I’m in love with a twin

For pilots just starting out, looking to make aviation their career, during the course of their training there are two holy grails. Actually, four if you count the first solo flight, which would be considered numero uno; and second, passing the private pilot’s test, which consists of a written test, a practical test (you sit oneon-one with the person administering the test, answering questions posed to you), and finally, the actual flight test itself.

Then, three and four: flying a complex airplane (constant-speed prop and retractable landing gear); and flying a twin-engine.

By the time a pilot gets to number four, the epitome of the holy grail — logging hours flying a twin-engine, piston-driven airplane — they’re willing to cut off their right arm and sell it for body parts just to get some time in the cockpit of a twin and get their hands on the throttles. Then, of course, it dawns on them that flying with only one arm is impossible, and so the thoughts of self-mutilation is laid by the wayside. Thankfully.

I haven’t begged often in my life, but the times I remember begging the most was with my second job as a professional pilot. I had my single and multi-engine airplane land license, my flight instructor’s license and my instrument rating. What I lacked, though, was time as PIC (pilot in command) in the twin. As such, flying charters, teaching, I was stuck in the single. At least for the time being.

The aviation company in Brownsville (Hunt Pan Am) that listed me as one of its employees had a twin, an old Beechcraft Travel Air, which, to me, was the essence of beauty. Basically, pilots fall in love with the machine. That magic carpet on which we can climb aboard and escape the boring confines of earth for the wild blue yonder where fun and adventure await, and the feel of that adrenaline rush when the weather turns sour and you have to fly instruments. Nothing like it.

Through long perseverance, I finally wore down my boss — he was sick to death of hearing me say “twin engine” every time he came within earshot — and he finally told me one day, “Just take it. But be careful. Remember the insurance.”

Which meant, I didn’t have enough time as PIC (pilot in command) in a twin-engine plane to be insured by the company’s carrier. It was the old Catch 22. I couldn’t get insured without enough time flying a twin; but I couldn’t fly a twin without the insurance.

I think the charter was short, to Laredo, but I was finally flying the Travel Air with two passengers — a husband and wife — in the backseat. As I taxied out to the active runway, loving the way I could goose each throttle to help turn in either direction, well, let’s just say, what’s the old saying, I was in high clover.

After that trip, my boss started letting me fly her (sorry, but to pilots, planes are of the female gender) more, and I started building time, happily logging the twin-engine hours in my logbook, always finding it a thrill to have two throttles to push forward on takeoff vs. just one. Two prop speeds, two mixtures. Two sets of instruments, one for each engine, two mags, and a gas lever, there to switch tanks if needed.

To help build more time, I got my multi-engine flight instructor certificate and started teaching in the twin. Far different from teaching in a single. Teaching in a single, as an instructor, you can’t let down your guard. In a twin, the instruction is like pulling double duty. It’s easier to get you and your student in a dangerous configuration, easier to find yourself upside down, headed toward disaster than it is teaching in a single.

In a twin, when you teach engine-out maneuvers — dead foot, dead engine; how to feather the prop; how not to roll the plane on its back as you approach Vmc (minimum-controllable air speed), with the prop feathered; how to land with one dead engine — there’s not much room for error.

In fact, data gathered from the NTSB (National Transportation Board) supports the inherent danger of flying a twin. In crashes involving a single-engine plane vs. a multi-engine plane, the fatality percentage in a twin is higher. I know that sounds counterintuitive — if the plane has two engines, why shouldn’t the chances of surviving a crash be double that of a single?

It’s because a crash in a single is usually at least rightside up — the landing gear bears some of the weight of the crash, as long as it’s a relatively controlled crash vs. a stall/spin, nose first bullet into the ground type of fatal encounter. Whereas, when a crash involves a twin, the plane has typically flipped over on its back because it involves an engine-out, and the pilot has unfortunately let the airspeed drop below Vmc (minimum controllable airspeed on just one engine), and so it crashes with the cockpit impacting the ground first, the fuselage completely upside down.

For any pilot looking to turn pro, logging time in a twin as PIC (pilot in command) is indeed the holy grail during the early stages of his/her career. No doubt about it. You’ve finally hit the big time.