Multi-Training

[TWinter]

Little update to my multi training. Flew Monday and worked steep turns, stalls (power on and off), different configurations. Engine out scenarios and procedures...

Instructor had the bug Tues-Thurs so no flying. We finally got back in the air Friday. Worked on steep turns (my weak link) and short field landings and take-offs.

Saturday (today)..Steep turns again, finally have these dialed in, took me a while. I honestly think that some of the hold up on me getting comfortable was because I've been flying behind my Aspen glass for a few years and going back and working off conventional steam took some time getting comfortable with again.

Only other minor thing is the Mooney has GTN750 and the Comanche has 530. Trying to dial in airport IDs and frequency makes me have to think a little more as far as twist, push, turn.......

Today was an awesome learning experience..We took it all the way to full right engine shutdown and flying on just left engine. Interesting and did okay during the procedure. The restart was slower than I expected. Unfeathered and nosed over and we never did get a start. Finally did a few starter bumps and still no joy, lastly a we did full ignition and after about 15- 20 secs with starter engaged it caught. I was beginning to think we were going to be doing a engine out landing :).

Good news the instructor thinks we should be able to knock the rest out next week and schedule a check ride the following Tuesday or Wednesday.  At this point I can fly it, land it, know emergency ops and what to expect. I just need more natural flow and get to know emergency ops second nature....Right now I'm spending too much having to think about what's next in emergency flow. Some home chair flying and more flights next week.

Until next time..

-Tom

[carusoam]

Great updates, Tom!

Have you done any work regarding....

• One engine out.
• really high power on the other side.
• T/O attitude.

This is the set-up of the twin beginning rolling inverted beyond what full rudder can control....

Sort of similar to slow flight, incipient stalls, power on stalls...  knowledge and practice will be needed to support very quick action...

Thanks again for sharing your learning experience. 

SEL-PP question only, I’ve only ridden in the back of a MEL plane...

Best regards,

-a-

[TWinter]

 

-a-

We've worked all the above. As I posted above yesterday we did a full engine out and inflight restart...that was interesting. We've worked all required maneuvers and now just spending the next week on smooth flow and quicker thinking on my part. I have not mentioned every procedure and we've done, just the highlights, but have tackled many others. This school has been very good, I highly recommend them. I will continue with them even after the multi is done. Most of the school staff will be going to Oshkosh so we will finish the multi next week  +/- and after they return from Oshkosh we will start IFR and I'll be using the Mooney for IFR training. Hoping to have the IFR done by end of fall. I have been working on the IFR off and on for the last year on my own and the Mooney is well equipped. Hopefully that rating will come to me quickly and having flown the Mooney the last 6 years I know the plane pretty well. I have about 300 hrs in the Mooney so there will not be a lot of time getting a feel for the plane.

 

-Tom

 

[N201MKTurbo]

11 minutes ago, TWinter said:

 

-a-

We've worked all the above. As I posted above yesterday we did a full engine out and inflight restart...that was interesting. We've worked all required maneuvers and now just spending the next week on smooth flow and quicker thinking on my part. I have not mentioned every procedure and we've done, just the highlights, but have tackled many others. This school has been very good, I highly recommend them. I will continue with them even after the multi is done. Most of the school staff will be going to Oshkosh so we will finish the multi next week  +/- and after they return from Oshkosh we will start IFR and I'll be using the Mooney for IFR training. Hoping to have the IFR done by end of fall. I have been working on the IFR off and on for the last year on my own and the Mooney is well equipped. Hopefully that rating will come to me quickly and having flown the Mooney the last 6 years I know the plane pretty well. I have about 300 hrs in the Mooney so there will not be a lot of time getting a feel for the plane.

 

-Tom

 

When I was training for my multi ATP a few years ago, we shut one down and feathered it. 

We could not get that thing started again! The instructor was sweating bullets. Apparently in the Seneca if you land with a feathered prop you have to pull the prop and send it to a prop shop to get it unfeathered.

We got down to 1000 AGL and I told him that we weren’t going to decend any more! 

We let the battery charge for 5 min and gave it a go without a decent and it finally started.

