Hi guys,
Of course, thats a video of an American P3 flying over what looks like Saudi or Kuwait.
We need to be clear about a few things here with RAAF P3 operations:
1/ only engines 1 and/or 4 are ever shut down for loiter operations, which is what we are discussing here. That prop you see out the Tacco's window is engine 1.
2/ with both 1 & 4 shut down, the minimum
intentional flight altitude will be 1,000 feet. The Flight Engineer would calculate the airplane performance on one engine prior to loitering on two.
3/ the video is USN, they do things sometimes differently, and in the case shown, shutting down engine 1 with the Emergency Shutdown Handle (that big black and yellow handle) is for just that, emergency shutdowns, not loiter shutdowns. Loiter shutdowns are controlled with the Feather Buttons, located overhead the Flight Engineer, slightly to his left. These buttons are used both for shutting down the engine for loiter, and restarting (unfeathering) it when required.
4/ The inboard engines are
never intentionally loiter shutdown, since they both drive an active generator and one each of the air conditioning (and pressurization) compressors. Though engine 4 does have a generator, unlike engine 1, this is the third, standby generator that will cut in if there is a failure of one of the other two.
5/ For me , the complication here is that, although engine 1 does not have a generator,
it is the critical engine and therefore causes some rudder and trim work for the flying pilot each time big power changes are introduced. So, with that in mind, my technique was to always loiter engine 4, which made the airplane much easier to handle during big power changes. If the generator was subsequently needed, we simply restarted engine 4 and loitered engine 1, but that was very rare.
6/ You may notice that the loitered prop is always seen in the 'X' configuration, with none of the prop blades horizontal. That is intentional, and handled by the Flight Engineer to limit the amount of turbulence off the blades affecting the closely following wing, for better ride quality.
In an emergency restart, the Flight Engineer can have the loitered engine at full power within around 20-25 seconds, I've been there!
Normally, when the intention is to fly below 100 feet, all four is good, but that will not apply to these missions! (continuous RAWS is annoying!)
I'm seeing these video shots as you are, and I'm surprised both 1 and 4 are not loitered for most of the search phase of the mission.
Top airplane . . .
