I mainly fly a twin because I’m afraid of singles. It might not be rational, but there it is. And I can tell you exactly what it was that made me that – night flying over LA. Lots of lights, roads, but almost nowhere to set it down except for a freeway where you’d be risking a lot of peoples lives. So I thought the minute I can afford a twin, that’s what I’m getting.
But in the US so it’s a slightly different cost situation. I can see how a high performance piston twin in Europe is a real expensive endeavor. Just a fillup is like £1000. I understand why they’re not more popular there. But let’s face it – twins are not popular anywhere. I’m giving mine away and the market is completely shot. Don’t think it will ever come back. People are willing to pay good money for anything single engine, but next to nothing for a twin. I was looking at Piper Cub prices the other day and almost had a heart attack. I can get five twins for the price of one of those..
If a twin is in your sights, there’s never been a better time to get into one. You can fly for probably thousands of hours before you’ve spent as much money as you’d do on a fancy single like a SR22. Or a Super Cub.
The real bargain in Europe seems to be the TP twin, however. They’re at least 4-10 times cheaper than any single TP to get into, if you can stomach that they’re a little older. It’ll take a complete engine overhaul cycle before you’ve recouped that capital cost. And cost about the same to refuel as a piston (and you can get fuel anywhere). Yet, few takers. Often the above 2000kg Eurocontrol enroute charges are mentioned, but that’s pennies compared to what you’d save on acquisition costs. I think there sometimes a mental barrier involved with twins. It’s like if you hear secondhand hangar talk enough times, it becomes the truth.
I just got the MEP rating back in May and now almost have the IR ME. I’ll be passing the skill test shortly.
What motivated me was availability of modern aircraft with ditto engines, FiKi, turbo, climb ability and range, which would allow me to complete flights during winter more reliably.
The other motivator was that I wanted a new challenge or experience. Getting some flight training at an ATO, polishing off some bad habits and acquiring some better ones was also a factor.
Time will tell how much twin flying I will actually do. A year back I tried to acquire a third share of a DA42 which ended up being withdrawn from the market. I also tried buying a DA42 with a friend from the DFA auction. I may try setting up a group, but I suspect that the interest is relatively low and there are not that many IR ME rated pilots around. So renting is the most likely scenario.
There is a very simple reason that makes me stay away from multi engine piston planes: you have double the trouble with the engines. Most piston airplane issues are around the engines and if you have double everything (engines, sensors, pumps, etc.), you will have a lot more headache. Even a SEP is hard to operate on a zero squawk basis, there’s always something that isn’t quite right. Together with dismal OEI performance — no thank you.
Adam you hit the nail on the head. Filling an MEP in Europe today causes sticker shock. About fifteen to twenty years ago there was a sweet spot where MEPs were relatively cheap, fifteen to twenty years younger, and you could visit Dublin International or Milan Linate with minimal charges (both airways and handling/parking), fill up with Avgas that was duty free (around a $ a litre), and generally operate an MEP for the equivalent of a business class return fare.
The MEPs were half or a third of the price of an equivalent 210, and arguably cheaper than today’s values.
Since then the lo-cost industry has arrived, metropolitan airports with ATC/Radar and ILS charge eye popping rates, and fuel and airways charges make running an MEP in Europe the equivalent of operating a King Air in the US. And the aircraft are twenty years older, with in some cases interesting airframe issues.
Why the Super Cub enjoys a premium am not sure, perhaps because of its cult status in Alaska. Around a quarter of the PA-18s, and their close cousin the PA-12, have made their way to AK. Also the four new PA-18 look a like producers plus the Husky, represent a decent proportion of new GA SEP annual production. So the type is well supported. For puttering around an Aeronca Chief/Champ will be just as pleasant for a fraction of the cost.
achimha wrote:
Together with dismal OEI performance — no thank you.
I’ve flown light twins in training in OEI conditions quite a lot and, at least it feels that way, more often than with both :) And I do think the “dismal OEI performance” is hugely excagarated by those who don’t want or can not afford that step. Well, I can’t either but I won’t deny a few facts about those planes.
I mostly flew Senecas. For the Seneca I you are mostly right, it has a single engine ceiling of some 4000 ft, which is ok in places like northern Germany or the Netherlands but not of much use in the Alps. The Twin Commanche has a single engine service ceiling of around 6000 ft, also not much better.
The turbo Seneca II and III have about 14’000 ft and the Turbo Twin Commanche is up at 19000 ft with one fan stopped, which is much more useful. But even then, nobody will try to climb over the mountains with one engine out, but it is a difference of quite some significance if you can actually maintain 14’000 ft in IMC over such a terrain or have to rely on your moving map to find a valley.
True, most light twins won’t climb very sportively with one engine out and all of them have a situation during take off where the failure of one engine will most likely have the same or, if not skillfully flown, worse consequences than a Single. However, that is where similarity ends.
Out of cruise, a Twin by definition is in a much better situation if a fan quits. Even the Seneca I will descend much slowlyer than a single with a windmilling prop. At typical training weights and with the “dead” engine at zero thrust, we usually saw a rate of descent of 200-300 fpm at, say, 10000 ft if flown at blue line and with the operating engine at full power. We were usually able to hold about 5000 to 6000 ft at these weights coming down. I don’t know about the Twin Commanche (non turbo) but I reckon it might be similar or better in a drift down scenario.