Real life training there. This was all on a dark night too.

[TWinter]

34 minutes ago, N201MKTurbo said:

When I was training for my multi ATP a few years ago, we shut one down and feathered it. 

We could not get that thing started again! The instructor was sweating bullets. Apparently in the Seneca if you land with a feathered prop you have to pull the prop and send it to a prop shop to get it unfeathered.

We got down to 1000 AGL and I told him that we weren’t going to decend any more! 

We let the battery charge for 5 min and gave it a go without a decent and it finally started.

Real life training there. This was all on a dark night too.

That is real world..lol     I really was not sure if it was going to re-start or not. My instructor is a young guy, 23 yrs old. He did well, kept calm and gave no indication of concern. It was probably nothing to him, but to me it seemed like forever. The school uses a Dutchess as the school's regular trainer. They also have a Twin Comanche, but it is on leaseback program. They usually use the Dutchess to train. The Comanche is more demanding, slightly less forgiving (so they say) and no CR props, but for me I'd much rather pay $45 vs.$300+ and hour for a plane and instructor and learn in what I own and will fly. I'm already paying for fuel to fly the Mooney to Memphis for every training day (about 55 km). Then fuel for the training in the Comanche and then fly back home 55 km back to Dyersburg. Averaging about 4-5 time a week. I was looking at my logs and right now about a third of my total hours are cross-country hours.

 

-Tom

[KLRDMD]

How many training hours so far and what do you anticipate you'll have by the time you have the ticket ?

[carusoam]

Tom, nm not km...   got me confused... 

Somebody changed the spelling on us pilots early on.  Knots vs. nauts..?

Thought you might be flying to Mexico or Canada for that.

Thanks for sharing the details.  They are spectacular.

 Best regards,

-a-

[TWinter]

7 hours ago, carusoam said:

Tom, nm not km...   got me confused... 

Somebody changed the spelling on us pilots early on.  Knots vs. nauts..?

Thought you might be flying to Mexico or Canada for that.

Thanks for sharing the details.  They are spectacular.

 Best regards,

-a-

Clarified that for ya..lol

[TWinter]

15 hours ago, KLRDMD said:

How many training hours so far and what do you anticipate you'll have by the time you have the ticket ?

So far about 8 hours. Probably another 8+/- if we have good weather,  that will be 16-18 hrs total with the instructor. I've spent many hours at home studying the POH, watching maneuvers and check-rides on Youtube, also been doing lots of chair flying. No training today so the Mooney gets a oil change and a travel day off. Back at it tomorrow at 1 pm. I will say I will not schedule training for summer in Tennessee anymore after I get the multi and IFR done. I will sneak in one day right after I get multi to get the "High Performance" endorsement. He said we could do that in a day in one of the schools plane. It's a shame I miss it by just one horsepower in the E..lol   It's been 90s+ everyday. Hard to focus when it's that hot in the plane. 

Hope to start IFR with them when they return from Oshkosh. Plan to have IFR done by fall or earlier with the same instructor and same school. Will probably cut back to just 2 to 3 days a week. I pushed on the multi training since I bought the twin and wanted to be able to use it now. I've been working on IFR from home and doing practice approaches etc throughout the last couple years in the Mooney, so hopefully it will come smoothly.

 

-Tom   

[Bob_Belville]

16 minutes ago, TWinter said:

So far about 8 hours. Probably another 8+/- if we have good weather,  that will be 16-18 hrs total with the instructor. I've spent many hours at home studying the POH, watching maneuvers and check-rides on Youtube, also been doing lots of chair flying. No training today so the Mooney gets a oil change and a travel day off. Back at it tomorrow at 1 pm. I will say I will not schedule training for summer in Tennessee anymore after I get the multi and IFR done. I will sneak in one day right after I get multi to get the "High Performance" endorsement. He said we could do that in a day in one of the schools plane. It's a shame I miss it by just one horsepower in the E..lol   It's been 90s+ everyday. Hard to focus when it's that hot in the plane. 

