio around 40 to 1. It can be much more or less, depending on the model. The glide ratio of the Cessna 172, the most popular single engine airplane, is about 10 to 1. The Boeing 767 that lost all power attained a glide ratio of about 12 to 1 in practice.
Airplanes generally do not use this to save fuel. It's much more efficient just to fly the airplane normally, or at low power if they are looking to conserve fuel. To glide would require turning the engine on and off. That is not efficient in jets, turboprops or piston engines. I believe some unmanned, high altitude aircraft may turn their engines off, though.
Glide distance does indeed depend heavily on the airplane's characteristic glide ratio, which depends on airspeed, as the answers above describe. However, the answers above assume still air, and real air is never still.
If you glide with a steady tailwind, you'll glide further than you will in still air; a steady headwind will cut your glide. (You'll get the same sink rate and therefore the same time aloft, but you'll make a different amount of distance over the ground.) If you're at altitude, it can be difficult to tell which way the wind is blowing unless you already know or unless you have a GPS so that you (or it, automatically) can compare your speed across the ground with your speed through the air.
Also, downdrafts will cut your altitude and thereby your glide distance; but updrafts will do the opposite. As a matter of fact, in the right kind of weather pilots who are trained to find updrafts--glider pilots, for example--can stay aloft without power for as long as they like. Updrafts are in general powered by the sun, though, so after dark it gets difficult to find "the right kind of weather." Also, updrafts tend to be localized and fairly stationary, so flying circles to stay in one, if it's weaker than you expected, may use up more of your gliding time than it adds and so reduce the total distance over the ground that you can glide.
Powered light aircraft can make sustained flight with engines off when their flight path aligns with hill or mountain ranges receiving steady wind on one face. In certain environments and weather conditions these ranges generate Wave lift that is substantial enough to allow high speed flight at altitudes exceeding 20,000ft in silky smooth conditions over many 1000s of kilometres. Associated with these conditions are extreme rotors outside the band of lift. Sailplane pilots (eg Delore in NZ Dec 2009 2500km) have set world record long flights using extensive ranges that form the spine of both Islands.
"Glideability" is flight. A fixed wing aircraft that is controllable under power, is controllable without it. Some aircraft are specifically designed to be unstable in flight, such as the F-16, and F-117. in those cases computers assist to provide artificial stability; as long as the computers are working, the aircraft is still controllable without a functioning powerplant.
Glide ratio varies significantly between fixed wing aircraft. Unpowered gliders are generally higher than 20/1, while many small planes see 17/1 or less. The space shuttle is 4.5/1. (Horizontal/Verticle)
Glide efficiency is mostly a function of drag, not weight. For example: gliders sometimes carry water ballast to increase weight, since higher weight results in higher glide speed. (The water is dumped to slow the aircraft before landing.)
The FAA publishes airmans manuals, and you can find a variety of other flight instruction manuals available online or at the local airport. Any Private Pilot or Sport Pilot manual will discuss the basic principles of flight in some detail, They usually make for very clear and easy reading.
I was told by a pilot that he flew for some time over the Pirineos mountains with a Spanish version of Junkers Ju-52 with engines idling, and maintaining height on a hot air ascending current, as sailplanes do, but probably it's an exception rather than any rule. Literature about Sud-Aviation's Caravelle discussed also a 'gliding' flight of some hundred kilometers, starting at a very high altitude and in special experimental conditions, taking place before 1964. A pilot won an award after landing a jet airliner with engines not running; when he was approaching an abandoned airstrip, he realized that height was too high, he put the airplane in a crossed control surfaces pattern to slide on the side and lose altitude.
Others flew for a while a DC-3 in inverted flight from Gando, in Gran Canaria, to Lanzarote, also in the Canary Islands, just to find on landing that engine nacelles were covered by oil, as the DC-3 engines lacked an inverted flight crankcase or 'dry' oil carter. One of the men in this DC-3 flight, Fernando Aymerich-Alix, bellied a Sabre or Super-Sabre jet fighter in a plowed field, on the premises that he felt the indications of fuel tank gauges were inaccurately high, and he will soon run out of fuel. When reaching the ground, the somehow abundant fuel actually left in the tanks spread as a shower all over the airplane and the place, he was lucky the fuel didn't catch fire. He died first half of December 2017
