Curtis L. Olson writes: If things turn u
> [1] Blue line is the speed below which the rudder cannot overcome > the torque effects of a single engine and you can no longer have > directional control. I think that blue line is a bit higher than Vmc -- it's a speed where a typical pilot (rather than a highly-skilled test pilot under ideal conditions) might actually be able to control the plane. It's not mainly torque effects but the yawing moment that you have to worry about. Unless the plane is a centreline thrust, the good engine will be off to one side pulling that side forward and starting a yaw-induced roll (and if the bad one is not feathered, it will be dragging the far side back even further). In fact, if things start to go bad, the last-ditch solution is to cut the good engine as well -- if you do that in time, you can at least try a forced landing. A Navajo pilot over Winnipeg did that a couple of years ago in an apparently unsurvivable situation (low-altitude engine failure over a dense urban area) and managed to land on a busy city street with no fatalities, though some passengers suffered serious injuries including leg amputations). The plane somehow avoided killing anyone on the ground as well. That's actually the time you'd rather be in a single, because even a light twin is heavier and has a higher stall speed -- that means that you might have many times as much energy to dissipate in a forced landing. > I would guess that *many* designs (especially commercial jets) > would be much more survivable in those circumstances. And they'd > have the added advantage of having a real pilot at the > controls. :-) ... who, to keep their jobs, have to demonstrate those skills in a full-motion simulator twice a year with a DFE watching every move. I've noticed that many private multiengine pilots do recurrent training every six months as well (FlightSafety Intl. seems the place of choice) -- it's a big change from flying a single, and you have to be very, very current if you want to stay alive. All the best, David -- David Megginson, [EMAIL PROTECTED], http://www.megginson.com/ _______________________________________________ Flightgear-devel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mail.flightgear.org/mailman/listinfo/flightgear-devel
