Multi-commercial

The check ride is over and I've added multi-engine privileges to my precious commercial certificate to go along with my single-engine qualifications.

That means, technically, I can now get paid to fly a multi-engined airplane. Just like when I first earned my single-engine commercial the reality is that it will probably be a while before anybody hires me to fly a twin.

Out of nearly 1,000 hours of flight time, a scant 8.5 has been in multi-engine airplanes. Getting that number up to 50 or 100 hours, at which point somebody might talk to me if I was lucky and they were either generous or hurting for pilots, is going to take some doing and some serious cash.

The best possibility for a flying job right now is probably with the airlines but even they are going to want to see a few more multi hours in my logbook before they'll talk to me. Or perhaps not.

Anyhow, the check ride itself went just fine with no surprises. It was easier than I'd expected, so obviously Christine had done a good job getting me ready. I didn't crash the airplane, remembered to get the gear down for landing and didn't bust any altitudes, so it was all good.

That makes five check rides in almost exactly two years. I'd like to say I'm getting used to them, but I was just as nervous before this one as I was before I passed my private check ride nearly 15 years ago.

Now it's time to grab a burger and a few beers and relax.

Braking action – fair?

It was snowing lightly with perhaps two-miles visibility. After four days of doing transition training for a new Cirrus SR-22 owner I was exhausted and just wanted to go home, grab a beer and enjoy being inside and warm for a change.

The weather necessitated an ILS to get back to the airport and although we could see the ground from 5,000 feet, there wasn't much at all to be seen directly in front of us as we hurtled through the wintry gloom. Just 20 minutes to the northwest it had been all sunshine and light and now we're in our own little snow globe.

Out of sheer boredom and curiosity we turned on the TKS anti-icing, just to make sure it was working. For this particular airplane is soon to be crossing the Atlantic in the dead of winter and the ferry pilot at the controls wisely wanted to ensure he had at least some options should bad weather things happen when he was 300 miles from the nearest bit of dry land.

There was no ice to be found, we wouldn't have been flying had there been, and the TKS fluid oozed out of the wings and onto the windscreen as intended, satisfying the ferry pilot. There are only 45 precious minutes of protection on the low setting and a scant 30 minutes on high, but anything is better than nothing and even 30 minutes might just be enough time to get somewhere without ice.

The TKS system is an emergency out on this airplane, not something to be counted on. But a chance at salvation is still a chance and a pilot in need will gladly take advantage.

A clever pilot will never get to that point.

Since we were apparently the only ones flying out of one of my four home airports, tower requested a braking action report as the autopilot guided us down a perfect ILS. I marveled again at how the once seemingly impossible, a simple ILS approach, now seemed so easy and basked in the glow of our big digital displays while fighting to maintain some semblance of focus.

Braking action is far more art than science and, if they are reported by a pilot as opposed to a fancy machine that delivers an exact number based on science and engineering, should be treated with suspicion. Even then, suspicion is wise no matter what the fancy machines say.

Or, at a more basic level, any braking action reported as something other than “Good” may mean trouble. Or it may not, depending on what the pilot in front of you considers “Good”, “Fair”, “Poor” or “Nil”.

Personally, unless the airplane in front of me slid off the far end of the runway I'd consider the braking action better than “Nil”. Unless that airplane was a jet or turboprop, with reverse thrust available to halt their progress.

Even then, on a long enough runway an airplane will simply roll to a stop without any braking action at all as aerodynamics and physics conspire to do their thing.

The machines generate braking action reports as a “Mu” value, which despite a nice comforting number can still vary depending on the equipment being used. Generally, a “Mu” value above 40 is considered “Good” braking action, anything less is something else.

But you never really know. The only way to know the true braking action is to set down and see for yourself. Or, if you don't like what you see or hear, go someplace else and don't bother to test it at all.

The FAA is honest enough to admit that there is no correlation between braking action reports given by pilots and Mu values given by machines.

I am constantly amazed at how much art and interpretation there is in aviation. One of the most difficult concepts I had to deal with when learning how to fly instruments, and then learning to teach them, was the dichotomy between the precision implied by IFR operations and the room for error, slop and interpretation built into the system.

And so it is with braking action reports.

We descended through the snow, the ferry pilot to my left punched off the autopilot and made a fine landing. Since he hails from a different part of the world he asked that I check the braking action myself and give the report, lest there be any confusion due to the barriers of language and “how things are done” at home airport number three.

In a moment of dishonesty I agreed, ignoring the fundamental truth that despite differences in language and local custom his interpretation was certainly as accurate as my own.

I pressed on the brakes and the airplane slowed, then I pressed harder as we rolled out and slowed and the airplane began to skid, so I let off and gave the airplane back to the ferry pilot.

“Braking action fair” I told tower. "We'd like to taxi to parking."

