PP-DQA wrote:
My instructor has over 100 hrs on the Skymaster, and he always said
that the problem with the Skymaster crashes were untrained piltos who
didn't take imemdiate actions when needed.

And he is absolutely right. But that's the problem with ALL light
twins. There is nothing inherently wrong with the airplane - except
that it doesn't meet the mission profile.

Many people will tell you that the only use of the second engine in a
light twin, should one fail, is to take you to the scene of the
accident. For those who will not invest in proper initial and
recurrent training, they are absolutely right, as the accident
statistics indicate. For those of us who take our flying seriously,
it's not that way. I once had an engine failure while IFR over the
mountains of Arkansas. I was VMC 500 ft above the tops. The bases
were low - the mountains were obscured. There was an Airmet Sierra for
the area where I was - and it covered a fairly large area. The terrain
was mostly mountains and trees. In a reasonably fast and hevay single
engine airplane (Centurion, Bonanza, Lance, etc.) it would have been
ugly. We might have lived - or not. The plane would have been a
writeoff for sure. But in my Twin Comanche, I flew out of the area and
made a normal landing at an airport, where I flushed the crud out of
the fuel system, cleaned the fuel injectors, cleaned up the corroded
plug that caused the problem, and was good as new. No fuss, no muss,
no drama. This is the benefit of the second engine, and to my way of
thinking it is no small benefit to the pilot who routinely goes places
over water or rough terrain, at night, and in IMC. However, the pilot
must invest significant time and effort into training in order to
realize this benefit. The average private twin owner will not make the
investment, and thus will not realize the benefit.

The purpose of the Skymaster was to provide this same benefit to pilots
not willing to invest the time and effort into training. It was meant
to be easier than a conventional twin, and thus safer for the average
private twin pilot. It failed at the task completely - it is
statistically no safer than the conventional light twins. This is
because it requires no less training.

The important training for flying a light twin is not the fairly
trivial process of pressing hard on a rudder and keeping airspeed above
Vmc to keep it from rolling over. That may be what the FAA primarily
tests, but that's the easy part. The more important and demanding part
is systems management, energy management, and generally keeping your
options open and taking care of the equipment so it takes care of you.
Those things are no easier in a Skymaster than in a C-310.

Michael