Vmc Analyzed

Thursday, August 20, 2020 at 05:56 PM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

The article highlights that a VMC (Minimum Control Speed) loss of control, often a "snap roll," is typically caused by a vertical stabilizer/rudder stall due to excessive sideslip, rather than just running out of rudder authority.
Pilots must immediately establish a 3-5 degree bank into the operating engine to effectively counteract yaw and prevent control loss, a critical technique the author argues is often underemphasized in training.
The actual VMC can be significantly higher than published values if the aircraft is not properly banked into the good engine, requiring pilots to be prepared for aggressive control inputs and potential power reduction during an engine failure at low speeds.

See a mistake? Contact us.

Training for my multi-engine rating years ago was in a Piper Apache. It was a good, inexpensive training aircraft, but it lulled me into a false sense of security about VMC. I thought a VMC rollover was just caused by the torque of the good engine/drag of the failed engine and the lack of rudder authority at low speeds. I thought a VMC demonstration was a pretty benign affair, no big deal. I was wrong.

VMC Awakening

Fortunately, I got my VMC awakening in a simulator. I was a newly minted multiengine pilot with little multi-engine time. Sawyer Aviation at Sky Harbor in Phoenix had a generic light-twin simulator and I jumped at the chance to get checked out in it, and even flew it solo.