dead-stick landing

[ ded-stik ]

noun

1. Aeronautics, Aerospace. a landing of an airplane or space vehicle with the engine cut off.

Word History and Origins

Origin of dead-stick landing¹

First recorded in 1930–35

Example Sentences

After breaking the speed record, Yates' plane was forced to make a dead-stick landing when a malfunctioning cell knocked out power to the motor.

From Scientific American

The altimeters on the ship registered 30,000 and 32,000 yesterday when she was forced by motor trouble and waning gas supply to return to Roosevelt Field, where she narrowly averted an accident in making a dead-stick landing.

From New York Times

If there are no new hitches Astronauts John Young, 50, and Robert Crippen, 43, will board their 75-ton orbiter Columbia, lift off from the same launch pad that sent Young and other Apollo astronauts to the moon, and spend 54� hours racing around the earth before bringing down their magnificent flying machine�the most advanced spacecraft ever built�to a daredevil "dead-stick" landing in California's Mojave Desert.

From Time Magazine Archive

After 83 complete orbits of the earth, if all goes according to plan, Engle will pilot the orbiter to another dead-stick landing on the dusty, dried-out old lake bed of California's Edwards Air Force Base.

From Time Magazine Archive

Exactly 20 minutes after he had been cut loose from the B-50, Pete Everest, gliding toward the field, was overtaken by a supersonic F-100 that had been left far behind by his wild ride, and escorted to a dead-stick landing on the dry bottom of Muroc Lake.

From Time Magazine Archive