We hadn't slid off the far end or shot to one side or the other the instant I touched the brakes. And the tires didn't howl in protest the way they do when a clumsy pilot locks a wheel or two on a dry runway.

So, for our airplane with my feet at that particular moment within some 5 billion years of our planet's existence, the braking action was somewhere between good and nil. Since we could reasonably slow with normal braking, but skid with aggressive braking, I settled on “Fair.”

Had we started to skid almost right away I would have chosen “poor”. Had we not slid at all I would have picked “good” and had we slid off an end, be it far, left or right, I would have said “nil, roll the trucks please.”

Looking it up after the European-bound Cirrus was safely tucked away in a hangar for the night I came across this definition of “fair” braking action: “Braking deceleration is noticeably reduced for the wheel braking effort applied. Directional control may be slightly reduced.”

Sounds about right I suppose, but one pilot's “fair” is another's “good” and yet another's “poor.”

Consider that carefully the next time the tower passes along a braking action report.

Twice the fun

I'm finally getting the flying done for my multi-engine, commercial, instrument certificate and it's a blast.

My time in the simulator with Linda before jumping in the airplane definitely paid off in terms of getting my procedures down. The sim experience meant I was pretty comfortable dealing with two throttles, mixtures, props, fuel selectors, carb heats, starters, alternators and engines.

More importantly, I had the engine out procedures down cold, so the first time Christine pulled a throttle back to idle I was able to go through the whole “Full, clean, blue, identify, verify feather” routine with a minimum of fuss.

It also helps that I've been studying a ton and showed up for our first lesson pretty well prepared. My normal routine these days is to over-prepare when I'm learning something new and it's served me well so far.

If you're a student and reading this, take note. Time spent preparing is never wasted and if you show up for a lesson well prepared, perhaps even having flown it mentally a few times, the learning process will go quickly and your instructor will love it.

We're flying a Duchess, which I'm learning is pretty tame on one engine as far as twins go. Which isn't to say it won't bite if you're sloppy, slow or stupid but there's a high level of forgiveness in the airplane.

The toughest part so far has been getting used to the sight pictures, which are significantly different from the singles I'm used to. I can barely see the nose of the Duchess when I'm seated comfortably, so there's basically nothing out in front of me to use as a reference.

My breakthrough moment came on our second flight when I realized the base of the compass, mounted high on the windscreen, was just touching the horizon in level flight. Of course, I'm tall so that reference only works for me, but I'll take it.

Still, I spend a fair amount of time looking at my good friends, the flight instruments, to keep the airplane going where I want it to go.

The first time I flew a Bonanza I was amazed at how light and responsive the control responses were for such a relatively large airplane. The Duchess, despite a couple of engines and a big T-tail, feels similar. I don't know how Beechcraft does it, but man their airplanes handle wonderfully.

Anyhow, we plowed through a bunch of stuff on our first flight: Steep turns, slow flight, power on and power off stalls and recoveries, a drag demo, a Vmc demo, an emergency descent, some single-engine maneuvering and a couple of landings. It apparently all went pretty well and I stayed well within standards.

The second flight was still more fun. We didn't have a lot of daylight so we hauled butt over to Maple Lake for a couple of short-field landings and takeoffs. Christine failed an engine during a couple of takeoff rolls and I was happy that I recognized something bad was happening and managed to chop the power to idle and get us stopped while still heading more or less straight ahead.

Takeoffs in a piston twin are a little tense. If an engine quits while the gear is down there isn't much choice but to shut down the other as well and crash straight ahead. The airplane, even at our relatively light weight, just isn't going to climb very well, if at all, with the gear down and a dead engine.

Once the gear is up and you've accelerated to the best rate of climb speed of 85 knots, you can breathe a little easier and by the time you're through 1,000 feet and transitioning to cruise-climb it's possible to relax a little bit.

Every foot of altitude and knot of airspeed adds a corresponding increase in my comfort level.

No matter what, maintaining directional control is paramount. Nothing else matters if you don't keep the airplane flying more or less greasy side down. Airspeed and altitude are your friends.

We finished up out second flight with some steep turns then a full engine shut down, which included feathering the right prop. The reduction in drag when a prop feathers was really surprising and a great lesson in why it is so important to get the prop on a dead engine feathered quickly.

We managed to restart the engine, although I had to put us into a 120 knot dive to get the thing windmilling, and headed back to Crystal.

Of course, Christine killed another engine en-route so I got to fly my first single-engine pattern and landing. It was challenging but I never really felt uncomfortable.

The one nice thing about a single-engine pattern and landing is that things get better as you go along. As you reduce power on the good engine, the annoying yaw from the asymmetrical thrust lessens and by the time you pull the power to idle over the runway it's just a normal airplane again.

Of course, a single-engine go-around simply isn't going to happen so it's important to get things right the first time.

We have some ground stuff to review, another flight scheduled and hopefully a check ride in the near future.