Single Engine versus Multi-Engine.

[zfehr 1]

That is a pretty neat idea Geoffrey, are ya gonna put one on the Baron? You might have already read in a different Baron post that my father's former B55 was bellied in a destroyed just two weeks after he sold it... real shame.

[Guest Adverse Yawn]

>>Incase there was an almighty bang I kept one hand firmly on the prop >>lever ready to feather and eventually shut her down at 1000 feet agl.Prop levers in a diesel Diamond Twin Star?? The props are managed by the FADEC system.

[LAdamson 240]

>>>Incase there was an almighty bang I kept one hand firmly on>the prop >>>lever ready to feather and eventually shut her down at 1000>feet agl.>Prop levers in a diesel Diamond Twin Star?? The props are>managed by the FADEC system.In this case, Peter is not referring to the Diamond.

[michal 44]

>Factors in the crash, was the selector switch>location, John's low time in the airplane, and his decision>not to re-fuel.Forget his low time in this plane and selector switch location. Yes, his not refueling was an important factor. But what he primarily screwed up was messing with his fuel switches while hardly airborne. And while reaching behind he inadvertently pressed on the rudder causing a spin which was unrecoverable so close to the ground. If he really wanted to reach this switch he should have predicted that one of his legs will jerk forward (natural reaction of human body) so he should have countered it. When I twist my body while driving I make conscious effort to keep my gas pedal steady.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_beta_member.jpg

[Macsm 0]

Two words: Engine out! :( regards,Macs :)

[Geofa 108]

That is a shame-was that recently? No plans to put one on right now-but it seems something like this really should be on every plane.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

[Guest Peter Sidoli]

>>>>Incase there was an almighty bang I kept one hand firmly>on>>the prop >>>>lever ready to feather and eventually shut her down at>1000>>feet agl.>>Prop levers in a diesel Diamond Twin Star?? The props are>>managed by the FADEC system.>>In this case, Peter is not referring to the Diamond.The picture of the twinstar was for effect :-) and was shut down in the cruise.The engine failure was in a good old SneakerPeter

[Dillon 2,197]

Guys this has been one interesting discussion... After reading all this I thought I'd practice some engine failures on takeoff with various aircraft to get a remote feel of the danger involved, what I found was troubling. If FS is any where remotely accurate to what a pilot would face in this condition it's really scary. You could have a pilot with 1000 hours and still wouldn't make it out alive with some aircraft (taking into account weather, terrain, trees, etc).Dreamfleet Baron58 -- If an engine was lost right after takeoff you better hope there's no trees and/or hills around because you

[Guest GrouchoMarxist]

As has been stated here, the workload goes up tremendously when one engine gives up. The choices that you think you have available can lead to some bad decisions in the spur of the moment. In light training twins, a climb is far from guaranteed at heavy weights. I suppose they are rarely flown at max take off, but even the beefier small private twins will not necessarily climb with a full load, and these are often packed to the gills.During training for the multi, you have this complexity drummed into you. Depending on what country you are in, you will also need to go through what actually happens when you lose rudder authority below Vmca, and what to do to get out of it, then show you can do it yourself. Loss of control at a speed lower than Vmca is far from gentle. Having it happen near the ground would be, in my view, almost impossible to recover from.My experience was pretty interesting to say the least. The standard procedure is to climb pretty high for the demo. From memory we were up around 9k or so. The thing about Vmca is that much of it is based on the power developed by the good engine -- that's what you're fighting against with the rudder to keep lateral control. The higher you go, the less Vmca becomes because the engine isn't putting out as much grunt. However, on the day that I did it, it must have been relatively hot up there. What happened was that we stalled before we actually got down to the Vmca speed, or it happened simultaneously. We ended up in a spin. I did the procedure (including pulling back the good throttle as per the Vmca recovery drill), controls neutral, full opposite rudder -- nothing. Still spinning. Instructor took over, he tried -- nothing. He then gave full power on the engine opposing the spin, and finally it came out of it. I can't remember exactly and my memory might be juicing it up for the sake of a story, but I'm pretty sure we lost a few thousand feet in the process and ended up straight and level much closer to the water we were over than was comfortable -- like a 1000 ft or so.Twins have a certain something about them, but they can bite hard. When it comes to the lighter variety, it's probably better to think of them as a single engine split into two bits that cause all sorts of problems when one bit gives up.