Hope to start IFR with them when they return from Oshkosh. Plan to have IFR done by fall or earlier with the same instructor and same school. Will probably cut back to just 2 to 3 days a week. I pushed on the multi training since I bought the twin and wanted to be able to use it now. I've been working on IFR from home and doing practice approaches etc throughout the last couple years in the Mooney, so hopefully it will come smoothly.

 

-Tom   

Question for CFIs, has this changed a lot over the years? I was buying an Aztec about 35 years ago and I think the instructor signed me off for a check ride with about 5 hours of dual. I probably had 1500+ SEL hours, mostly Mooney, at the time.  

[TWinter]

9 minutes ago, Bob_Belville said:

Question for CFIs, has this changed a lot over the years? I was buying an Aztec about 35 years ago and I think the instructor signed me off for a check ride with about 5 hours of dual. I probably had 1500+ SEL hours, mostly Mooney, at the time.  

 

Wow..5 hrs. That's pretty impressive..There is a lot to learn in just 5 hrs. I can't imagine learning everything I've learned during the past few weeks in just 5 hrs and I'm not even done yet.

I think I'm on track according to the schools syllabus. . Here is the hours quote from the schools page.

Multi-Engine Pilot Rating
In order to fly most multi-engine Aircraft you’ll need to have your high performance and complex endorsements in order to act as the Pilot in Command. The requirements are listed in FAR 61.63(c). Downtown Aviation offers two aircraft in our fleet, BE-76 Duchess N6702X and PA-30 Twin Comanche N5088C for Multi-Engine Ratings. Typically pilots receive their multi-engine rating in 10-15 hours of flight instruction and 3-5 hours of ground instruction but Downtown Aviation trains to proficiency not standard.

FWIW.. I earned by PP in two months. Started on 2/8/91 and on 4/5/91 and at 43 hrs I had my PPL ticket in hand from KSFM Sanford, Maine. Stopped flying in 10/2/91 (couldn't afford it). I picked it back up on 1/5/12. That's what I call a lay-off. Right now I have about 500 hrs +/- total. Majority of it is X-country flights.   

-Tom

[neilpilot]

15 minutes ago, TWinter said:

Multi-Engine Pilot Rating
In order to fly most multi-engine Aircraft you’ll need to have your high performance and complex endorsements in order to act as the Pilot in Command. The requirements are listed in FAR 61.63(c). Downtown Aviation offers two aircraft in our fleet, BE-76 Duchess N6702X and PA-30 Twin Comanche N5088C for Multi-Engine Ratings. Typically pilots receive their multi-engine rating in 10-15 hours of flight instruction and 3-5 hours of ground instruction but Downtown Aviation trains to proficiency not standard.

FWIW.. I earned by PP in two months. Started on 2/8/91 and on 4/5/91 and at 43 hrs I had my PPL ticket in hand from KSFM Sanford, Maine. Stopped flying in 10/2/91 (couldn't afford it). I picked it back up on 1/5/12. That's what I call a lay-off. Right now I have about 500 hrs +/- total. Majority of it is X-country flights.   

-Tom

Tom, did you have the high performance endorsement prior to starting with Downtown, or was this done as part of your current training?  What aircraft did you fly for that high performance endorsement?

[Bob_Belville]

7 minutes ago, TWinter said:

 

Wow..5 hrs. That's pretty impressive..There is a lot to learn in just 5 hrs. I can't imagine learning everything I've learned during the past few weeks in just 5 hrs and I'm not even done yet.<snip>

Tom, I checked my old log book: Aug. 8-12, 1980: 3 flights in a PA23-250, 13 landings, 3.5 hours. My memory is that at that point my instructor contacted the DPE and scheduled a check ride. It's possible that we were going to fly another flight before the check ride, not sure.

I am/was not a super pilot by any stretch, I'm just curious to learn how much the thinking has changed. I do know that when I did the PPL in '69 soloing at less than 10 hours was the norm. I had 40.5 hours when I took that check ride. (The extra 0.5 was a short cross country to the examiner's field. )  

(A PPI on the Aztec revealed some problem, I've forgotten what that was, but the seller and I could not agree on how to pay for the fix so I never did take the check ride.) 

