I did it frequently with students for years, two to three times with each student.
The important thing is that we always had enough altitude and an airport to divert to if it didn’t restart. You should not just shut down an engine randomly without considering performance and having a plan if it doesn’t restart!
I disagree. But you gotta pick your time and place incase it doesn’t restart. And 100 horses isn’t going to fly that machine above a 7K density altitude. It’s just a nice Apache.
If I went through an entire multi-engine training course without ever actually shutting down an engine, I would feel my training was incomplete. I think the Vmc demonstrations are much more hazardous to accomplish.
I’m curious why a flight school that does high routine DA operations (KAPA is at 5884.9ft according to airnav) would operate such underpowered multi engine aircraft. That doesn’t make sense. Or was this not a flight school aircraft, just a (careless) instructor teaching a customer in his own aircraft? Don’t dogpile me for calling the instructor careless: DA calculations were something we did along with weight and balance and takeoff/landing performance before every single flight I did in flight school, even though it was often in the same aircraft and the same airport, so it’s carelessness that caused this crash when 5min of routine performance calculations and POH consultation would have thrown up a red flag “hey we’re going to be operating outside of this aircraft’s single engine performance limitations”. That’s the whole reason my instruction included drilling those routine low effort calculations into normal operation; it keeps stuff like this from happening.
2 replies
The report says the airplane belongs to “Aspen Flying Club.” I agree that the engine should never have been shut down while the single engine ceiling did not provide at least 1000 feet clearance over terrain.
KAPA even has a digital, real-time DA readout in the runup for 17L. It’s pretty hard to miss.
I did it at least a dozen times during training and TWICE during my CMEL checkride. That designee was a real pain and it was memorable because I had a lot of trouble getting a restart while 25-40 miles offshore of Long Beach, CA. I finally told him that I was not going to trade any more altitude for airspeed if the last attempt didn’t work, but would just fly back to the airport. I got a restart at about 500’ MSL. When we finally were ready to go home, he told me to do a shutdown again and I landed with one engine shut down/prop feathered. Well, I passed the checkride but was exhausted and a bit annoyed at the end of that day. To this day, I’m not at all worried about losing power in one engine.
I have flown in Colorado on hot days. The 182 was loosing manifold pressure with the increasing altitude. It’s just foolish to purposely shut down anything under those conditions.
We love our Tecnam P2006T, the most efficient certified aircraft manufactured but as a MEI I would never shut down an engine unless well within glide distance of an airport and better directly over one. The single engine service ceiling that day was 2500’ according to the AFM and no where near 7000’ mentioned in the article. The decent rate on a single engine at 7000’ at 78F is 108 fpm with a brand new aircraft, fully feathered and flown by a test pilot. A single engine out in these light twins should always be treated as an emergency and fly it as if both engines quit. The 2500’ single engine service ceiling on a hot Florida day will get you home across an expanse of water to a SEA LEVEL airport but certainly not across an expanse of the Rockies.
I was required to shut down an engine in a 310 on my checkride but that was at least 4000ft over 1000ft terrain and that particular aircraft had an unfeathering accumulator without which the examiner would have been content with a demonstration. I did a few shutdowns training on a four-engined turboprop but the company strictly prohibited that for twins. As the remaining Rotax on the Tecnam is sufficient to keep a Katana or similar-sized two-seater aloft it does not seem prudent to task it with pulling a much bigger airframe around.
Not defending the actions of the CFI in this case but I learned to fly in an old, tired C-150. It was underpowered in normal circumstances, especially with two fat boys on board. Underpowered aircraft make great trainers. You have to fly them, not rely on horsepower to bail you out.
That being said, I love horsepower!
And not to forget, they were not left with a 100 hp of pulling power from that one remaining running engine. Asymmetrical trust caused by the two engines being offset from the centerline, only one running probably give you less than 50 - 70% effective performance remaining. But you twin drivers knew that.
From the Private Pilot AIrman Certifications Standards:
PA.X.A.S5 Secure the inoperative engine and monitor the operating engine and make necessary adjustments.
PA.X.A.S6 Restart the inoperative engine using manufacturer’s restart procedures.
These are tasks required to be performed on the Practical Test for multi-enigne class rating.
According to the FAA ACS for multi engine instruction and check rides, shutting down and feathering an engine is recommended to have all securing tasks completed before going below 3000ft AGL. If unable to do so then simulation of engine failure is called for. That includes checking airplane performance with one engine out to verify it is possible to shut one down and still meet the 3000ft AGL recommendation. My ME instructor actually demonstrated a shutdown while we were over an airport in case it did not restart ( it did restart) . When I did my check ride the examiner did not have me shut one down, just did engine out simulations. Did my ride in a Seneca 1 which has a 3600ft single engine ceiling. The turbine equipment I have trained for had simulators for training so demonstrating engine shutdowns and restarts was a non-event. I think the instructor in this case goofed!
I guess you aren’t a CFI-ME because a full shutdown/feathering is a required ME rating item per the ACS. If your airplane can’t do that in the existing conditions, it’s not legal for the practical test.
Multi training in light twins is pretty useless unless you plan to only fly light twins. In almost every critical situation the safest course of action is to pull both throttles to idle and land straight ahead. Flying Transport Category multi engine aircraft is a completely different situation with sufficient reserve performance to actually continue a takeoff after an engine failure at V1 and continue safely. If the FAA really believed in ADM and mitigating risk, they would demand that all multi engine training be simulator based allowing for much better and much safer training.
1 reply
I agree that the P2006T needs a larger engine than the carbureted 912. But that would require either a gross weight increase or a significant drop in useful load. Larger engines would add about 80 pounds to the empty weight and the current useful load is not great. The cabin is roomy and there is plenty of baggage space, so the plane is easy to overload if not careful. Great plane, but engine performance is an issue.
Getting my ME and MEI inflight shutdowns were not unusual. We NEVER did these at a DA that would not allow us to climb, maybe at the rate of an overloaded C-150, but we could do it. Having to do it for real later on, I am really really glad it was not the first time.
I have never flown the Tecnam twin and have no desire to after reading the review in AOPA, at sea level its ability to climb seemed worse than a clapped-out Apache. It seems to be a quite marginal twin on a good day. Using one around Denver is nuts. I once flew a Duchess to Denver in the summer and our SE service ceiling was 2,000 feet below ground level. An engine failure there would have been an extended glide to someplace nice hopefully. You have essentially a single with 8 cylinders with half on each wing. No way is that Tecnam an appropriate airplane for training there and I would never have dreamed of trying a shutdown over that terrain in the Duchess.
If you are talking about engine failures while still on the runway, you are correct. The Duchess I got my ME in could accelerate to Vr and stop again in a little under 4,000 feet, an engine cut at Vr needed 11,000 feet to clear the proverbial 50 foot tree standard day. Needless to say you never trained anyone to try that. This is not bad training, it is how the airplane flies. If you want to train the V1 concept you need more power, so that comes in when the student moves up to such a plane, no use training someone to fly a Citation if they bought an Aztec.
You CAN train people in the concept of transport flying, you need to do this for 135 ops in even the lightest twin. The POH should give you what you need for balanced field calculations and climb rates on one engine. The most important first lesson I taught was by definition the SE climb rate is going to be bad because if it wasn’t the manufacturer is leaving gross weight and thus marketing on the table, they’ll set it higher and sell more planes. You as the pilot can very much work backwards from a desired SE climb rate to the weight you are comfortable with. This will lead you down the road to buying a turbocharged airplane for Denver too 