Didn't want to hijack the Duke thread since I'm curious of what you think of the pilot and instructor in this video- I've been watching some of his content lately and happened across this one tonight so I thought I'd post it to continue on the conversation
Engine failure training in twin engine light aircraft
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Been a loooong time since I was an MEI, but yeah.
Some folks really shut the engine down, and some just simulate a failure by setting it for zero thrust.
I personally didn't shut the engine down..... Not much point in it. Plus, you lose a generator and some hydraulic stuff.... Just makes life more difficult if you can't get a restart. Got another engine and all, but Murphy's Law is a [censored].
And sometimes (often) fuel injected engines are hard to get restarted. Can get vapor lock easily. (I doubt that guy does the full shut down often. Probably just being dramatic for youtube.)
That DC-3 in a lot of these guy's videos is in my logbook. I probably have about 60 hours in that particular airplane (N143D-it was an Ozark plane, and we still had Ozark manuals in it, although by my time, it had probably been out of airlines service for at least 40 years.). Almost 25 years ago, I flew car parts in it for a freight place......
Somewhat along these lines, we would run the aux tanks dry before we switched.... Completely dry, the point of engine failure and such.... But the DC-3 didn't mind a bit. Switch tanks, hit the boost pumps and the engine would chug right back to life in about 5 seconds......
Some folks really shut the engine down, and some just simulate a failure by setting it for zero thrust.
I personally didn't shut the engine down..... Not much point in it. Plus, you lose a generator and some hydraulic stuff.... Just makes life more difficult if you can't get a restart. Got another engine and all, but Murphy's Law is a [censored].
And sometimes (often) fuel injected engines are hard to get restarted. Can get vapor lock easily. (I doubt that guy does the full shut down often. Probably just being dramatic for youtube.)
That DC-3 in a lot of these guy's videos is in my logbook. I probably have about 60 hours in that particular airplane (N143D-it was an Ozark plane, and we still had Ozark manuals in it, although by my time, it had probably been out of airlines service for at least 40 years.). Almost 25 years ago, I flew car parts in it for a freight place......
Somewhat along these lines, we would run the aux tanks dry before we switched.... Completely dry, the point of engine failure and such.... But the DC-3 didn't mind a bit. Switch tanks, hit the boost pumps and the engine would chug right back to life in about 5 seconds......
I envy your experience in the DC-3. I've never had the chance to actually fly one, though I've sat in the cockpit a few times. I love the era. Love the mechanical nature of the thing.
My flight training was a lot different than the video. The conduct strikes me as haphazard, sloppy, even. All of it, the brief, the conduct, the flying seems, well amateurish...
My flight training was a lot different than the video. The conduct strikes me as haphazard, sloppy, even. All of it, the brief, the conduct, the flying seems, well amateurish...
I think there's a real big variance in the professionalism of flight instructors.
I did the local airport stuff all the way through instrument/ multi/ commercial..... And then I went to FSI in Vero Beach for my instructor ratings. The difference was amazing. Pre flight briefings and post flight briefings and simulators and all..... It was in the late 90s, and it was a very good place to be at the time. They geared things toward those of us who wanted to work for airlines. A very structured environment. Most important thing I learned about instructing is that a student doesn't learn well if you are talking then through something new while they are trying to do it. It's much better to talk about stuff in a low pressure briefing room, let them go do stuff and then talk about how they did. (That's the way airlines do it too....). All this garbage of a lot of instructors who don't start talking until the engines start turning is real BS.....
The DC 3 stuff sounds fun, but it wasn't. The plane was in real rough shape and we flew through very sketchy weather in the middle of the night mostly. I actually left that job to become a CFI.... Figured I would live longer. (Place I flew for drilled a DC4 into a store off the end of a runway while I was there.... I think that one probably was a missed control lock. I don't remember us even having written checklists.... Yeah. It was sketchy.). I've always been risk averse. I don't like just blasting off and buzzing around. Checklists, procedures, and careful preparation make aviation a lot safer.
It is nice to see the plane all restored now. Real cool that it's still flying.
I did the local airport stuff all the way through instrument/ multi/ commercial..... And then I went to FSI in Vero Beach for my instructor ratings. The difference was amazing. Pre flight briefings and post flight briefings and simulators and all..... It was in the late 90s, and it was a very good place to be at the time. They geared things toward those of us who wanted to work for airlines. A very structured environment. Most important thing I learned about instructing is that a student doesn't learn well if you are talking then through something new while they are trying to do it. It's much better to talk about stuff in a low pressure briefing room, let them go do stuff and then talk about how they did. (That's the way airlines do it too....). All this garbage of a lot of instructors who don't start talking until the engines start turning is real BS.....
