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Turn Into Good Engine????

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givpicachanc

Well-known member
Joined
Mar 3, 2002
Posts
46
Folks here is scenerio:

Part 23 light twin (Piper Apache)---- I am coming straight ahead to the runway with left engine out. Here is what i teach my students i tell them to request a trafic pattern so they have to turn into the good engine.
The reasons i give them is
1)banking into the good engine, you compensate asymmertrical thrust.
2) For every 1degree of bank into good engine you decrease the Vmc by 3 kts.
3)if you bank into the dead engine you might over bank, increase Vmc and lose controll of the airplane.

The other guys dont teach that and say that it doesnt matter what side you turn. Actually one guy wants you to turn into bad engine so we turn faster. Correct me if i am teaching wrong or they are teaching wrong. Thanks in advance.
 
I agree with the other guy somewhat- If you bank into the dead engine you do turn faster(maybe faster than you want!)
Seriously in many situations where you come screaming into the pattern with extra speed and altitude it probably wont matter, but if performance is an issue and we are trying to climb after an engine failure shortly after takeoff, the reasons you listed are all good and students need to be thinking about that. In most light twins you may very well need every bit of help you can get.
 
Your scenario specified "straight ahead to the runway".

At this point, you are already reducing power to achieve a reasonable speed for landing, so banking isn't an issue. Just maintain control and don't forget the gear.
 
The reasons I give them is 1)banking into the good engine, you compensate for asymmetrical thrust. 2) For every 1degree of bank into the good engine you decrease the Vmc by 3 kts. 3)if you bank into the dead engine you might over bank, increase Vmc and lose control of the airplane.

All of these are correct, however to do this is kind of like keeping a ball along the side of a bowl, instead of at the bottom, it's natural resting-place. Your reasons are the FAA line. Like all things fed, they address the lowest common denominator (read that as morons), not reality.

In all reality, you are probably teaching people with atleast a little talent. Once you have it under control, and you have some airspeed to spare, there is nothing wrong with a turn into the dead engine. Don't use rudder to do it!!! That will lead to bad things.

With that said, if you are compensating correctly, and it seems it is taking all available power to maintain altitude, don't turn at all... much less into the bad engine. This of course depends on conditions such at loading, atmosphere, etc.

Later on, when you get to jets, the first rule is to do nothing. That is, don't start pushing buttons and grabbing switches at the first sign of trouble. You can do much more harm by acting incorrectly, than if you just fly the airplane and let thing settle a little. There are very few things in a jet that will kill you if you don't jump right on it. This is especially true after you put the correct amount of rudder in after an engine failure.

Although you may not know yourself right now, try to teach your prospective pros what may be ahead of them. Taking a moment to catch your breath in an emergency is always a good idea, especially since it will transfer quite well further down the line.

Best of luck. I think it is really great you asked this question. Few people take the time to check-out an opinion they don't agree with. Keep it up!
 
Too much info?

In my opinion thats just one more thing for them to negotiate during their emergency... and not worth trying to train them on. Train them to do turns on the good and bad engine and you shouldn't have a problem in either direction. If you fly the pattern with the 'inside' engine operating it also makes it harder to get established onto final approach. With a wind that is coming from the operating engine side.... or if you have a tailwind on base this problem gets amplified. Do you want them now to go around on one engine?

I regularly fail the inside engine from downwind to base and base to final as they're banking. Gives new meaning to the term over-banking tendancy. Its something they have to see though. As long as you are training them adequately it wouldn't matter much.

Besides, as the other guy said, if you're straight in it doesn't matter. If not then it assumes you had a failure on upwind because thats the only place where a decision could still be made about left or right traffic. At that point you probably don't want them too far from the runway so by turning once things were in order would presumably save them some distance over having to think then request a certain pattern.

good luck
 
Thanks a lot for replaying to my post.
 
um...faa tells you to bank into operating engine to correct slipstream condition, but...something to consider.

i took my commercial multi late last year in a duchess (counter-rotating). i took my private multi 10 years ago in an apache (critical engine). during my commercial oral, the de asked me if i had any critical engine time...i told him 40 hours in an apache. going over critical engine questions, he gave me an actual scenario in florida where a mei crashed and killed his student during a simulated engine failure on the non-critical (right) engine. now the mei failed the right engine, but entered a right traffic pattern airport. now think about turning to base, then final in a right-hand pattern. even though the critical engine was turning (safer, right?) the right turn to base and final turned into inop engine. the plane vmc'd once during pattern, they recovered, the **CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED****CENSORED**ing idiot mei then let the plane vmc a second time, now lower than previous, and the plane crashed and burned. the de asked me what might have contributed to this. i told him vmc increase into inop engine and with bank- whatever the 3 kts per degree statistic. he agreed, then went on to say in a joking manner that your critical engine is the one operating.

single-engine performance in a twin is not something to joke around with. always be careful in this situation. also, an apache will just about climb to crash point with one engine operating.
 

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