Manx plane loses engine

[Keith]

Many years ago, British Airways pilots had to be part of a 'frightened-fliers' course (perhaps they still do?) Apparently, they all hated it, dealing with scared passengers, asking stupid questions. They would show them around the aircraft, explaining how things worked and why aircraft stay in the air. 

On one occasion, a frightened would be passenger asked the fed up pilot "what happens if both the engines fail?" 

Lacking having a smooth answer, he replied, 'well, we crash'.

Not entirely reassured, she said "well, what if only one engine fails?"

"We get to the scene of the crash that little bit quicker" was his unsympathetic response! 

[GD4ELI]

19 minutes ago, Keith said:

Many years ago, British Airways pilots had to be part of a 'frightened-fliers' course (perhaps they still do?) Apparently, they all hated it, dealing with scared passengers, asking stupid questions. They would show them around the aircraft, explaining how things worked and why aircraft stay in the air. 

On one occasion, a frightened would be passenger asked the fed up pilot "what happens if both the engines fail?" 

Lacking having a smooth answer, he replied, 'well, we crash'.

Not entirely reassured, she said "well, what if only one engine fails?"

"We get to the scene of the crash that little bit quicker" was his unsympathetic response! 

Doesn't make sense.

[WTF]

It does. Flying some planes on one engine is very difficult and it is easy to end up spinning in because of adverse yaw due to offset thrust. Modern planes have auto systems to help the pilot but it is still demanding.   Having no engines is easier to to deal with than one engine on some twin engined aircraft.

[Keith]

21 hours ago, GD4ELI said:

Doesn't make sense.

Given that the whole reason for being there was to put a nervous passenger at ease, you are correct. Quite amusing, if you weren't that nervous passenger... or taking it literally. 

[ballaughbiker]

Quote

Doesn't make sense.

The yaw produced by one sided thrust at a power to keep airborne can exceed the ability of the rudder to counteract it. Then there's the increased drag caused by going through the air a bit sideways and things can get lively. This is on a good day when the dead engine's prop has either feathered on its own or manually by the pilot.

The good news is that Perf. A aircraft (basically anything >5.7 Tonnes / 9 seats I hazily recall) can loose an engine at speed V1 (still on the runway but too near the end to stop) and climb away (at speed V2) on one engine. Such aircraft have much more powerful engines and more rudder authority than the much smaller light twins that allegedly "take you on one engine to the scene of the accident." Perf A. passenger aircraft like we have here have to be able to do climb away from an engine failure at V1 and have a rate of climb to get over local obstacles to be certified.

That said, engine failures/take offs at or after V1 is something that pilots practice regularly in the sim. because it still has to be done exactly right for the sums to work. 

I think.

[the stinking enigma]

It should really be standard practice that if one engine fails then switch the other one off too

[ballaughbiker]

Actually stinky there's more sense to that than one might first appreciate.

The secondary effect of the yaw from asymmetric thrust is roll. If this can't be counteracted at the power required to stay airborne, the only real option is to reduce power or shut down the live engine. It is better to opt for a forced landing under control than suffer the deadly consequences of uncontained yaw and roll.