So if you cross the Alps at 16000 or 17000 ft in a Seneca I and loose an engine, you will descend but at a much slower rate than a single will. And that means valuable time and distance. It will take around 4-5 minutes to loose 1000 ft, increasing with descent. With a blue line speed of 105 mph / 95 kts, that means a drift down will cover about 6-7 NM per 1000 ft. Clearly, if you fly at 16000 ft over a 14000 ft MEA that gives you about 14 NM to get out of trouble which may not be enough, but if you fly over a more moderate terrain with MEA of maybe 5-6000 ft, you have quite considerable maneuvering distance available and once you reach the altitude you can maintain, will be in a quite good position to land on a suitable airport.
With a Turbo Seneca or Turbo TwinCom the situation is very different. Here an engine failure after reaching a safe height after departure will in almost any situation allow you to continue flight and land at a suitable airport, either back at the departure point or, enroute, at a suitable alternate. Even over high ground with MEA’s of 14’000 ft or so, overflying that with 2000 to 4000 ft above will result in a drift down rate of descent which will in most cases allow an escape, which clearly has to be planned.
Over water, the single engine performance almost does not count at all in terms of obstacle clearance. In the case of the Seneca I and it’s rather limited range, longer over water flights are not very likely anyhow and the Twin Com has more than adequate fuel reserves. Clearly, flying OEI for prolonged periods of time is not very nice in any airplane, but the options are still very different than with a SEP.
Equally a OEI light twin will beat any single when it comes to penetrate low stratus and the consequence of a failure with 1000 ft ceiling below are much less dramatic in such a case. The same goes for night flying.
Whether that is worth considering is for anyone to decide for himself. For myself, if I had the financial means, I would not hesitate long. But for what I do normally, I can live with the limitations of a SEP.
Living on an island and when going places always facing 100NM of sea made me choose a twin. Although it took me a while to choose between the SR22 (parachute) and the DA42. Both have their pluses and minuses which are of course very individually driven. The SR22 is clearly faster, but speed is not a priority for me. If people have a high enough budget to buy a new or used modern aircraft, a DA42 really starts to make sense. The overall cost are roughly the same as a SR22.
As to One Engine Inoperative performance, its not as bad as Achim suggests. Of course, if you are stretching the operative limits and get an engine failure right after rotation, you may have to spend some time avoiding church towers before you can return to the field. But this window of danger lasts just 10 seconds or so. Reliability of the Diesels has been very high for me, so I’m not too uptight about this window of danger. Plus the OEI handling characteristics of the DA42 are benign, given the relatively short distance between the engine thrust line and the fuselage center line, and the relatively low engine power. Maintenance on the Diesels has been fine for me. Very predictable, just changing out certain components at certain intervals, no surprises in between.
Having said all this, Cirrus sells a lot more SR22’s than Diamond sells DA42’s to private operators! Diamond makes their money selling to flight schools and to governments for surveillance tasks.
And I do think the “dismal OEI performance” is hugely excagarated by those who don’t want or can not afford that step.
This has always been my impression too.
Why do I fly twins? Because I fly commercially and in this part of the world, the rulemakers (still) insist on more than one engine for all-weather public transport. For good reasons of you ask me.
Privately, I would not fly twins because of the high cost and environmental impact (yes, I fly for a living but still care for this kind of stuff) and instead raise my minimum weather requirements to a level at which I feel comfortable in a single.
The problem with these endless “single vs twin” threads is that you never get a balanced debate.
The number of people with real world experience of flying and operating twins (who will have also flown singles and therefore can give a balanced view) is very small.
While on the other hand you have hundreds of SEP pilots who will tell you that a twin is twice as expensive, twice as dangerous, won’t climb OEI, and so on, and a lot of them don’t even have a basic MEP rating, and are just regurgitating what they have read elsewhere on the internet…
It would be interesting to see a “Twins vs Singles” debate thread where people were only allowed to post if that had X hours experience of operating both, and see what the conclusion was then.
The problem with these endless “single vs twin” threads is that you never get a balanced debate.
Define “balanced debate”. EuroGA is a polite and quite technical forum so we get pretty good discussions which are mainly informative.
It would be interesting to see a “Twins vs Singles” debate thread where people were only allowed to post if that had X hours experience of operating both, and see what the conclusion was then.
I think you can work that out easily enough 
However, to be fair, people are entitled to express why they are not flying a SE or not flying a ME. Spending X hundreds of k should not be a required qualification for participation in the discussion
For myself, I could say I am not flying ME because until very recently there was no “modern” option. I was looking at the DA42 seriously about the time Mr Thielert had extremely comprehensively p1ssed on the Diamond bonfire. Today, the DA42 would feature strongly if I was entering the IFR tourer market. Plus I would be naturally N-reg (for me, many advantages) and I would need to re-do all my FAA+EASA paperwork to ME, which raises the entry barrier (mainly hassle). I would have ended up with an EASA SE+ME PPL+IR if I did the conversion at Egnatia, LGKV, Greece, but after much consideration of the very balanced pros and cons and two visits there I did not go there because I was not happy with certain aspects of their operation (starting with, ahem, their “procedures” for answering emails 
). The FAA checkride issue in Europe is also a big hassle nowadays so I would have to go to the USA to get that done. So… that would be my reply to the original Q.
I think one of the issues is that many people flying MEPs only do so for training purposes and your typical training twin engine aircraft is a bit clapped out and usually a type with poor climb performance OEI. It isn’t true universally although in almost all a good technique is still needed to perform well on a single engine. One engine is also a help in cruise even if you can’t maintain altitude. I will take a drift down over a glide any day.
