It has become clear to me that the 80s was pretty much the end of the piston twin era..the last decade when they were used in really large numbers and where most pilots logged MANY hours, usually 1000s, in them before moving on up the food chain.
I remain to be convinced that the skill set required to fly them safely has not been
almost completely lost as the really experienced pilots who used to train on them, and the piots they trained, have gone on to bigger and better things...financially at least, GA was tons more fun/satisfying than airline flying ever will be.
As a result
knowledge has been replaced with
legend to some extent.
In the 80s I flew
most of the well known piston twins for 1000s of hours and trained pilots in many of them at one time or another. All the Cessna 300/400 series, all the Beechraft piston twins, most of the Pipers excluding the Seminole but including the Aerostar, the PN68, Islander.
NOT ONE wouldn't fly reasonably well on one engine if flown
reasonably well...and I don't mean Test Pilot well I mean reasonably well.
Between me and my mates we all had engine failures in all sorts of situations...and the vaste preponderance of those engine failures ended well...including some that occurred at gross weights that would suggest otherwise if you go on legend alone...like several hundred kg overloaded in a C404 for instance.
I did my Islander endo on a 260hp version at Mt Hagen (5400' amsl/ISA+20) and it included
lots of engine failures at 100-200' and one complete shutdown/feathered circuit, go around at 300' and another circuit. The flying bit didn't start until after 4 days of flying with the trainer watching from the RHS and gleaning much information and sitting in a quiet room discussin systems and performance...how many pilots out there have had a 4 day ground school for a piston twin? Not so many years ago I was endorsed on a Citation 560...the ground school was less than 1 day
The mentality was that it (any piston twin you care to name)
will fly on one...but if for whatever reason it doesn't put it down before you lose control. Because the training pilots were so experienced...and we weren't given training approvals without LOTS of experience (unlike todays average ME instructor) much time was spent learning and practicing those techniques that maximise SE performance. Virtually all trainers had had at least one real engine failure...some of us were blessed with several
I get the impression these days that the mentality is 'they
won't fly on one heavy/hot/high' and that preconditions the pilot's thinking to some extent...instead of 'it's not climbing what
am I doing wrong' it has become 'it's not climbing
they were right I am going to crash'.
To often a young or inexperienced pilot suffers an engine failure at say 50-100' on takeoff and manages to get the dead engine secured. That is the easy/rote part. He then sees very little performance (probably because he is not flying the aircraft properly) and decides his only chance is to turn around and get back to the airport...he starts to turn and, as Bushy suggests, the aircraft starts to descend, or descend faster, and every preconditioned thought that pilot has ever had is confirmed. It is what he expects to see...this is what he has heard happens around the aeroclub bar...this is what the 30 hr wonder who taught him to fly ME said too...
desperation sets in....probably he might creep up the angle of bank to get around the corner quicker....which just makes things worse, of course.
What he really should be doing is maintaining runway heading and scratching every '/min out of the airframe it is possible to get...for as long as it takes to get to a safe altitude so he can start to manouver. I once had an engine fail on takeoff in an old C402a in Talair...it took me 5 nm out to sea to climb up to the cloudbase in pouring rain...5nm to get to 400'.
Fuel aint going to be a limiting factor...I don't care if it takes 20 minutes to climb to 1000'. If that is what is needed, fecking do it.
When I levelled off and got a little extra speed, enough to think about turning around and flying back to Finchafen, in about 1nm vis, I discovered my right leg was shaking so bad it was almost jumping off the rudder pedal. It took every trick I had ever been taught and very careful flying to drag that beat up old 402 loaded with villagers up to a 'safe' altitude. I had about 2000 hrs ME piston command at the time and the 402 as my 4th type rating although I would only have qualified as 'fairly experienced' on two...the BN2 and 402..and the Talair trainers, of which I wasn't one yet...were tough guys to please.
ME training, particularly initial twin (and probably the next couple of types) needs to be strenuously centered on assy performace...lots and lots and LOTS of engine failures including some at fairly representative weights...instead ME training in this day and age seems to have become a box ticking excercise done to minimum cost by an instructor who is probably less competent than he thinks he is and nowhere near comfortable/knowledgable or skillfull enough to give the trainee a really good work out on one engine.
I remember giving a guy an engine failure, without warning and using the mixture, in a C402a taking off from a coastal strip in PNG with no pax. It wasn't a training flight I was just passengering home to Rabaul and sitting in the RHS. He went through the memory items correctly and had the aircraft under control and we shot out across the reefs at zot feet not climbing much, if at all, with the ASI nailed to the 'blue line' speed of 103 kts.
"You flying the correct speed?"
(Very indignantly) "Yeah!!"
"Your sure?"
"YEAH!!"
I flipped down his sun visor (where we had table with a range of Vyse/wts glued) and asked him again. He looked and adjusted the attitude for the correct speed (about 99kts from memory) and we started climbing at a very satisfying rate...probably 500'/min.
Point made I gave him back the engine and we flew back to Rabaul in utter silence...he was seriously pissed off with me
but I had known him a few years and he was just one of those young guys who didn't take criticism well...constructive or otherwise
After we landed at Rabaul he cornered me and displayed his extreme displeasure...he was literally hopping from one foot to another with undisguised rage..it was almost funny
He thought my actions
MOST unreasonable!!!
"Well for starters xxx I could care less what you think...how much warning do you think a real engine failure will give you or do you think engine failures only happen on IR renewals?...you've known me a few years...are you really so stupid as to think I
wouldn't give you an engine failure with no pax on board, I am the piston fleet (Islanders/402s/404s) training/standards pilot...it's my job to ensure your standards are high and they were not high today. What is more you can expect at any time that I will, without warning, hop in an aircraft with you and expect you to know your stuff..and I am going to make a point of it sometime in the next mth or so...fair enough?"
To his credit he saw the point I was making and appologised...he now flys for CX. He no doubt recognises himself in the above story and he definately knows who Chimbu chuckles really is...Hi
In my previous lives as a trainer or CP I have seen, over and over again, young blokes who get quite upset when they are called to account in similar circumstances...I've sacked one or two
In my present incarnation as a widebody SFO I get called to account when I slip up...and we all do from time to time...the difference is usually that I am my own hardest critic and my eyes don't flash with barely disguise fury when I am being given feedback on my performance...you'd be amazed how many times I have seen that...and you'd be amazed how many times ATOs I know tell me about candidates who dictate what will and won't be happening on the test they are about to do
Flying ME piston is VERY serious business...there is just no room for BS.
Quite why pilots, who can land perfectly well under normal circumstances, stall at 20' in a forced landing/single engine landing or ditching is lost on me but it is, non the less, more common than you would credit.