Shutting off the fuel in a Seneca I

[SATCFI]

While there is NO requirement for an actual engine shutdown during multi-engine training, it is an excellent idea for the student to actually shutdown and restart an engine in flight. That being said, however, it is one of the dumbist ideas out there in the training enviroment to shut one down below 3000 feet. There are way too many things that can go wrong to play that game. Even at the professional level, that I am doing my instruction at.

Yes, it is required in both private and commercial ME PTS. Check task X.A. in the commercial PTS.

 

[SATCFI]

On the subject of going around single engine, I once had an examiner demand to see a single engine go-around in a Seneca II. He told me I would be flying a single engine ILS under the hood, then executing a single engine go around. I told him I wouldn't. The checkride was for a small 135 operation. He told me I'd not pass, I told him I didn't care. He told me it was a test standard, I told him it wasn't.

AVBUG,

there is a requirement for a single engine go-around in the ATP PTS (Task V.F)

 

[Bandit60]

Simulate an emergency dont create one

 

[Timebuilder]

Words to "live by," Bandit.

We always simulated an engine failure below a minimum of 3,000 AGL (I always liked that additional 500 feet at 3,500) by use of the throttle and a "fake feather." Training should follow the safest methods possible.

 

[Lead Sled]

I'm not a fan of inducing an actual emergency for training purposes. Simulated failures are probably good enough. In the good old days, it was very common (the FAA encouraged it) for instructors and examiners to pull the mixture or cut fuel right after liftoff - and the accident rates reflected what often happened.

I took my multi-engine checkride in an Aztec. The examiner was one of those guys who shut off the fuel. When the time came to fail an engine he distracted me and reached down to the fuel levers between the seats. Thinking that he had his hand on the LH lever, he shut off the fuel to the RH engine. Moments later, when the RH engine quit, I correctly went through the entire engine failure drill - including feathering the RH propellor. A few moments after the RH engine quit windmilling I witnessed, for the first time, a person (my examiner) having a heart attack - in his mind he had shut off the fuel to the left engine and I had just shutdown and feathered the right engine. - not a good position to be in at pattern altitude. You've never seen a guy start to sweat so profusely. Once he realized what he had done he settled back down and the rest of the checkride was pretty mellow.

For what it's worth, light-twin engine failures in the "real world" aren't anything like the carefully choreographed training exercises that most of you are familiar with. You all be careful ya hear.

Lead Sled

 

[Skaz]

wow, there's a lot of 'great spirits' sharing their wisdom with us lesser aviators
One of my personal mottos since I became a pilot, has been that, as soon as you start to think you know everything about flying and cant learn from anybody anymore, you become a liability, to yourself, your passengers, crew, people in the airspace with you and people below your flightpath.

I only have 45....ok, 44.9 hours on the PA34 Seneca I, and 1100ME, but I'd like to chip in my 2 cents....

During training, my instructor did fail an engine using the fuel cutoff. I think he did it more because of the position of the fuel selector switches and being able to reach them surreptisiously than anything else! But, he never failed an engine below ....say 3000'? (this is in South Africa b.t.w.)

My personal SOPs, for every aircraft, be-it SE or ME, that has the capability to select one tank only, or crossfeed, I check that this function will work.
On the C402C I fly regularly, early during the taxi, I crossfeed, then select normal feed and test the aux pumps on high, well before I get to the holding point and do my runups. This way I know that the crossfeed will work, the aux pumps will provide fuel at high pressure to the engines if an engine driven pump will fail, and during the runup I can see the engines feeding off their respective tanks without problems.

One instructor, during my F406 rating, had me do single engine circuits and landings, with one SE go-around. The 'failed' engine was set at zero thrust only, on the landings I got the failed engine back to use, but the go-around was SE only.....,man was that some hairy s-h-i-t ! Not fun at all, luckily it is a pretty powerfull machine and empty with the two of us one engine's 500horses was enough....but still not cool.

During upper air work the one engine was feathered (at idle) and we did Vmca and steep turns etc. Sweating like a pig, I was.

A ME aircraft on one engine is not a beast to play around with.
Especially an underpowered one like a Seneca I.

 

[Lead Sled]

OK, I've got a little time on my hands and I'm thinking that my fingers need a little exercise, so me thinks that I'll climb up on my soapbox for a few minutes...

I've had the feeling, for a long time, that many pilots don't properly respect the capabilities of light twins. They're just so excited about flying them that they really don't spend enough time thinking about what they've really got themselves into, but it doesn't matter - they're finally able to have "a fist full of throttles".

In most cases, light twins have pretty good performance - on both engines. However, it must be understood that, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, they have two engines because they need two engines. Single-engine performance in any piston-powered light twin is abysmal. Loss of power is the primary culprit. Remember, normally aspirated aircraft lose power with altitude. An aircraft's climb ability is directly proportional to the amount of "excess" power that it has available vs. what is needed to maintain level flight. For example, if a 200 HP normally aspirated airplane requires 100 HP to maintain level flight it would (at SL, ISA day) have 100 "excess" HP to use for climb. At 10,000' MSL, the engine might only be able to produce 130 HP, leaving it with a 30 HP surplus. This is the reason why turbocharged aircraft perform so well - you would be able to maintain SL power up until you reached the "critical altitude" for the particular engine. In some cases, this can be as high as 18,000' MSL.

This is also why light twins typically perform so poorly on one engine. Take, as an example, a Twin Comanche with two 160 HP engines. If that airplane required, say, 150 HP to maintain level flight it would have 170 "excess" HP to climb with. If it lost an engine, it would have lost 50% of its available power, but with just 10 "excess" HP, it may have lost 95% of its ability to climb. This, of course, will also appliesy to all other light twins. If you only learn one thing from this post, it should be that light twins have two engines because they need two engines.

