I know the feeling about rusty, if I haven’t flown a twin for a month I sit on the kitchen chair repeating the mantra and the actions time after time. My wife tells people it’s old age.
Pilot_DAR wrote:
Doing Vmca testing for the DA42-L360
It’s not exactly on OEI but as you posted the pictures: How long has the plane been grounded after that flight and which checks did the CAA require before it could be airworthy again?
gallois wrote:
I know the feeling about rusty, if I haven’t flown a twin for a month I sit on the kitchen chair repeating the mantra and the actions time after time.
Do any of you guys use a sim to avoid or at least delay the rust? I’m using X-Plane with the BE58 (unfortunately there is no BE55 – which I fly – for X-Plane) and their excellent Tecnam T2006P. Thoughts?
Do any of you guys use a sim to avoid or at least delay the rust?
I can practice on each flight I do (ok when I don’t have passengers to avoid scaring them off) but somehow I’m lazy 
I did practice on xplane da62 during IRME training, but only for IR part. Somehow I don’t feel it’s helping on muscle memory, as there is no real effort on pedal and things are not really placed the same.
While not possible on a class rating (most class rating schools don’t use the SIM), during an ME/IR the ATO should be using the SIM to provide experience of realistic ‘insidious’ engine failure during an EFATO drill. A good SIM will provide a very good simulation of an MEP or MET failure which is not a stagey, obvious, catastrophic failure. In fact one might argue the simulated ‘instant’ EFATO used in a checkride, is potentially quite unrealistic, because if you did blow a connecting road and the engine seized, unless you are flying a free turbine, the feather mechanism is unlikely to work.
RobertL18C wrote:
because if you did blow a connecting road and the engine seized, unless you are flying a free turbine, the feather mechanism is unlikely to work
Which is why we study, and know our systems. For example: Piper PA-34-200, Emergency Procedures, Feathering Procedure:
“The propellers can be feathered only while the engine is rotating above 800 RPM. ….”
If the engine stops before you feather it, you’re not going to get it feathered. Otherwise, the props would feather every time you shut down the engines (and a PT6 landplane does, whether you select feather or not).
Malibuflyer wrote:
How long has the plane been grounded after that flight and which checks did the CAA require before it could be airworthy again?
It was never grounded, I was doing the certification testing for the IO-360 conversion to the DA-42. I shut down, feathered, unfeathered, and restarted many times for testing. Note the photo of the cockpit, DA42 mixture and propeller controls.
Off course if it does stop, the majority of the reason for feathering now goes away. I.e drag from windmilling.
Which is why we study, and know our systems.
I assume any ful kno this if they have an MEP :)
Pilot_DAR wrote:
“The propellers can be feathered only while the engine is rotating above 800 RPM. ….”
It’s 900rpm on the BE58