[N201MKTurbo]

When I did my multi with instrument it was at Sheble's in Bullhead City, AZ. It was a one day course. We started at 7:00 AM with ground school. It lasted about 45 min. We flew to Vegas to pick someone up. Flew to Barstow CA. and did a bunch of landings and approaches with one turning. A bunch of engine failure, stalls and VMC demos. I did the check ride at 4:00 and was a multi instrument pilot by 6:00. I think it cost $1500 for everything including the check ride. That was in 1990.

[xcrmckenna]

Only accidental runway departure I was ever in was a Twinkie.  Blew a tire and wound up in the weeds.

Lol, If you were riding twinkies, and blowing tires. I think you were smoking some weeds...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[KLRDMD]

3 hours ago, Bob_Belville said:

Question for CFIs, has this changed a lot over the years? I was buying an Aztec about 35 years ago and I think the instructor signed me off for a check ride with about 5 hours of dual. I probably had 1500+ SEL hours, mostly Mooney, at the time.  

10-12 hours of flight time seems to be typical in my area nowadays. Plus a fair amount of ground. Of course weather is rarely an issue where I live. There are a lot of reasons those numbers vary, of course. The bottom line is, you train as much as you need. There is no "one size fits all".

[kortopates]

4 hours ago, Bob_Belville said:

Tom, I checked my old log book: Aug. 8-12, 1980: 3 flights in a PA23-250, 13 landings, 3.5 hours. My memory is that at that point my instructor contacted the DPE and scheduled a check ride. It's possible that we were going to fly another flight before the check ride, not sure.

I am/was not a super pilot by any stretch, I'm just curious to learn how much the thinking has changed. I do know that when I did the PPL in '69 soloing at less than 10 hours was the norm. I had 40.5 hours when I took that check ride. (The extra 0.5 was a short cross country to the examiner's field. )  

(A PPI on the Aztec revealed some problem, I've forgotten what that was, but the seller and I could not agree on how to pay for the fix so I never did take the check ride.) 

That was my experience as well - 3.5 hrs exactly! Although a long time ago, I was already commercial SEL and instrument current and got my Multi commercial instrument add-on in that time - just also like @N201MKTurbo experience over a weekend. Although doing it that quickly I didn't get the benefit of ever flying the twin with both engines running- or maybe it did include one takeoff with both engines without a engine failure. At the time I wondered how they could charge full twin hourly rates when all you did was fly around with just one engine.

 

[TWinter]

9 hours ago, neilpilot said:

Tom, did you have the high performance endorsement prior to starting with Downtown, or was this done as part of your current training?  What aircraft did you fly for that high performance endorsement?

Have not gotten the HP. Will get it with them in their plane. Sam (the instructor) said we would work it in after the multi.

[TWinter]

9 hours ago, Bob_Belville said:

Tom, I checked my old log book: Aug. 8-12, 1980: 3 flights in a PA23-250, 13 landings, 3.5 hours. My memory is that at that point my instructor contacted the DPE and scheduled a check ride. It's possible that we were going to fly another flight before the check ride, not sure.

I am/was not a super pilot by any stretch, I'm just curious to learn how much the thinking has changed. I do know that when I did the PPL in '69 soloing at less than 10 hours was the norm. I had 40.5 hours when I took that check ride. (The extra 0.5 was a short cross country to the examiner's field. )  

(A PPI on the Aztec revealed some problem, I've forgotten what that was, but the seller and I could not agree on how to pay for the fix so I never did take the check ride.) 

You had me curious on my solo...You probably beat me, I was 8.5 hrs before solo. Went on later to a Warrior and then hung up my headset by the end of the same year. Wish I would have stayed with it, but on a cops salary in NH during that time it wasn't going to happen. Had to retire from police work before I could make enough money to afford to fly again..ironic  lol

-Tom

[Bob_Belville]

14 minutes ago, TWinter said:

You had me curious on my solo...You probably beat me, I was 8.5 hrs before solo. Went on later to a Warrior and then hung up my headset by the end of the same year. Wish I would have stayed with it, but on a cops salary in NH during that time it wasn't going to happen. Had to retire from police work before I could make enough money to afford to fly again..ironic  lol

-Tom

Tom, I checked that old log book again: I did not solo until 11.5 hours but I still think the "under 10 norm" was more typical in '69.