[Guest Adverse Yawn]

My apologies Peter. Good pic BTW :)

[Guest GrouchoMarxist]

>With all the money BeechCraft is charging for a new Baron 58,>I thought for sure the Baron would have better single engine>performance. To each his own I guess

[Guest Peter Sidoli]

>My experience was pretty interesting to say the least. The standard procedure is to climb pretty high for the demo. From memory we were up around 9k or so. The thing about Vmca is that much of it is based on the power developed by the good engine -- that's what you're fighting against with the rudder to keep lateral control. The higher you go, the less Vmca becomes because the engine isn't putting out as much grunt. However, on the day that I did it, it must have been relatively hot up there. What happened was that we stalled before we actually got down to the Vmca speed, or it happened simultaneously. We ended up in a spin. I did the procedure (including pulling back the good throttle as per the Vmca recovery drill), controls neutral, full opposite rudder -- nothing. Still spinning. Instructor took over, he tried -- nothing. He then gave full power on the engine opposing the spin, and finally it came out of it. I can't remember exactly and my memory might be juicing it up for the sake of a story, but I'm pretty sure we lost a few thousand feet in the process and ended up straight and level much closer to the water we were over than was comfortable -- like a 1000 ft or so.

[Guest Peter Sidoli]

GeofAgreed something like that should be a must on all retracts.Peter

[Geofa 108]

It really isn't that bad......That is where flight planning can give you the same option as the turboprop/jet guys. I attended faa seminar given by a Northwest Airlines pilot/ Twin Commnache flyer who simply never fly's his bird in a condition where he is unable to climb on one engine above any terrain with a comfortable margin of climb rate. If he has a full passenger load then he offloads enough gasoline to enable this-even if it means more stops along his route. The twin pilot has lots of pre planning charts to determine climb rate with an inoperative engine and existing conditions. The NW basically flew it like he did his airline-and if some reason conditions made this impossible-he simply did not do it.The single engine climb performance is usually based on a worst case scenerio-full gross,critical engine out etc. Thru a little pre flight planning you can make the factors add up to your favor (less fuel the easy one).Charter pilots who must fly cargo probably have to push the envelope-but there is rarely a reason recreational flyer ever has to....Secondly, realize the climb performance with both engines working is better than a single-therfore-therefore you really only have a narrow time period where losing the engine should be a big factor, as you climb much more rapidly and get up to a safe altitude faster than in a single. As Peter mentioned-once level, most twins cleaned up will fly pretty happily level on one engine.Third-if you are in a single and you lose an engine-you are going down-period! In a twin-if you follow the nwa pilot's advice you are not(hopefully climbing at a typical singles climb rate)-and if you don't juggle the factors in your favor like he does-you still at least may have an option of limping to a suitable landing site.I have always thought in terms of logic-if you lose an engine in a twin-you could always just chop the throttles-at that point you are exactly like a single-and there are no control issues-and like the single you will pick a field. If twin pilots only did that-there would be no difference between them and a single! The reason for training so much on single engine procedures-is at least with one engine going you may have some options. One of the things FS is great that training-I spend much of my time on FS pulling an engine off at all phases of flight and reacting accordingly. What a great tool FS can be!By the way-it is the FAA (not manufacturer) that doesn't require a multi engine airplane less than 6000 lbs. be able to climb or maintain altitude on one engine-it only requires that the plane be controllable.... http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

[Guest GrouchoMarxist]

>That is an amazing story as I have never spoken to anyone who>has spun a twin.>>Infact spinning a twin is not even done at certification so>you are very much in the class of test pilot if you get into>one.I know! Luckily my instructor had the presence of mind to do the full opposing power trick. He said he'd heard that that was something to try.It gave me the shivers, and it still does thinking about it now. Luckily, it was a steep spin (would have been forward CG, only me and him in the plane). I can remember looking straight down at the water as it revolved around thinking "hmmm this isn't right". Who knows what would have happened if it was a flatter spin?>Amazing story what aircraft was it???Rickety old Seminole. Thinking about it, the fact that it was a bashed up training plane might have had something to do with it. The full power that its engines put out was probably pretty below full power as new (and tested), and that would have made Vmca even lower, beyond the density effects brought on by altitude and temperature.>I will also reiterate if you fly light twins do try going for>level flight rather than blue line climb it works and will>save your life rather than killing you which the present>training in light twins can easely lead to.>>Even at 300-400 feet just pitch the nose over, maintain>altitude allow the speed to build and trim for level flight.>Do not turn unless there are obstructions and then only>gently.>>Once in level flight and trimmed step climb with the trim>wheel, only allowing the airspeed to decay 20 odd kts and not>below blue, level allow the speed to build again and step once>more.>>Do try it and use this method as another alternative to going>for blue line and a climb.Sounds like a good idea. When I was doing the multi training, there was a fair bit of demonstrating just how bad the climb was. It really struck home how hard it would be (impossible?) performing a go around hot, high and heavy. Although high here (Australia) is pretty puny compared to the real thing in the US or elsewhere. Hot we have, though.