VMC roll on video

[Doc]

I won't mention Air France because it makes airline pilots hissy.

Only the biggest phuque in the history of airline flying. I'll never feel safe in the back of an airliner again. Certainly I'll never fly Air France, or an Airbus. But, we were talking about VMC loss of control. Even the nitwits at Air France didn't manage to pull that off.

[Big Pistons Forever]

You know, another thing nobody has mentioned is the "partial" engine failure. If an engine has totally calved, it causes nothing but drag, and should be taken out of the equation ASAP....BUT......there's always a "BUT" isn't there? WHAT IF the failed engine is still producing thrust? On pistons, check your MP. If it's gone to barometric, it's most likely toast, but if it's still pulling 18 inches or so, it's still pulling at least some of it's weight?(In the case of something like a Navajo etc, losing the "blower" can feel like an engine failure, when you're just gone to a normally aspirated engine on one side) At least it's better than if you feathered it. What to do? If you have the time to notice this, (and you well may not) you might want to let help out, at least till you have a safe amount of air under your ass, and a comfortable number on your ASI?
Thoughts on this one?

With respect to engine failures on non turbo charged twins the MP is not a lot of use identifying the failure as the dead engine will show basically the same MP as the live engine at full throttle and the RPM will also be high as the prop will be windmilling on the low pitch stop. The best indication is the EGT. The EGT on the dead engine will almost instantly drop to the bottom of the scale when the fire goes out.

You do raise an extremely good point and one hardly ever mentioned in ME training. For every real total sudden engine failure I bet there are 3 partial engine failures

The other scenario that seldom gets mentioned is the surging engine. I can say from personal experience this can be quite disconcerting as the airplane will yaw from side to side as the engine cuts in and out so it will not be immediately obvious which engine is the problem. This is definitely a case where you do not want fast hands and the best initial action is to use the MP gauge to identify the surging engine and then partially retard the throttle on it as a surging engine will often run fine at a lower power setting. This was exactly what happened to me. As soon as I pulled the engine back to about 65 % power it settled down and ran normally allowing an uneventful return to the departure runway.

Finally a study in the US indicated that up to 80 % of all engine failures in piston singles were directly caused by the actions or in actions of the pilot. Contaminated/mis-selected fuel figured very prominently in the EFATO accident stats. Aircraft taking off with known engine faults were also a shockingly high percentage of engine failures caused by a mechanical failure.

I wonder how many of those hero pilots who had a EFATO in a piston twin and lived to tell the tale of their derring do, had a 100% preventable engine failure......

[pelmet]

It seems to happen over a period of 5 seconds or so. Note to self, if this occurs to me, in the time available, reduce power on the good engine. Better to crash wings level than in a spin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqmomTUVsAw

It looks like this is what the pilot of this Cougar decided to do.

I have a few hours on the Cougar. It is a big aircraft yet the engines are only 160 hp per side. With just two on board on a warm sea level day, with partial fuel, it performed fairly well on one engine shut down in cruise flight. In the case below, he would have had cool weather, only one person on board, unknown fuel and payload but.....well above sea level. Who knows the full story about how things went initially after the failure but....in the end, only minor injuries...

"C-GVTB, a privately operated Grumman GA-7, was conducting a flight from Olds-Didsbury
(CEA3), AB with one pilot on board. After take-off on Runway 28, and approximately 1.0 NM
northwest of CEA3, there was a complete loss of engine power on the left engine (AVCO
LYCOMING, O-320-D1D). The pilot elected to force land the aircraft straight ahead. On ground
contact C-GVTB contacted a copse of trees and substantial damage was incurred to the nose
gear, left engine and propeller (HARTZELL, HC-F2YL-2UF), tail section and both wing surfaces.
The pilot sustained minor injuries and an ELT signal was received by the Joint Rescue
Coordination Centre (JRCC) Trenton. The owner will report to TSB findings for the loss of power."