Pierre was trading flying stories with Alistair when Alistair started in on a particularly juicy tale: "Well, there I was rolling down the runway for take off in my Piper Twin Comanche. Suddenly, as I was approaching takeoff speed, a cow just ambled onto the runway right in front of me! I pulled back hard on the controls and got into the air, and I swear I didn't know how I didn't graze that cow's back! heh heh, "graze", no pun intended," Alistair deadpanned, elbowing Pierre jokingly.

Sensing he was losing his audience, though, Alistair quickly continued, "But that's not all! To top it off, not 5 seconds after takeoff, my left engine quit on me!" To this Pierre raised an eyebrow in interest. Alistair gestured self-assuredly as he went on, "Thankfully, I was able to use my skill and lightning reflexes to save the situation. I immediately went to full power on my right engine and pulled up the nose up to keep the plane in the air and all I had to do was make a quick turn to land on the perpendicular runway to my left," Alistair finished with great gusto.

Pierre, with an amused look on his face said, "Well, that's a great story, Alistair, but because you are sitting here, telling it, I know it didn't actually happen."

How did Pierre know?

Non-pilot comment:  Thinking purely of physics, with the left engine failed, the full throttle right engine will provide a very significant yaw torque to the plane trying to yaw it left (counter-clockwise looking down from above the plane).  To deal with that, one would presumably use a lot of rudder just to remain "straight", and maybe even bank right side lower somewhat to help.  Seems like things could get very unstable very quickly if you then tried to back off on the rudder/banking control to negotiate a "quick" left turn.  Also seems like there is a risk you would not be able to stop the turn very easily once you started it (fighting all that right engine yaw torque), which would affect your accuracy in lining up with the perpendicular runway on your left. 

Posted by Kenny M on 2022-10-06 11:43:05