Page 22 - Volume 15 Number 7

Photo credit: King Air Academy
I believe that this procedure is an important one for all newcomers to the King Air to experience and I included it in most of my initial flight training sessions. Simulators are wonderful training devices but they are stronger in some areas than others. This is one of those procedures that most simulators do not replicate well.
In 100% of the cases in which I have used this procedure in training, the demonstration was terminated when the indication of an impending stall was found. Never once was there an actual “inability to maintain heading or lateral attitude.” Well, let me clarify that ... actually, there were numerous times when the heading
started to drift toward the inoperative engine’s side and the student felt that he/she had actually found VMCA and therefore terminated the maneuver. However, he/she had not pushed the rudder pedal as far as it would go ... usually, not by a long shot! When we repeated the demonstration with proper control usage, the impending stall indications were the reason the demonstration was terminated.
When I was a neophyte factory King Air instructor back in 1972, I recall one of the test pilots commenting to me that VMCA testing was one of the most stressful maneuvers that experimental test pilots had to perform. “Wow! It gets really scary, huh?” was my response. His answer was, “Yes, but the only scare is that we will run out of fuel before we get back to Beech Field!”
I found that the only way the loss of heading or lateral attitude control would happen before the stall was when the airplane was exceedingly light in weight. Thus, minimum fuel was always on board during this testing. Prior to this, I had believed that all of the speed numbers published were based on maximum gross weight ... as you probably think also. But, no, VMCA is usually only found – at least in Beech twins – at light weight.
VSSE is the abbreviation for Intentional One-Engine- Inoperative Speed. It is defined as: “A speed above both VMCA and stall speed, selected to provide a margin of
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