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Old 14th July 2005 | 15:13
  #8 (permalink)  
bookworm
 
Joined: Aug 2000
Posts: 3,648
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From: UK
I'd obviously strongly endorse Irish Steve's advocacy of the Twin Com, but have to dispute some of the numbers:

The VMCA of 105 makes for a hairy few moments if you operate in and out of short strips with no good escape plan if a donk fails, as it will unstick at less than 80 Kts, and it can't be kept on the deck because of the gear setup, so there's several seconds when there's no options if one fan quits.
Vmca on our PA30 is 77 KIAS. Vyse is 91 KIAS. I agree with the unstick speed, but I don't know where you get your "VMCA" from.

You also have to keep the speed up on the approach until you are at the point where if one fails you can glide it in with no power on, which makes for an "interesting" short final, as there's over 20 Kts of speed to get rid of, and if it's light, that can be a challenge, come over the fence fast and it will float for a long time.
I don't think it's necessary or even sensible to remain at high speed on the approach. Vmca is the speed at which the aircraft is controllable with full power applied on the operative engine. If an engine fails on the approach, you have a choice of applying partial power to maintain the glide, or even trading altitude for speed if the former is available, which it will be above a couple of hundred feet.

The AFM recommends a 96 KIAS downwind, an 87 KIAS base and a 79 KIAS threshold crossing speed.
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