There are some other operational differences that you should be aware of…

If you're in a single and you loose the engine, the laws of physics dictate what will happen next. Leaving the gear down until you have no more "usable" runway left only makes sense. It will leave the airplane in much better condition should the engine decide to pack it on while you're still over the runway. (By the way, I've had it happen to me once.) I've seen some "hotdoggers" rotate and immediately suck the gear up. A while back, I even heard of a guy who would place the landing gear in the up position as he took the runway. His thinking was that the squat switch would keep the gear from coming up while the airplane was on its takeoff roll and immediately start the retraction process as soon as he broke ground. What a weenie - his practice came to light one morning when he rotated a bit too early and the airplane settled back onto the runway. You don't need a PhD in Physics and Aeronautical Engineering to figure out what happened next.

(By the way, these are usually the same guys who immediately pull the throttle back to climb power as soon as the gear is in the wells. Statistically, that's the time when you’re most likely to have an engine come apart.)

Multiengine aircraft are an entirely different matter - you want to get the airplane cleaned up as soon as possible. In the case of most piston twins, their ability to maintain controlled flight depends upon the pilot getting the gear up, the propeller feathered, and the flaps up. Failure to this often results in the airplane being turned into a lawn dart.

I don't want anyone misunderstanding my comments on the need to get gear up on light-twins ASAP. I'm not implying that you need to get the gear cycling the moment the aircraft breaks ground. You don't need to be cocked and on a hair trigger - just get to it as soon as you can get around to it. Sure, there will be situations where you can delay it; I used to fly out of an ex-military airportwith a 10,300-foot runway and there was no need to be in a rush with the gear. You could takeoff and land most twins 3 times on this runway. However, I believe that on a more typical runway, once the airplane's up and climbing, having the gear out becomes more of a liability than an asset if and when an engine decided to "go south" on you.

We tend to take engine reliability for granted, but I believe that this is a very dangerous thing to do. Most light twins simply won't maintain altitude with a windmilling propeller and/or the gear down. The old Metroliners had a rocket bottle in the tail to buy the flight crew enough time to get the gear up in the wells. Auto-feather systems are on most, if not all, turboprop twins. The manufacturers wouldn't put up with the increased costs and complexity of doing this if there wasn't a true need for it. They put this stuff on the turboprops that have significantly better single-engine performance than piston-twins. It really ought to be on the "little" twins, but no one is willing to pay for it. Like I said, light twins lose up to 90%+ of their climb capability. The figure is probably even higher than that - I've seen several non-turbo'd twins that wouldn't climb out of ground effect and several turbocharged twins that could barely achieve climb rates of 100 fpm or so. But never the less, the point is that twin engine aircraft have two engines because they need two engines and under certain conditions they can maintain controlled flight on one engine IF THE PILOT DOES EVERYTHING RIGHT. You don't have time to dawdle, it has to be done right and right now.

OK, my fingers are cramping - it's time to climb down off of my soapbox.

Lead Sled

 

[PC12Cowboy]

Lead sled...let me help you down!

Well said lead sled...Uhhmmmm(best throat clearing)

Pulling the fuel flow to the engine is the WORST thing you can do to the motor, it will run near its maximum temp for a minute or two and then shut down...losing all heat rapidly. This alone is major concern for the engine to make TBO, but alas it can do great damage to the ignition system as well as spark plugs over temp can and often do change their gaps. now you have a cold engine that doesnt want to run, due to plugs not doing their jobs.
Yes it is required to shut down and engine in ALL the multi PTS's, but the POH has procedures for this devised by Test pilots and engineers to reduce the stress on the system.

I am in complete agreement that training hould be made as realistic as possible........but not to the point of increasing your exposure to a REAL emergency...........Not something that ME students and MEI's do well when its real. The stats prove that!
I have witnessed 4 fatal accidents and DO NOT want to see yours! Please remember we teach so that they might learn....not scare the hell out of them or jeapordize our students, or for that matter our own lives!!! just follow the procedures of the manufacturer and FLY SAFE!

Humble and always learning,
Kevin
PC12Cowboy

 

[nosehair]

Realistic Training

Two (2) things I've noticed over the years of training students how to fly and control airplanes and helicopters:
Sometimes; not usually, but sometimes, a student who I have trained with safe simulation, when experiencing the real thing will go completely berserk and react hysterically to the situation.
(1) When sneaking the fuel valve off and the engine actually quits.
(2) When first encountering actual IMC conditions.
(3) Oh - and also accidentally entering a spin.
Some of the accidents that occur are a direct result of this lack of training in our system. I say some, but I believe most. There are no statistics to reveal it. Pilots don't admit it. "I was so scared when I actually went IMC that I just couldn't focus on the instruments - I was consumed by the wierd feelings in my body which I had never felt before - next thing I knew, evrything was spinning around! Lucky I broke out high enough to recover."
They don't say - or even remember that.
Exposure to the real thing may not be required to get the rating, and usually it isn't required - most people will respond with their trained habits - but the once-in-a-while guy who loses it in the initial exposure to a real engine cut, a spin, or actual weather, and then recovers with a few exposures to the actual - well, I bet you just saved his life.
And more than that - you made him confront his fear and overcome it.

 

[labbats]

Good post nosehair. But unless you are suggesting cutting the engine for real below 3000' AGL, you're arguing the same point as everyone else.