I watched the propeller stop. I've seen propellers stop in mid-air before, but the feeling of dread never leaves me. There’s just something wrong about it.
In this case, there was little for me to worry about: I was in the left seat of a Piper Seminole cruising south of Perth on a magnificent flying day and the person in the other seat was 2017 Flying Instructor of the Year, Airflite’s Mike Thomas. We had shut down and feathered the left engine on purpose, and the Seminole was easily controllable.
However, I also knew that many times in the past other pilots were in exactly this position and, calm as they may have been, it led to disaster for them when it possibly shouldn't have. The logical conclusion of an engine failure in a twin is not a crash, but too often that is the result anyway.
Fatal accidents stemming from engine failures in twins are caused more by what the pilot does next than the actual loss of power, which meant what Thomas was about to show me could one day save my life.
Getting the good oil
Twin-engined aeroplanes are, unsurprisingly, designed to run on two engines, so when one of them quits, you are flying a seriously compromised system. Asymmetric flight is one of the most challenging things you can do in aviation and requires good, embedded training and practice to stay safe.
When I felt I needed to explore asymmetric flight more, I chose to head over to
