PPL in a Twin
 

A slightly odd question perhaps, but is it theoretically possible to do a PPL in a twin?

I appreciate you wouldn't be able to get a type rating as such after 45 hours, but in theory if time isn't a massive concern and pretending cost isn't either, after 70 hours, could you theoretically walk away with a PPL and MEP type rating, having never or only briefly flown SEP's?

I've searched a few sites, but not found anything that conclusively says this wouldn't be possible.

I don't know the answer but vaguely remember something about 70 hours being prerequisite to undertaking a MEP rating.

My understanding is that the 70 hours figure is the number you need to obtain an MEP rating, in theory however I have not found anything to say you couldn't begin sooner than 70 hours, you merely would not be able to achieve the rating until that point (I think).

I know a fellow who did his PPL in Canada on a Piper Aztec. Needless to say it took longer than other PPL's.

Why would you want to?

70 hours @ £300 / hour = £21000

70 hours @ £150 / hour + 7 hours @ £300 / hour = £12600

Cost aside I can't think how you could do some parts of the training safely in a twin.

I feel that some of the stall and spiral dive recovery training would happen to fast for the average student at this part of his/her training.

Again, aside from cost and legalities - even in the height of the cold war where budgets were seldom an issue, I can't recall any of the militaries around the world doing basic training in multi-engine aeroplanes. It was always in a single - sometimes a jet, but still a single. (I have a friend, ex-US Navy who never flew a piston engined aeroplane until Test Pilot School, and I don't think ever logged PiC in one.)

I'm sure it's legally possible: the pilot would end up with an MEP but not an SEP rating, and it would take longer and much more money; I'm sure you could find an instructor who'd do it for all of those lovely juicy multi-engine hours - although I hope they'd have the grace to try and talk you out of it first.

G

There is nothing in the rules to prevent you from doing a PPL in a twin however; there are a number of issues that might make it unachievable in practice. The cost has already been mentioned and the requirement for 70 hours PIC before you can be issued with a MEP class rating. There is nothing to prevent you from obtaining that 70 hours PIC in a twin as a solo student, except of course insurance; will anyone want to insure a solo student for 70 hours solo in such an aircraft? It has been done in the past and may well be easier in other countries. I have not heard of anyone doing it since the JAA became a reality 11 years ago.

From LASORS:

"An applicant for a JAR-FCL PPL(A) shall have completed
at least 45 hours flight time as a pilot of aeroplanes or
TMGs (Touring Motor Gliders) as appropriate.

An applicant for a class rating for a single-pilot MEP
(Land) aeroplane rating must produce evidence of having
completed a minimum of 70 hours as pilot-in-command
of aeroplanes."

Don't forget, there are 7 theory exams for the PPL which muct be completed within 18 months of passing the first exam and the skills test completed within 24 months of completing the final exam. There is a seperate theory exam for the MEP class rating which must be completed within 6 months before the MEP skills test.

So you would have to do all 8 exams within the time frame of the PPL exams, and within that time you would have to log 70 hours PIC. Whilst these 70 hours could in theory be done under supervision or with an instructor to sign you off solo, I have never heard of this being done. I suspect you would not get insured to fly solo in a twin with less than 50 hours already under your belt.

h

PPL in a Twin
 

Yes, you can obtain a JAR-PPL with just an MEP rating and a good ex-military friend of mine did just that.

Having left the military many years ago, he came into civilian flying by obtaining an NPPL with SSEA, which was a shortened course because of the appropriate exemptions for his considerable previous military experience on both single- and multi-engined.

A year or two later he wanted to get back into twin flying as well. However, an NPPL was not appropriate as it does not extend beyond single-engine so he underwent an MEP course, applied for and was issued with a JAR-PPL with only an MEP rating. Thus he held a PPL/MEP with no SEP.

It is therefore not only possible but it has been done - and why not?

JD
:)

JD - One supposes that the OP is referring to undertaking an ab-initio PPL course whereas your acquaintance was already a professional pilot - hardly a valid comparison.

There is, as has been pointed out, no restriction on the class or type of aeroplane on which a PPL may be undertaken (except that it must be certified for single-pilot operation). If money is of no object, it is certainly achievable and could, in theory, be completed in as little as 105 hours flight time.

The other thing which is possible but nobody in the UK will do it is doing a PPL in a "complex" plane e.g. a TB20 (which is not in any way "complex", relatively speaking...).

