Does anyone simulate engine failures in piston twins these days by quickly retarding a mixture lever to idle cut off just after V1, with no notice and the gear still down or being retracted? Common practice back in my day as a junior pilot, then to have to fly it around the circuit area and land single engine - simulated.
I’m hard pressed to think of a piston twin that has a real V1. Training outside the design capabilities of the type (this GA trope) is at best like the old Dusty Springfield song “wishin’ and hopin’. At worst it is training for an accident waiting to happen.
The DC3 and Cessna 404, when flown under the old Reg 203, are exceptions with measured OEI performance.
In the mid 80s the Chief Pilot decided to tabulise the take off and landing data across a diverse GA fleet. As the junior pilot on the C404, coming from the 310 and 402 I had to do the TOLD cards based on both the manufacturers and the DCA graphs. It turned out that the 404 was severely temperature limited under “Transport Category” for our operations.
Funnily enough, 20 years later (different 404 operator/operation and those Reg 203 DCA tables are hard to find) but the C&T gurus were training a “standard brief” regardless of weight or temp involving a fictitious V1, engine failure, gear, flap feather, fictitious V2, 1500ft, sector LSA then go home to mum and the kids.
Wishin' and hopin' and thinkin' and prayin'
Plannin' and dreamin'
indeed.
Does any one still train that way? I hope not.
The days of good flight training are ahead of us - with full motion simulators, training and practicing realistic scenarios to a logical conclusion.