In my case I note that prior to soloing on June 23 I flew only once in January, once in February, once in March, four times in April, and not at all in May. All those flights add up to 8.1 hours, no doubt a lot of that time spent reviewing.

It appears that when I had more time or got more serious beginning June 12 the process proceeded nicely,soloing in a couple of weeks and finishing the PPL Aug. 2. (I flew 9 times in June and 17 in July.) 

[EricJ]

1 hour ago, Bob_Belville said:

Tom, I checked that old log book again: I did not solo until 11.5 hours but I still think the "under 10 norm" was more typical in '69.

 

I had 117.5 hours when I soloed in 1976.   I was a lineboy and got paid in flight time and couldn't solo until my 16th b-day.   By then I knew the entire PP program and all the commercial maneuvers, too, plus a bunch of other stuff (e.g., spin training) as the instructors just figured they'd keep teaching me new stuff once I had something down reasonably well.  I think I've only run across a few people who beat me on that one.   

[Hank]

2 hours ago, TWinter said:

Have not gotten the HP. Will get it with them in their plane. Sam (the instructor) said we would work it in after the multi.

With several hundred hours in my C (600-ish), I picked up the HP Endorsement on a flight review, with just over an hour in a 182. Flew a couple of practice approaches, showed control of rudder, didn't lose control during descents (it accelerated much less than my little Mooney!). Only made one landing, at night, with drained battery and 10° flaps from a failed alternator. But the light gun signals were clear!  

[Oldguy]

11 hours ago, EricJ said:

I had 117.5 hours when I soloed in 1976.   I was a lineboy and got paid in flight time and couldn't solo until my 16th b-day.   By then I knew the entire PP program and all the commercial maneuvers, too, plus a bunch of other stuff (e.g., spin training) as the instructors just figured they'd keep teaching me new stuff once I had something down reasonably well.  I think I've only run across a few people who beat me on that one.   

We had a kid like this at one of the local airports. His father made a conscious choice to buy an airplane for his business and so his son would hang out at the airport rather than places where he could get into trouble as he hit his teenage years. Celebrated several birthdays by getting new ratings. Graduated college with an engineering degree, an ATP, and a job flying. Living the hard life in Hawaii flying for the airlines in his late 20's. 

[TWinter]

Great day today..Again worked on standard required maneuvers. Did emergency decent, did more steep turns (my Achilles Heel), short field take-off and short-field landings (setting it in at the 1000' mark). Really enjoyed today. The flow is beginning to happen naturally, I'm actually remembering my new call sign on the radio ...The pattern was pretty empty, radio pretty quite and just a few clouds here and there, just very enjoyable day..One of those days were you think, yep..I think I'm nearly ready and man I really love flying and learning new stuff!!

-Tom 

[TWinter]

Starting to get things wrapped up. Trained 4 days this week (usually 1.5 hrs avg). Did hood-work and approaches. It's been extremely hot here the past few weeks during this training and all the flying is actual flying and no simulator time. The learning process has been good, but probably not optimal conditions because of the heat, but all in all a great experience. Lots of empty water bottles in the back seat at the end of each session. The school advertises 15 hrs +/- and that's about what it works out to be. I'm sure they plan it that way. I have 1 or 2 sessions scheduled next week then the check-ride mid-week.

Like many have mentioned I'm sure this rating could be learned in a much shorter time, but honestly..my insurance required me to have 20 hrs dual and 5 of it under the hood, so the 15 hrs +/- that it might end up being is no big deal. My insurance did offer the option that part of the 20 hr requirement could be with someone who is multi rated (lots of hours..don't recall exactly how many without pulling policy) and has 250 hrs Comanche time. It will be easier to just get the full insurance requirement while at the school w/ the same CFI and be done with it. Might require an extra day to get the extra hour or so.

Hopefully this time next week I'll be done and the Comanche will be home parked next to the Mooney.

We start IFR in the Mooney in August. Same school and same CFI.

-Tom