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failure and he proceeded with the rest of The Drill’s steps: Identify, Verify, Feather. Identify? There was no dead engine now but there was a dead foot since he was still stomping on the right pedal, causing a very uncoordinated flight condition! The poor fellow pulled the left power lever back – failing to notice that indeed power was being reduced dramatically – pulled the propeller lever into feather, and even continued to start to pull the
condition lever into cutoff. I blocked his hand to prevent that from taking place, took the controls, and had him remove the hood. I pointed out the condition we were in ... a perfectly good left engine at idle with its propeller feathered, turning about 400 RPM.
The big mistake was not executing the “Identify” step of The Drill correctly. I think, in his mind, he had identified the left engine as the dead one the instant he felt the
initial yaw toward the left. He never considered that the sneaky CFI (me!) would reintroduce fuel and the engine would come back to life.
Another one of my students was almost snail-like in conducting The Drill when I gave him an engine failure during cruise. He did each step so very, very slowly, it was almost excruciating to watch. But you know what? I never saw him make a mistake in the procedure throughout our numerous training sessions over the years. What’s the adage? “Haste Makes Waste.” Golly, is that ever true!
I am realistic enough to realize that my opinions and beliefs will not cause every POH’s emergency procedures to be revised, maybe not even one. Nevertheless, in my dreams I would prefer the concept of “Engine Failure” be replaced with the concept of “Suspected Power Loss.” Until you’ve done The Drill how do you know that the engine has truly failed? Give it a chance to return to normal operation before you shut it down! KA
King Air expert Tom Clements has been flying and instructing in King Airs for over 50 years and is the author of “The King Air Book” and “The King Air Book II.” He is a Gold Seal CFI and has over 23,000 total hours with more than 15,000 in King Airs. For information on ordering his books, contact Tom direct at twcaz@msn.com. Tom is actively mentoring the instructors at King Air Academy in Phoenix.
If you have a question you’d like Tom to answer, please send it to Editor Kim Blonigen at editor@blonigen.net.
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20 • KING AIR MAGAZINE
JANUARY 2023