It just so happened that I had just finished my second multi-engine training flight of the day, and I was getting ready for the third. Boy, the weather could not have been more desirable. It was a few days after a cold front had passed, and the winds were finally dying down, the temperature was ideal, and it was clear and a million. My student—Brian, who had become a close friend during his training—was in a rush to add a multi-engine rating to his commercial pilot certificate, and I was fully prepared to get him there as fast as he could keep up. My streak of recommending students who were successful in passing their checkrides was at 28—and I wanted to keep counting.
At this point, we were in the checkride prep stage. The final few flights were to be mock checkrides. After all the necessary pre-flight planning, we took off and headed east out of Central Texas’ Georgetown Municipal Airport (GTU) and climbed to our go-to training altitude of 5,500 feet. He could not have flown steep turns, stalls or slow flight more perfectly—I’m talking textbook. I could tell that he had spent a lot of time chairflying since our previous flight.
If you are multi-engine rated, you might recall that your flight training, and subsequent checkride, both had a huge emphasis on emergency procedures. If you intend on passing a multi-engine checkride, two things need to be absolutely perfect. I’m, of course, referring to engine failures and Vmc Demonstration.
The point of the Vmc Demonstration is to recognize and recover from a loss of directional control with the critical engine inop. This maneuver is practiced at a safe altitude, and its purpose is to show that with an excess of asymmetric thrust and insufficient airspeed, the plane will lose directional control as the control surfaces become less effective as airflow around them slows. Eventually, they cannot provide enough force to combat the effect of all of the thrust coming from one side. If the loss of directional control is not recovered from immediately, it can result in an unrecoverable Vmc roll.
We had had some success in these tasks during our flight, but I could tell that the understanding wasn’t all there, and he was just going through the motions without putting it all together. Brian was also adding his multi-engine instrument rating on the same test. Doing so is optional, and it requires the applicant to perform a single-engine instrument approach. It is generally considered one of the hardest tasks to complete successfully.
We were getting set up for the RNAV 36 LPV back into Georgetown from the initial approach fix EWETU. The approach checklist was accomplished quickly and accurately, and before we knew it, we were cleared and inbound on the approach. A few miles before the Final Approach Fix, I simulated an engine failure by pulling the right engine throttle to idle. I watched as he struggled to get through the engine outflow while trying to maintain aircraft control with one engine inoperative and with a view-limiting device on—not an easy thing to do!
Eventually, Brian got the aircraft under control, configured at the appropriate time, and was descending with the glideslope. Every instrument pilot knows the importance of staying ahead of the aircraft, but only multi-engine pilots understand the difficulty of staying ahead of the plane when you have an engine that has failed while flying in IMC.
Brian was doing his best to stay centered on the LCDI and glideslope, but I watched him try to pitch up for the glideslope without adjusting power, which caused us to get low and dangerously slow. About 100 feet from the Decision Altitude, he realized the predicament we were in. It was at this point that he made a decision to briskly go full power in his “operative engine”—and I made the decision to take controls immediately. By setting full power, he could have sent the airplane into an inadvertent Vmc. There have been many deaths due to Vmc in real-world scenarios as well as training environments, so I knew how dangerous it could become and had to be on my toes to correct the misstep swiftly.
When we practice the Vmc Demonstration at altitude, the left engine is pulled to idle, the right engine is advanced to full power, and then we pitch up to lose airspeed at a safe rate of 1 knot per second. Eventually, the airplane gets slow enough where it cannot maintain a heading; this is the point where immediate recovery is necessary. Recovery includes a reduction in the angle of attack while simultaneously reducing power to idle. Reducing AOA increases airspeed while pulling the power to idle turns the airplane into a glider, which is not subject to the dangers of Vmc. Then power from the operative engine is reintroduced, and the airplane is pitched to establish best climb.
But our inadvertent Vmc came about a little bit differently that day. First, we got slow and then introduced the maximum asymmetric thrust. The potential Vmc roll can happen a lot faster this way!
The point that I’m trying to get across to current multi-engine pilots, as well as aspiring ones, is that you have to be extra vigilant when flying an airplane with more than one engine. You might think that you are a lot safer (which you are, in some ways), but the risks inherent in multi-engine airplanes can be extremely insidious if you are not careful.
I always joke that the biggest difference between a single-engine airplane and a multi-engine airplane is the number of engines they have! What I actually mean by that is that we have different options when we have an engine failure. In a single-engine airplane, your choices are pretty limited when you lose an engine. You simply pitch for best glide and hope you can find a suitable place to land. In a multi-engine airplane, you can usually make it to an airport, but you can also fatally lose control at any moment if you are not paying attention.
The first thing you need to do if you lose an engine while flying a multi-engine airplane is fly the plane. In other words, you need to pitch for best single-engine climb and make sure that the airplane doesn’t flip on you. Easier said than done! The plane is naturally wanting to roll and yaw one way or the other while you’re desperately trying to recall everything you need to do to keep you and your passengers alive.
I think that one of the problems with rushing to prepare for a checkride is that you don’t get a chance to really start correlating the different things that you learn. You get to the rote/memorization phase, but you don’t get a chance to tie it all together. I saw what was about to happen, safely allowed him to react incorrectly (without any real danger), and showed him what could happen. Every single-engine approach we did after that event was performed with a much higher sense of awareness. Approach speed was consistently maintained until short final, and glideslope was centered the entire way. Brian benefited from that flight by understanding the importance of vigilance with an engine inop as well as understanding the correlation between inoperative engines and real Vmc situations. And I can tell you—he will never do that again.
You may find yourself in a similar situation with either a real or simulated engine failure. The key thing to remember here is to be wary of how quickly you reintroduce the throttle, whether it be an attempt to get stabilized again or in the rare event of a single-engine go-around. The only effective way to be a safe multi-engine pilot is to practice to develop a strong understanding of the relationship between engine out procedures and Vmc recovery.
By the way, Brian passed his checkride with a glowing review from the examiner.
