A feathered prop in flight
Most FAA Practical Tests or Checkrides go off smoothly, safely, and end with the issuance of a new certificate or rating. This is how both the pilot applicant and the pilot examiner prefer the event to occur. But occasionally things go awry.
A required task of the Commercial
Pilot Airman Certification Standards (ACS) is that multiengine (ME) pilot applicants receive a simulated engine failure during takeoff before rotation. The guidance says that the pilot should “Close the throttles smoothly and promptly when a simulated engine failure occurs” (CA.IX.E.S1) and “maintain directional control” (CA.IX.E.S2). My recent applicant did not do either of these. I failed the engine during our takeoff roll, and we started a forty-five-degree turn to the left from the yaw of the good engine. Rather than struggle to pull the pilot’s hands and throttles back, I pulled the mixture control on the remaining good engine to idle cutoff. This brought us to rest well left of the runway centerline, near the edge of the runway, with both engines and propellers stopped. The mixtures were at idle cutoff, but the pilot applicant still had the throttles in the full power position. The tower controller directed the airplane behind us to go around and asked if we needed assistance. It took us a while to restart the engines, but we were eventually able to do so under our own power and cleared the runway.
That same day, while conducting a Commercial Pilot Single Engine Checkride, we were attempting to perform the advanced ground-reference maneuver Eights on Pylons. Eights on Pylons is a fun commercial maneuver where the pilot pivots the airplane around two points in sequence. But rather than maintain a constant altitude and constant distance from the point as with the Turns Around a Point maneuver, the altitude is varied somewhat to maintain a “pivotal altitude.” This is to keep the lateral axis and line of sight (which is near the airplane’s wing tip) pointing at the pylon. This is still used by the USAF for their Lockheed C-130 gun ships with guns pointing out of the left side of the fuselage. This “pivotal altitude” needs to be calculated based on the airplane’s ground speed. The formula to determine pivotal altitude is to square the ground speed and divide by 11.3. My commercial pilot applicant did a great job calculating the pivotal altitude for the Cirrus SR20 Airplane. She calculated it to be 1,300 feet. The problem entered when she attempted to fly the maneuver at 1,300 feet above mean sea level (MSL) rather than flying it 1,300 feet above ground level (AGL). This put us at less than 400 feet above the ground as the terrain around our airport is 950 to 1,000 feet MSL. We started receiving yellow ground proximity caution messages, followed by red warning messages with an audible “pull up” message. Most light airplanes would not even provide such advanced ground proximity messages. We aborted the maneuver and climbed back to a safe altitude. Of course, the lower altitude would have never worked for the maneuver, being 1,000 feet below what was required and calculated.
throttle quadrant
Two other interesting checkrides were re-examinations that had been unsatisfactory or failures from another examiner. We, as FAA Designated Pilot Examiners (DPEs), try to finish the checkrides that we started. However, on occasion, we may need to finish a practical test that someone else started. These usually happen at some of the larger flight training centers where they have examiners fly in for a week of checkrides and then head back home, or to their day jobs flying jets.
During the first re-check, I was performing the exam for a private pilot checkride. The applicant had satisfactorily completed all the required maneuvers but had failed on airspace. While attempting to return to her departure airport, she became focused on Detroit Metro Airport and attempted to land there. She had advised me that the tower controller was trying to be helpful, repeatedly stating, “The airport is at your 11:00 position, now 10:00 position.” She said she replied with “Yes, I have it in sight” and continued to the KDTW Airport with Class B Airspace. She totally owned her mistake, and after a short airplane ride with me, returning us to the airport we departed, and a review of airspace, she became a private pilot.
For the second re-check, the applicant had stated that he taxied out to Runway 25L at Deer Valley Airport in Arizona. The applicant further advised me that while performing the runup after the long taxi, he saw a fuel cap from his Piper Archer resting nicely on the wing. He pointed it out to the pilot examiner, who stated, “That’s certainly not within standards,” and they taxied back in. The applicant fared much better during his re-test and was issued a new certificate. I hope and believe that his preflight inspections are now more thorough.
Multiengine checkrides can be very exciting (as mentioned earlier). The FAA lists several “hazardous attitudes” that pilots can possess. Most applicants are on their best behavior during checkrides so I seldom see most of these. But one that does pop up is “impulsivity.” As pilots we are prone to push buttons and move levers much too fast.
During one such multiengine (ME) checkride, I had things go very wrong. On every ME test, the examiner is required to have the applicant do a full engine shutdown followed by some maneuvering and a restart. Yes, every time I fly a multiengine airplane on a checkride, I perform an engine shutdown. I believe I have shut down over 1,000 engines in flight! In this instance, while at a safe altitude, I failed the right engine by moving the mixture to idle cutoff to start this scenario. The applicant went through his immediate action memory items with lightning speed. In his haste, he elected not to troubleshoot the cause of the failure but continued to shut down the troubled engine with the windmilling propeller. He quickly went through the mantra “Identify, Verify, Feather,” but feathered the wrong propeller, resulting in our twin-engine airplane now becoming a glider. (This is not the only time this has happened to me.) To exacerbate the situation, he excitedly started calling out to me, “Mr. Verville, Mr. Verville, did I fail my checkride? Can I do it again?” I do not recall if I was more shocked that we were in a gliding multi-engine aircraft, or that my applicant was so far removed from flying the airplane that he did not seem to be aware of the critical nature of our situation. I immediately advised him, “We really should start up one or two of these engines before we discuss the ramifications of your checkride.”
On other occasions, I have had multiple applicants attempt to land on the last one-thousand feet of a 4,000-foot runway. This demonstrates how we can become fixated on a task. Even professional pilots are hesitant to perform a go-around on their own initiative. They will immediately go around if advised by ATC or if they receive a windshear warning. But most pilots believe that they are “just a little high” or “just a little too fast,” even when they are significantly off, and that they can fix it. This is interesting because all airlines have a “no fault” go-around policy that encourages a stabilized approach.
While conducting my first multi-engine checkride in Denver, Colorado, I was about to do my first required full shutdown of an engine at altitude when a light bulb went off in my head. The minimum altitude I can hold in a ME airplane (PA44-180 with 180 HP each) with an engine failure is usually around 4,500 feet MSL. However, in the Denver area, the airport elevation was 5,885 feet. I quickly realized that we would be in a continuous drift down to our single-engine ceiling, and this altitude was well below the airport elevation! I looked at the applicant and said, “Why don’t we go up another 2,000 feet before we start this maneuver?”