No, BillieBob, he was not a professional pilot as you are implying, although he had plenty of experience. Neither was he remotely current when he took his NPPL a few years ago. He had retired from the RAF in the late 1960's and, prior to achieving the NPPL, had never held a civil licence.

In any event, his example shows that it is perfectly possible to achieve and hold a PPL with just an MEP rating, without needing an SEP qualification, which I thought was what vjmehra was asking with his "slightly odd question".

I can see no reason (apart from cost) that a PPL/MEP could not be achieved through an ab-initio course.

JD
:)

Can a (properly rated, ie. FI/MEP) instructor sign somebody out to fly a MEP solo, without a license?

I thought all MEP training, plus the MEP skills test, was all done dual, so the first time a (SEP) pilot would fly a MEP solo was when he/she would have the license in hand. So there might not be a provision in the legal framework to let somebody solo on a MEP before license issue.

And of course we're not talking about a few circuits here. As the requirement for a MEP rating is 70 hours PIC, you're talking about some significant solo time under the responsibility of an instructor.

My gut feeling says that this might be something to throw a spanner in the works. Then again, I have not checked the ANO or JAR-FCL, so I might be wrong.

Yep spot on, that was what I was asking!

Whilst I appreciate this may not be the most practical way to do things, its an interesting debate at least!

Also, I often seem to read on these forums people satying get as many hours as you can on type, so if you intend to fly twins, post ppl, this seems to make sense.

Just to explain my personal situation a bit more...

I was all set to start my SEP PPL at the start of this year, had a trial lesson in a C-152, PA-28 140 and then a PA-28 180, was all set to begin training with Willow Air at Southend in a C-172 when of course they went bust :-(

Since then two things have stopped me flying...one I bought a boat!!! Secondly the missus is incredibly concerned about flying in a single engine plane, which also means she's terrified about me doing it! Hence, I was wondering if there was a potential way round this, as that would make her feel better, knowing at least that I have the extra engine! Also, just by a twist of fate a potential job opportunity has come up for me in Switzerland and whilst I appreciate even if I started flying now I might be years away from being able to fly there from the UK, it may be a fun objective to try and achieve one day.

So in short, my logic is, that once PPL qualified, I would attempt an MEP rating anyway, therefore whilst the cost is clearly an issue in reality, it is good to know this route could be theoretically possible!

There is no requirement to have the license issued straight after skill test - as I'm sure you're aware - and indeed PLD wouldn't issue the rating (or license) without 70hours PIC. I have looked into this issue an have yet to find any reason why it cannot be done. Not the norm...but hey?

Just trying to workout why it's a minimum of 105 hours.... surely 70 solo + 25 dual makes 95? (providing top notch student..all ducks lined up etc...???)

What might help (or hinder) you to convince the missus is that the statistics show very little safety benefit from a second engine, as long as we are talking light twins here (not airliners).

Reasons for this are very complex, and statistics can of course be manipulated any way you want, but here's the summary of how I see it:

The technical safety benefits from the second engine are relatively small since climb performance on one engine is marginal at best in low end twins, and may be completely nonexistent in unfavourable conditions. So the second engine is only taking you to the site of the crash in any case. (And with two engines there's twice that many bits that can go wrong...)

And the few technical safety benefits there are, are typically negated because pilots take twins on more dangerous missions, like IFR/night, high altitude or long overwater flights.

(Cue a long debate on technical and statistical safety benefit of twins!)

That doesn't really matter. You need 70 hours PIC time before license issue. Whether those hours are flown all before the skills test, or partly after your skills test doesn't really matter: You are a student and flying under the responsibility of an instructor.

which was the point I was trying to make. You can indeed do the skills test before the 70 hours P1 is reached then make up the remainder flying solo under the authorization of an FI before applying for the MEP Class rating and License.

Yes.
Because I wasn't concentrating when I made the last post! You are quite correct, of course
Ah, when you referred to "appropriate exemptions for his considerable previous military experience on both single- and multi-engined", I sort of assumed that he was a pilot. In any case, it does not change the fact that he did not undertake an ab-initio PPL course in a twin, which was the subject of the original question.

The only reason I see it would be smart to do PPL in a MEP if the student owned the aircraft and it would be cheaper to fly his own twin than rent a single-engine trainer - if such aircraft even exists, which I highly doubt :)

As previous posts explain, losing an engine in a light twin doesn't mean you lost 50% of all your power - ~ 90% is much more realistic number. I suggest reading this article - especially look at the numbers. Flying is all about risk management, whatever the aircraft type/size/number of engines - and engine failures really aren't that common if you compare it to number of CFIT accidents.

