Chuck asks:
You state. Quote: " or if he sinks below glide, in both cases this is not a good time to discover the loss of the engine>
( a ) Why is it not a good time to discover the loss of the engine.
( b ) What do you know about flying multi engine airplanes that the rest of us haven't figured out, I just do not understand how the loss of an engine during a stabalized approach is such a big problem, at least for someone who understands how to fly the damn things.
Well (a)
If you are already below the glide, you will be looking to add more power. More power delivered in an asymmetric form may well give the inexperienced pilot handling problems. Not least because I am suggesting that the attempt to add more power may be the first indication that the pilot gets of an engine problem.
(b)
I am sure that I do not know as much as you clearly do about flying multi-engined aircraft. So far as the stabilised approach is concerned, I agree. However, all sorts of factors can contrive to cause problems for an approach however stabilised. Windsheer, runway incursions, navaid failure, instrument failure, pilot error. My point was that should any of these events occur, a pilot may need to start moving the throttles. As I have now written on numerous occasions, it is as he moves the throttles that the failure will tend to make itself known. Low level, correcting for a departure from a stabilised approach is a bad time to discover that you have an engine problem. The Kegworth 737 accident is a variation on this very theme, although the causes are numerous and complex. The essential problem was that the correct diagnosis of the engine failure only occurred as the aircraft was on very short finals and needed power that was only available from a good engine that had been shut down in error some minutes earlier. The vibrations associated with the bad engine had subsided as the power levers had been brought back to flight idle for the descent.