User Guide

THE BEN-HUR EFFECT
A simple way to understand this is to imagine that you’re
driving a Roman chariot. If you want to feel like Charlton Heston,
go right ahead - but since we’re discussing an airplane with only
two engines, we’ll trade in the fancy 4-horsepower Formula IV
version he drove in the movie for a simpler 2-hp sports model.
Okay, so you’re thundering along when one of the horses -
let’s say, the left one - stumbles and goes down. “Whoa, Dobbin!”
you cry, but the right horse keeps charging along while the left
one, still in harness, gets dragged along on his butt. As you can
see from the accompanying illustration the combination of thrust
on the right side and drag on the left side makes the whole assem-
blage want to turn left*. The same effect occurs in an airplane: the
engine that’s producing thrust pulls its side of the airplane for-
ward, while the engine that’s stopped does not.
FEATHERS IN THE WIND
In fact, if an engine does quit, the initial effect is even worse
than we’ve shown above, with one engine running and one
stopped. As you’ve noticed flying singles, when you close the
throttle, the engine doesn’t quit turning; if you’ve been brave (or
foolhardy) enough to either cut the mixture or shut down the igni-
tion inflight, the engine still turns, or “windmills,” at a pretty fair
fraction of its former operating speed.
190
191
You, however, are privileged to jump right into the Piper
Navajo Chieftain, and this is a pretty significant airplane in a cou-
ple of different ways. Not only is it a prime example of the “medi-
um piston twin” that’s become a mainstay of corporate and light
commuter aviation; it’s also the first “truly professional” airplane
for many pilots, a springboard to an airline career. Piston-powered
it may be, but the Chieftain is a good-sized airplane, carrying up
to nine passengers plus the pilot. (That’s the most the FAA allows
without a two-pilot crew.)
Flying a Chieftain is a great way to gain real-world experi-
ence, the kind that looks good in your logbook. Ask in the cock-
pit of any airline jet nowadays, and chances are good that at least
one of the pilots will have served his or her apprenticeship in the
trusty “Navahog.” The airplane remains an essential air service
provider even today. As regional airlines move into turboprops
and even smaller jets, they can’t afford to keep serving the small-
est communities. For those markets, particularly in outlying or
sparsely populated regions, the Chieftain remains a real lifeline.
IT’S EASIER THAN YOU THINK
If you’ve been flying a heavy piston single, such as the
Malibu Mirage provided in this release of FLY!, you should have
no trouble transitioning into the Chieftain (or any other light or
medium piston twin). I’m going to let you in on a big secret: as
long as both engines are running, there’s absolutely no difference
between flying a twin and a heavy complex single. (Actually, in
the case of the Chieftain, it’s even easier, as you’ll find out a bit
later when we discuss the concept of critical engines.) If you’re
coming from the Mirage, you’re on familiar territory: the Chieftain
uses almost exactly the same 350-hp turbocharged Lycoming
engine, so you can just consider that you’re flying two Mirages in
close formation.
By the same token, the special skills you have to learn to be
a safe multi-engine pilot are, in fact, single-engine techniques.
The twin flies just like a single as long as both engines are run-
ning; it’s when one of them becomes uninterested in further toil
that things become, to say the least, interesting.
Flight Instruction
Flight Instruction
* Notice: No animals were actually harmed in the
preparation of this manual.
The Ben-Hur
Effect