And as IO540 states, it's nothing complex about handling a VP prop and retractable gear - it's usually the speed of the aircraft, which is why you must think much more ahead than with an usual spam-can.

Without wanting to be rude, I think the goal of the thread was to get answers to the question, not questions.

Yes it does, its that when you loose 50% of your total power you have actually lost a much higher percentage of the excess power available.

A PPL on a MEP would of course have to be conducted at an FTO rather than a registered facility and they would need an approved course. I suspect Insurance remains the major hurdle.

MEP engine failure, 50% power loss = 95% performance loss.

Without doubt all the MEP's I have flown have been the most demanding to aircraft to fly on one engine, unlike turbines that air quite forgiving , the turbine that I have flown that required as much skill to fly with engines not working was the Electra with two out on the same side.

All things considered in the hands of a low time pilot an engine faiure in an SEP is much safer that an engine failure in an MEP.

Some interesting responses so far, I'm glad I started this thread, its been quite educational, even if the actual situation may never arise in reality, its nice to know that in theory it could be done!

Theoretically possible but a stupid idea.
 

The missus is misinformed. Flying a twin engine is more accident prone than flying a single engine. Unless you're doing long stretches over water (to the cottage in Sweden or something) or other inhospitable terrain, flying a single is a lot safer.

You could explain her that
a) an engine failure in flight on a properly pre-flighted and correctly maintained modern aircraft is a VERY RARE event, rarer than the missus and yourself having an accident driving to the airport
b) an single engine aircraft with an engine failure becomes a glider (albeit a heavy one)
c) the main accident causes are pilot error (such as flying VFR into IMC and mid-air near an airport, neither of which can be resolved by adding an engine) and you promise to do everything by the book, always, because you love her. This might imply that you won't be home for supper on some occasions.


As Backpacker pointed out:
- probability of an engine failure is about double in a twin than in a single
and also
- inexperienced pilots are much more likely to mishandle an engine failure in a twin than in a single

Second point is insurance : unless you own the plane and/or strike a good deal with an insurance company, they won't let you solo a twin with under 250 hours TT (of which 50 on your twin). And then we are talking a BE76 Duchess or a PA23 Aztec or some other twin that only makes sense as a trainer. For a proper Cessna 310, no insurance company will sensibly underwrite your soloing under 500 hours (even if you owned it they would ask for at least half of that).

As insurance is important in your particular case (not only do you want to protect the capital invested in your plane, you want to make sure to take care of the missus in the rare event that something does happen to you), the underwriting restrictions will dictate your line of action.


Third point is learning efficiency. It is a hell of a lot easier to operate a spam can (or a warrior, katana, cheetah, ...) than a Duchess. Even with proper ground preparation, it will still take you longer to properly fly a circuit and land a twin than to do the same with the spam can. No matter how good your instructor is, you would lose precious flying time with basic handling of the duchess.

I flew such an owner in a Seneca five twin for a few years. As most was SP I taught him how to fly the aircraft until the point that he used to fly the whole route from the right seat.
The owner started training for an FAA PPL in the aircraft after I left although I believe he did part in a single.

If the missues is worried about singles why not a Cirrus then you can tell her it has its own parachute system to lower you all safely to the ground in event of you having a heart attack :(

Pace

Haha I did think about that actually!

Perhaps more than 2x, because

- the control cable runs are much longer

- the engines are believed to be subject to more vibration (more flimsy mounting)

- the owners, mostly, are less fussy about maintenance, precisely because they have a spare engine (and some are quite open about it, too)

"- the owners, mostly, are less fussy about maintenance, precisely because they have a spare engine (and some are quite open about it, too)"

Rubbish!. What a completely unfounded statement.

