clumpinglitter said:
I'm finding that it's a pain in the ass to deal with a dead engine under the hood. When you're visual, it's natural to just react to the yaw, and I have no problem keeping my heading pegged. But under the hood, it's not quite so easy. I hope this will just get easier with practice?
Agreeably, it is easier to handle the engine-out by observingthe nose visually. Under the hood you may feel a lot more motion and confusion. With the foogles on, when you begin to feel the plane sway, look directly at the AI. Your first reaction should be to call out (or say to yourself) "WINGS LEVEL - BALL CENTERED." - Use the ailerons to keep the miniature airplane on the AI level and use what ever rudder it takes to keep the ball in the inclinometer centered. When you experience an engine failure, this initial reaction will slow things down and help establish a reference point of more controlled flight. Once you've accomplished this, you can go through the fix or feather routine. You instructor may teach you one method, but here's what I've been taught.
After you've leveled the wings on the AI and centered the ball, you would go ahead and bring the gear up, flaps up, mixture, props and throttle full forward. This should all be done while pitching to, or maintaining Vyse. Once you have cleaned everything up, you'll want to determine which engien has failed, the only reliable way of figuring this out is to see which is the "dead foot". Never rely on power indications. Once you have determined the "dead foot," bring back the appropriate mixture, prop and throttle. DO THIS VERY SLOWLY. Rushing only saves a few seconds and its well worth sacrificing a little time as opposed to pulling the wrong engine.
One other thing, even if you think you know the gear or flaps are up because of the phase of flight you might be in, ALWAYS verify they are in the correct position. This is a routine that should always be followed.
clumpinglitter said:
Do any of you have a rule of thumb for when to start the descent on a single-engine approach? It's not too bad when I know my distance from the MAP, but I'm not counting on the DE letting me use the GPS for this. Timing is almost always inaccurate, and I don't want to get caught too low and too far away from the MAP.
As a rule of thumb, if at all possible don't put yourself in a position where you'll need to go around with an engine out. Some basic things to keep in mind are keeping the plane as clean as possible, that means defering things like flaps and gear for as long as possible.
Determining the distance to or arrival at the MAP shouldn't be much different from your instrument training. If you are doing you instrument training along with your ME, then you've got a lot going on.
Timing is not as inaccurate as you think. Amazingly, it does really work. It's never going to be exact, as winds change in speed and direction as you descend. Your IAS may fluctuate as well, durng your pitch excursions while maintaining the glideslope. By the way, your corrections will always be towards the left when descending as the wind shifts left closer to the ground due to the friction. Getting back to timing, you're going to need to estimate your GS based on the IAS you hold along with the average headwind you'll encounter. At any rate, there will be very little variance in timing for MAP arrival if done right.
clumpinglitter said:
Do you pretty much always leave the gear up until short final, or do you lower it over the FAF like usual? Does it depend on whether the approach is precision or nonprecision?
When conducting a enging-out precision or non-precision approach, you'll want to leave the flaps up until you've got the runway insight and the landing is assured. Gear should still come down upon GS intercept. On a non-precision, two engine approach, you'' usually drop everything a little earlier before arriving at the FAF.
clumpinglitter said:
Do you do the descent to the MAP at blue line? I find that I prefer to descend faster with some power in, because blue line just seems way too slow compared to the normal approach speed.
A litte faster than blueline is fine on the descent to the runway. You should allow yourself a buffer - just don't go below Vmc. Remember, Vmc is greater with a higher power setting and blueline is based on he worst case scenario. On the descent, you'll have a lot less power on the operating engine so there won't be as much yawing. Since some of the yaw is induced by p-factor, p-factor is actually reversed with a nose-low attitude such as during the descent. The yaw encountered will be in the opposite direction or towards the good engine.
