Multiengine Training - Day 2

Today, class started at 10:00 AM. It was nice to sleep in a little bit and avoid most of the rush hour traffic. We did two hours in the simulator and two hours in the airplane. In the simulator, I went through every checklist, maneuver, and procedure; with exception of the Emergency Descent and Landings. The most difficult maneuver was the Vmc demonstration. It has a 16-step procedure (although some of the steps are setup or cleanup). The more interesting steps include:

• Slowly close the left throttle
• Bank 2 to 5 degrees into the operating engine
• Rudder to maintain directional control
• Slowly increase right throttle to full throttle
• Slowly pitch up to lose 1 knot per second
• Recover at the first indication of stall - horn, buffet, or loss of directional control
• Reduce pitch and power simultaneously
• Reapply full power on right engine and add rudder to maintain directional control
• Maintain 88 KIAS - blueline
• Bring throttles together slowly

This maneuver can be intimidating, when you think about it. Basically, it is a power-on stall with some serious yawing force - the exact formula for putting an airplane into a spin. Not surprisingly, the recovery is very similar to a spin recovery. The reason for the difficulty is the amount of pressure one must apply to the rudder throughout the maneuver. The springs on the simulator are very heavy and after a while, my leg started to tremble from the effort.

After two hours, we grabbed our flight bags and headed for the flight line. The flight today started with a departure towards Chesterfield County Airport (KFCI). Along the way, we climbed to 7,500 feet to get above most of the scattered clouds and turbulence, and to find some cooler tempertures. We went through all the required maneuvers, then setup for the Vmc demo. I think I did at least four of them - each getting better than the previous, but not quite right. It's hard to remember to keep rudder pressure in when pulling the power to idle. It is just a natural reaction to remove all yawing forces during a stall recovery. As in the simulator, my leg started to get tired from holding right rudder pressure. At one point, I couldn't discern whether the tremble I was feeling was stall buffet or just my leg twitching. :-)

And then we did the ultimate procedure in a twin-engine airplane - we shut down the left engine. Not only did we shut it down, we feathered the propeller, which streamlines it, allows it to stop rotating, and reduces the drag from the spinning blades. It is a very odd sensation to look out the window and see the propeller just sitting there quietly. Then we went through the air start procedure and brought the engine back to life. Unfeathering the propeller is pretty cool. The blades slowly begin to twist from the streamlined position to a higher pitch. Then they start to spin - slowly at first - as the wind catches them. To increase their speed, I pitched down and accelerated to 120 knots. Once they started spinning rapidly, the engine came back to life on its own and that nice, comfortable feeling returned.

After one more Vmc demonstration, we descended to 2,500 feet and I went under the hood for some instrument practice. My instructor vectored me for the ILS approach at KFCI and I flew it to the missed approach point, then continued into the published hold.

The flight wrapped up with a full ILS approach back into KRIC, with direction from Potomac Approach. Just to keep things challenging, my instructor set the throttle on the left engine to a "neutral" setting (no thrust, no drag) to simulate a dead engine with the propeller feathered. As I struggled to configure the plane properly and stay on the localizer, I completely lost track of the glide slope. My instuctor pointed this out to me and I added full throttle on the right engine to climb back to the glide slope. At decision height, I removed the hood and landed the plane. The landing got easier as the power was removed from the operating engine, eliminating the yawing factor and the need for right rudder pressure.

Back on the ground, my instructor filled in my logbook and we called it a day. Tomorrow, I start early at 8:00 AM with more simulator and airplane time.