The DC 3 stuff sounds fun, but it wasn't. The plane was in real rough shape and we flew through very sketchy weather in the middle of the night mostly. I actually left that job to become a CFI.... Figured I would live longer. (Place I flew for drilled a DC4 into a store off the end of a runway while I was there.... I think that one probably was a missed control lock. I don't remember us even having written checklists.... Yeah. It was sketchy.). I've always been risk averse. I don't like just blasting off and buzzing around. Checklists, procedures, and careful preparation make aviation a lot safer.
It is nice to see the plane all restored now. Real cool that it's still flying.
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Originally Posted by Astro14
My flight training was a lot different than the video. The conduct strikes me as haphazard, sloppy, even. All of it, the brief, the conduct, the flying seems, well amateurish...
Interested to hear what about their conduct was haphazard?
My flight training was a lot different than the video. The conduct strikes me as haphazard, sloppy, even. All of it, the brief, the conduct, the flying seems, well amateurish...
Interested to hear what about their conduct was haphazard?
In Canada you have to shut down and restart during training. Required by Transport Canada. It's stupid. It gets cold here. No one is a big fan of shutting down a piston when it's -20C.
Originally Posted by The_Eric
Originally Posted by Astro14
My flight training was a lot different than the video. The conduct strikes me as haphazard, sloppy, even. All of it, the brief, the conduct, the flying seems, well amateurish...
Interested to hear what about their conduct was haphazard?
Sorry, missed this question earlier.
The brief was superficial.
Short on details.
Short on time.
Lots of worthless words like "standard". The instructor conveyed little information, while presuming much about the student.
During the flight, communication was less than precise. This was two guys acting for a camera, trying hard to look cool and sound cool.
They failed on both counts.
I don't have time to go into detail, but watch a real brief, done by professionals, and you'll instantly see the difference.
Originally Posted by Astro14
My flight training was a lot different than the video. The conduct strikes me as haphazard, sloppy, even. All of it, the brief, the conduct, the flying seems, well amateurish...
Interested to hear what about their conduct was haphazard?
Sorry, missed this question earlier.
The brief was superficial.
Short on details.
Short on time.
Lots of worthless words like "standard". The instructor conveyed little information, while presuming much about the student.
During the flight, communication was less than precise. This was two guys acting for a camera, trying hard to look cool and sound cool.
They failed on both counts.
I don't have time to go into detail, but watch a real brief, done by professionals, and you'll instantly see the difference.
Originally Posted by FastLane
In Canada you have to shut down and restart during training. Required by Transport Canada. It's stupid. It gets cold here. No one is a big fan of shutting down a piston when it's -20C.
No, but when you're in -20 to -40, you sure have some nice lift at least.
Throttling down a piston is bad enough to drop cabin temperatures enough to get someone like me, who is a baby about the cold, annoyed.
In Canada you have to shut down and restart during training. Required by Transport Canada. It's stupid. It gets cold here. No one is a big fan of shutting down a piston when it's -20C.
No, but when you're in -20 to -40, you sure have some nice lift at least.
Offutt AFB Nebraska, winter 1972. Cherokee 140 at about 3000 feet. Instructor turned it off and removed the key! Told me to find a place to put it. Well I was scared to death and screwed it up royally. We restarted and went home. And I waited, on guard every minute till he did it again a few months later. I was ready and I, no fooling, was going to put that thing into a cornfield if he was late with this shenanigan! Who knows, maybe it does cut a deep enough groove in your brain to be worthwhile. But sheer terror I can live without.
Originally Posted by DeepFriar
Offutt AFB Nebraska, winter 1972. Cherokee 140 at about 3000 feet. Instructor turned it off and removed the key! Told me to find a place to put it. Well I was scared to death and screwed it up royally. We restarted and went home. And I waited, on guard every minute till he did it again a few months later. I was ready and I, no fooling, was going to put that thing into a cornfield if he was late with this shenanigan! Who knows, maybe it does cut a deep enough groove in your brain to be worthwhile. But sheer terror I can live without.
Sounds like a standard flight in a T-34C (the Navy's first airplane for new pilots back when I went through training. A single engine). You knew that on every flight, the instructor would set a torque that approximated the drag of a feathered prop and tell you to pick a place. Often, it was near an abandoned, or lightly used, airfield, and you were expected to intercept the engine failure profile (high key, low key, final, as appropriate) and fly an approach the that field.
Offutt AFB Nebraska, winter 1972. Cherokee 140 at about 3000 feet. Instructor turned it off and removed the key! Told me to find a place to put it. Well I was scared to death and screwed it up royally. We restarted and went home. And I waited, on guard every minute till he did it again a few months later. I was ready and I, no fooling, was going to put that thing into a cornfield if he was late with this shenanigan! Who knows, maybe it does cut a deep enough groove in your brain to be worthwhile. But sheer terror I can live without.
Sounds like a standard flight in a T-34C (the Navy's first airplane for new pilots back when I went through training. A single engine). You knew that on every flight, the instructor would set a torque that approximated the drag of a feathered prop and tell you to pick a place. Often, it was near an abandoned, or lightly used, airfield, and you were expected to intercept the engine failure profile (high key, low key, final, as appropriate) and fly an approach the that field.