Backpacker

I cannot agree with your Interpretation of the safety benefits of a twin.
Yes climb performance especially at grosse weight and high temps can be minimal or nil and yes a lot of accidents occur with pilots attempting to climb on one engine.
I had an engine failure on a 100 hr total time Seneca but still had at my guess 30 % power. I did not shut the engine down until I got up to 1000 feet.
I held one hand on the prop lever ready to pull it in event of a complete failure. At 1000 feet I shut it down flew level and landed.
Cause three broken rocker shafts!
A light twin does badly climbing on one but is brilliant flying level on one.
15 plus years ago we shut an engine down flying Bournemouth to France and didn't restart until approaching the French coast.
Not a clever thing to do but it does show that a light twin is perfectly happy flying level on one.
There is no reason at most fields why you cannot go for level flight at 500 feet rather than a climb. Then once established in single engine cruise step climb on the trim very slowly to circuit height.
At night, over fog in IMC or over water a light twin will fly well on one but in level flight.
Maybe training should look at light twins in a different light.
The light twin gives more options than purely heading for the ground as in a single. Light on fuel and PAX it will climb so yet another option.

Pace

Like I said, in the hands of a competent and current pilot a light twin does offer a technical safety benefit over a single. However, what I've seen about the statistics is that that technical safety benefit is negated by having twice the number of bits that can go wrong, and by pilots going on more dangerous missions. At night, in fog/IMC and over water for example - something that only very brave SEP pilots would do.

And let me offer up another story for comparison. One of my pilot friends had a recent fATPL and was due his MEP checkride. For preparation he booked a sim session with an instructor and I was invited to sit RHS just for fun. The request he had to the instructor was an IFR flight ending in a few different approaches plus some failures. The usual workout.

After one particular missed approach, climbing away at full power, still in IMC, the instructor failed one of the engines. Three seconds later we were inverted in the field, dead, and the instructor stopped the simulator. The look in my friends eyes was something to behold.

Now I appreciate that an FNPT-II (or whatever it was) certified simulator is still not moving and does not give you the seat-of-the-pants yaw response that a real twin would give in case of an engine failure. That may offer a partial explanation why my friend didn't react instantly the way he should. But it still shows that in a twin things can go from good to hell in a very short period of time. In a single, at the very least, the aircraft would not have inverted itself in zero time flat, giving you far more (though still limited) time to figure out what to do and where to (crash) land it.

Edited: I guess the point I'm trying to make all along is that twins are not automatically and inherently twice as safe as singles - something your missus seems to believe. Yes, twins offer more safety and more options in case of an engine failure but the downside is that it requires more training, more currency and more money to be a competent enough pilot to realize these safety benefits.

That really depends on the pilot. I would fancy someone who has just completed their MEP course's chances a lot more than someone who passed it 5 years ago, does the bare minimum of hours and scrapes through the revalidation each year. IMHO it really comes down to the pilots attitude towards currency, and seeking instruction if they aren't current enough.

Oh please, save me from this tosh. Normally it's TBM salesmen or single engine fanboys that spout this crap. We can manipulate stats all we like. One could argue that any given piston engine, well maintained, has the same chance of failure. If one does go I'd rather have a spare one on the other side.

Twin training isn't all that difficult really, and brings a whole new dimension to flight planning long trips (and a whole new planet of expense!). But insurance will always be the prohibitive factor in a situation like this. And I'm not sure I'd move away from the traditional learning sequence.

I wonder what these guys would rather have been in:
http://www.pprune.org/biz-jets-ag-fl...near-kfll.html

vjmehra,

As I hope you realise, there's a lot of nonsense on this thread, but the basic economic argument is reasonable.

The underlying answer to your question is YES, you can get your PPL on a twin. I have a friend who did just that, and went on to go commercial and get various turbine type ratings without ever having SEP on her licence. Of course, there was a catch. Her husband owned a MEP aircraft, and was an instructor :-)

Without that little quirk, it really doesn't make much economic sense.

Good point, well made!

The problem with light twins is that they have been extensively used for commercial training looking at larger more capable aircraft in the future!
IMO that is why the accident rates are high especially in low time incurrent private pilots.
Light twins give you more options than a single but they are options!
One maybe to establish blue line and go for a climb at grosse weight!
Maybe ok till you hit sinking air and blue line has gone while you are adding more and more rudder to hold the ship together.
That training forgets you have an extra throttle connected to another energy source through the elevator. It forgets other drag you can get rid of other than flaps gear props etc.
As stated why try and kill yourself trying to hold blue line when most light twins are more than happy in level flight!
The twin doesn't know whether it's at 300 feet agl or 3000 feet !
As in my engine failure, feather the prop shut down the faulty engine!
Why? Why shut down a unit producing 30 % power when you desperately need it ? In my case it worked.
The extra engine gives you more options one which maybe to close both and take to a field.
Historically twin training has been all about blue line NOT thinking out of the box at numerous options open to you.
IMO that is the reason for bad accident stats on twins.

