twin-engine kits available

"jan olieslagers" wrote

Opinions are plenty, and cheap... But you asked, so here goes:
The single-engine rate-of-climb seems little relevant to me.
I always understood if one engine quits, the mission is
to come down safely, not to go up.

One of the biggest reasons that some people choose to pay for buying and
running an extra engine is so that they do not have to come down, in places
like over cold, killing water, and hard granite mountains at night.

So that means it can perhaps do one mission, partway. It should be able to
stay up over the ocean, with only a light load, perhaps. Rule out higher
large bodies of water.

For sure, rule out mountains in the night, and with a full load, hills in
the night, too.

Why bother with a twin, (paying for an extra engine, and its maintenance,
and feeding) if you have to crash in those types of bad places, just like
a single?

Shoot, even worse, with two engines, you double the odds that one will fail!
--
Jim in NC

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Rich S." wrote

Isn't that about like a DC-3? Now *there's* a failure as a design! )))

Is that so? Fuel load for around 4 hours of flight, and only one pilot on
board, and it can only do 400 FPM at 3000 feet?

Dunno. I would have thought it better than that.

I have to get up the road this morning so's I can do some praying, so I
don't have time to look up the engine-out specs on the DC-3. You could
probably find them he

http://www.centercomp.com/cgi-bin/dc3/gallery?25000

or he

http://www.douglasdc3.com/index.html

See ya,
Rich S.

On Jan 27, 12:32*am, "Morgans" wrote:
Anyone else have an opinion on the subject?

Yes, and unlike yours it's an informed opinion. 400 fpm climb at 3000
ft lightly loaded is normal performance for a light piston twin.
Single engine service ceiling for a twin is defined as the maximum
altitude where it can maintain a 50 fpm (not 100 fpm) rate of climb.
Most normally aspirated light piston twins have a single engine
service ceiling in the 4000-8000 ft range. The bigger ones can boast
impressive single engine performance when lightly loaded - but you
will pay for it with horriffic fuel burn.

The performance may seem marginal, but in fact the only time the
performance is marginal is when the engine failure occurs in the
climb, before a reasonable (not necessarily planned) cruising altitude
is reached. Driftdown is part of the knowledge any twin engine pilot
operating in anything other than flat, low terrain needs. Remember
that if you are only climbing at 50 fpm at 4000 ft, then you are
probably only descending at 100 fpm at 7000 while doing 80+ kts.

Reaching an airport and being able to shoot an instrument approach
becomes something dependent only on pilot skill and planning, not
luck. In the flatlands, it's just skill - no advance route planning
for driftdown required. Over water? Now you need to understand the
ETOPS concept and specific range.

For a pilot with the limited knowledge, training, and skill enjoyed by
the typical private pilot, the second engine of a twin is probably of
little or no value - certainly not enough to offset the liability of a
doubled chance of engine failure. The performance is simply too
marginal. That's why twins aren't statistically any safer than
singles.

For a well trained pilot, there is plenty of performance there to turn
a forced landing somewhere (not so fun if dealing with night, low
cloud, rough terrain, overwater, or some combination of these factors)
into a landing on an airport.

But hey, what do I know. Well, maybe a little.

Having lost an engine miles from any airport, over forests, in a twin
with that sort of performance, in IMC, I am still here to talk about
it - because in spite of the ice I picked up (which further degrades
performance) when I could no longer remain above the icing altitudes,
I completed an ILS approach and normal landing on an airport, repaired
the fuel system, and flew home the next morning. How do you suppose I
would have fared in a single?

Well, with luck I might have fared as well as my friend who lost the
only engine in a Bonanza in IMC. No icing, daylight, and the bases
were pretty high (1500+ AGL). He picked a field when he came out of
the bases (he wasn't within gliding range of an airport) and put it
down in the best field available. The plane was destroyed, but he
managed to escape with only minor cuts and bruises. He knows he was
lucky.

Some of us prefer not to rely on luck, but feel comfortable relying on
skill. That's why I'm still flying a certified airplane - because
nothing homebuilt with two engines comes close to the comfort,
performance, and economy of my 1965 Twin Comanche.

Michael - ATP, A&P, etc.