Just an aside after jcountry's mention of the DC-3..... I had occasion to speak with the Basler Aviation line manager last month about their airplane and transition training. I thanked him again for their work on "That's All Brother". I asked about their current production on the remanned DC-3's, the BT-67 with the P&W -67's if memory serves (other converters seem to use -65's, don't know why but -65AR's have much longer intervals). Turnaround, order to delivery, is currently at about one year and the price is...wait for it.... $9M ! (Interestingly that is the published price for a loaded Viking Twin Otter 400 but the BT-67 has a five ton payload ) They have complete PMA authority for the aircraft which I guess means you *could* start with just a data plate and build it with all new parts. They don't but he laughed when I asked him. With them repeatedly saying there are 40,000 labor hours in the conversion, and that $9M price, it had made me wonder what it would be to just take the parts out of stock and build the darn thing rather than pounding out every hail dent, FOD bang, etc. etc.
I was honored to fly the DC3 "Flagship Detroit" with my late friend. He was part of the foundation and we were able to arrange a static display at Jet Aviation PBI events a few times. Nothing like flying. 70 year old aircraft. Great fun.
Originally Posted by Cujet
I was honored to fly the DC3 "Flagship Detroit" with my late friend. He was part of the foundation and we were able to arrange a static display at Jet Aviation PBI events a few times. Nothing like flying. 70 year old aircraft. Great fun.
That one does look very nice. Probably the prettiest one still flying!
I was honored to fly the DC3 "Flagship Detroit" with my late friend. He was part of the foundation and we were able to arrange a static display at Jet Aviation PBI events a few times. Nothing like flying. 70 year old aircraft. Great fun.
That one does look very nice. Probably the prettiest one still flying!
You said it!
I'm resurrecting this thread to correct some misconception and defend the instructor in the short video.
Since 1993, it has been a requirement by the FAA in the PTS (practical test standards) to demonstrate an inflight engine shut down, and engine re-start.
Indeed, this can in and of itself create a real single engine emergency if the shut down engine won't restart. BTDT...
I typically won't do but two deliberate engine shutdowns during m/e training. One demo, and second during preparation for check ride, while doing a practice check-ride. STRICT ADHERENCE TO EFFECTIVE HOT START PROCEDURE IMPERATIVE.
One of my pet peeves is that many young instructors don't understand the difference in a windmilling engine and zero-thrust. My inexperienced MEI, when I was doing my rating would set the manifold pressure in the Aztec I was flying to 12" to simulate a failed/shutdown engine. No wonder it wouldn't climb above 2,000' (5,000' dens.alt.) and it wouldn't trim out the rudder to counter asymmetrical thrust and I couldn't walk later from holding the rudder pedal against the stop....It takes about 17" with most higher hp twins (Barons, 300-400 series Cessnas, Aztec/Navajos) to simulate zero thrust.
In a recent annual recurrency (IPC required by Insurance carrier) the MEI (well known trainer/movie stunt pilot) had me do engine shut down /feather, then VMC demo and LANDING in a Cessna 421 with a SHUT DOWN ENGINE. He wanted me to appreciate just how good the plane would perform due to the Micro Vortex VG kit it has. (It stalls, before it will roll due to shut down engine. No redline! Vmc-se.).
I don't go to him anymore...
Since 1993, it has been a requirement by the FAA in the PTS (practical test standards) to demonstrate an inflight engine shut down, and engine re-start.
Indeed, this can in and of itself create a real single engine emergency if the shut down engine won't restart. BTDT...
I typically won't do but two deliberate engine shutdowns during m/e training. One demo, and second during preparation for check ride, while doing a practice check-ride. STRICT ADHERENCE TO EFFECTIVE HOT START PROCEDURE IMPERATIVE.
One of my pet peeves is that many young instructors don't understand the difference in a windmilling engine and zero-thrust. My inexperienced MEI, when I was doing my rating would set the manifold pressure in the Aztec I was flying to 12" to simulate a failed/shutdown engine. No wonder it wouldn't climb above 2,000' (5,000' dens.alt.) and it wouldn't trim out the rudder to counter asymmetrical thrust and I couldn't walk later from holding the rudder pedal against the stop....It takes about 17" with most higher hp twins (Barons, 300-400 series Cessnas, Aztec/Navajos) to simulate zero thrust.
In a recent annual recurrency (IPC required by Insurance carrier) the MEI (well known trainer/movie stunt pilot) had me do engine shut down /feather, then VMC demo and LANDING in a Cessna 421 with a SHUT DOWN ENGINE. He wanted me to appreciate just how good the plane would perform due to the Micro Vortex VG kit it has. (It stalls, before it will roll due to shut down engine. No redline! Vmc-se.).
I don't go to him anymore...
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