Pace

The twin incident stats would be even worse had it not been for the fact that most enroute engine failures (which should mostly be a non-event) are bound to be unreported.

I am no TBM salesman but I think you have a basic misunderstanding of stats. It is a fact that the fatality rate (or any other incident rate that you care to pick) of SE turboprops is around several times lower than that of piston twins - regardless of how the piston twins are operated.

Emotionally, the warm feeling from a 2nd engine is fully understandable, but the numbers do not support it.

If one went on the basis of a concurrent failure of two unconnected systems being extremely improbable (which it certainly is) then twins of any sort should never go down as a result of loss of propulsion.

Yet they do.

If one takes out fuel system mismanagement (which is arguably 100% pilot error, no matter how confusing some of them are) you are still left with plenty of ways to go down.

And if you are crossing terrain which rises above the SE ceiling of the twin (for a significant distance) then you have a 2x (min.) chance of crashing into it, than with a single. Admittedly that is an unusual case in Europe (the Alps take only ~ 45 mins to cross, N-S) but twin owners do like to use mountains as a common example of twin advantages.

Agree with Pace.

I'm a pretty new twin flyer, but have already had my left engine semi-fail on my previous cross country. 2 cylinders went bad, one chewing oil rings plugging up the sparks and making damage, the other shedding a valve. I was over Iowa fields at the moment and only an hour away from my destination, Chicago. Engine ran rough but was still producing power on 4 cylinders (which I didn't know then, I though it was a magneto problem), so I opted to continue. Because I knew that flying the Commander on one is a total non-event. In my type conversion, we shut one down completely and landed with it as you should. Rudder trim for it and she'll fly all day long like that.

Aircraft has since been repaired and just end of last week I flew her back. With two new cylinders I was weary of crossing Rockies and Sierra Nevadas, so I opted for a more southerly route, via New Mexico and Arizona with lower mountains. What I hadn't counted on is how extremely barren these areas are and I felt terrible lonely and apprehensive over these huge vast forests, canyons and mountains (albeit lower than the Rockies). In those cases I was very glad to be sitting in a twin - below me there were literally zero options for a successful forced landing.

A twin is not hard to fly on one engine. And most importantly, if you ever get into control troubles with a twin, just reduce the good engine until your control problems disappear and start over. If you're heavy, trying to outclimb things and run out of rudder, Vmc, pull back, reconfigure, rethink. As Pace said, they'll fly S&L all day long at lower altitudes. It's pretty intuitive.

Addendum

Just to stress I am not diminishing the importance of flying blue line before someone jumps down my throat:E

If you have the discipline, courage and accuracy of flying to peg blue line good for you! but that means on hot days, or at grosse, or on windy turbulent days being able to accept minimal or no climb or maybe even a descent rate of 500 fpm.

My problem with blue line is that in low powered twins the margins for error are small. Add in panicking pax and other distractions and it's only too easy to loose blue and to get into a mess!

In the right conditions and weight blue line may be the right way but there are other ways with larger margins for different situations.

For me flying light twins is about respecting the limitations of a light twin and flying out of the box considering a number of options and using them even if that's closed throttles into s field.
Remember too that a light twin will fly quite happily all day on one engine if your flying level and use that fact to your advantage !!

Pace

With the greatest of respect and not wanting to commence the usual prune back and forth which I try to stay away from.

My understanding of stats is pretty sound. And my point stands, one can make them look however one wants to.
There are many many thousands more piston twins in the world than turbine singles. It stands there are therefore more accidents. Also the piston twin fleet is generally much older, Cessna 310 fuel system anyone? So comparing a rate per 100000 hours or any other comparison generally doen't stand scrutiny.
My post was comparing single engine pistons with multi engine pistons, and the added safety factor the second engine provides. And also an attempt to dispel the naysayers that say anyone who touches a piston twin will die a horrid death. I've flown them for years and am still about.

I hear the 'double chance of engine failure' line a lot from Pilatus and TBM. And it hacks me off every time. Generally they are comparing their new machines to turbine twins. And it really is just a play on words. At the end of the day if the singles engine quits you are going one way. And if it quits at height you are starting that journey very quickly to recover cabin alt. In the turbine twin if an engine fails it's no big deal.

My example at the end, whilst tongue in cheek is still very very valid. Which machine do you think those pax would rather have been in?