Asymmetric 1 (Weds part 1)

Took off and climbed to about 6000 feet, leveled off and trimmed up. Then the instructor pulled the power back on an engine and the beast yawed dramatically in the direction of that "failed" engine. I then applied rudder to counter that yaw to bring the nose back in balance again. This was tried at various power settings and in climbs and turns. I identified and called out the engine that had failed with the strap line (if that's the right word) "dead leg, dead engine" - meaning that if I've stuck in a boot load of right rudder, the left leg is doing nowt and so is "dead" and that identifies the left engine as failed.

It's relatively controllable at high speeds in the cruise, but as the speed comes down, the rudder effectiveness is reduced and more & more rudder pressure is required to fly straight. The worst is at full power and prop fully forward at low speed such as would be in the climb out after takeoff. In those conditions, it's barely contollable and your leg is pushing so hard you feel like you're single leg pressing about 40kg!! Fortunately on the twin there is rudder trim which can be used to trim the rudder forces to zero so that you can fly the aircraft in most conditions perfectly normally. However, in the engine failure after takeoff/in the climb scenario you still have to apply significant rudder even with maximum trim. In a turn you need to roll the wings level first as the forces in a turn can be misleading especially if the rudder forces are relatively light.

For some unknown and infuriating reason, I could detect, react to and identify a right engine failure with no problems. But for the left engine I often applied left rudder first which exacerbated the yaw problem. And consequently called out the wrong engine as having failed. I was looking out the cockpit all the time and I think I saw the nose swing left and for some reason put in left rudder. In a normal turn to the left you can help kick the aircraft into a turn with a little left rudder but buggered if I know why it only affected left engine failures.

We also did a full and real engine shutdown which was quite spooky when you see a still prop on one side. But with the prop fully feathered and causing minimal drag it was surprisingly easy to control in the cruise and you could perform manoeuvres more or less as normal. Even stranger was restarting the engine where you unfeathered the prop to start it windmilling in the airstream but with no fuel. Once it was spinning you then richened the mixture and effectively bumpstarted it in the air! Strange but most satisfying.

Quite an enjoyable if frustrating trip all in all. After we landed Dave, who had no such problems, said that he was looking at the balance ball as the main identifier of a failure - if the ball went out to the right, kick the ball ie. ball right, right rudder. I'll have to pay more attention to that next time.