Originally published: September 2008
So first of all I highly recommend ATP Inc. for multi-engine training based on my experience in the Raleigh, NC out-station. The Raleigh office is a one-instructor outfit, the current instructor is Eric Lodge, and he’s an excellent instructor with plenty of experience. The other thing, right now (January 2002), you can’t beat the price, $1295 for 10 hours of dual in a Piper Seminole.
You book your training by calling ATP’s toll-free number, tell them where you’d like to train and what for, and they book you up. They’ll send you some details as well as their Piper Seminole handbook. They advise you to be very familiar with the handbook, and I’ll endorse that. The more you know about the plane the easier the training will be.
We started on Friday December 28th with the check-ride schedule for Monday the 31st. We filled out the paperwork and Eric checked my logbook and certificates to make sure we weren’t wasting our time. Of course money exchanged hands. ATP was offering a $50 discount for cash (or equivalent) before they lowered their prices. Right now that discount isn’t in effect. We spent about an hour going through the maneuvers I’d need to be able to perform, and once we’d done that, well it was time to fly.
Now ATP owns a whole bunch of Seminole’s they shunt around the country, so when we walked out onto the ramp Eric was looking around for “his” plane and it wasn’t there. Seems that in the dark of night somebody had come in and taken “his” plane and left him another. So a quick call to ATP’s dispatch department to make sure we were supposed to be using that plane was in order. I’m not going to go into excruciating detail about the training, but suffice it to say that flying a twin is a lot of fun.
I would be taking the check-ride at Rocky Mount Airport (RWI) so on each of our sessions we left the Raleigh Class ‘C’ and wandered over to Rocky Mount practicing maneuvers as we went. Steep turns were pretty straightforward, the high wing loading and the power from both engines make the plane pretty stable, just remember to trim and you can make circles all day. Slow flight, just like you did in a single, slow it up, gear down, flaps down, power up as you approach your target speed and hold speed with pitch and altitude with power. With both engines running flying a twin is really just like flying a more powerful single!
Power off stalls and power on stalls are pretty straightforward as well. Although for power-on stalls power was limited to 18” of manifold pressure, so you’re not exactly reaching for the stars. Pitch for 12 degrees and hold it until you stall. With both those 180hp 4-bangers on each wing you learn not to pitch too far down on stall recovery, pitch for the horizon, power up and the plane will fly itself out of the stall.
Just one thing left to do, the dreaded VMC demo. The Seminole has a VMC of 56 knots, with clean stall at 57 knots and landing configuration stall at 55 knots. So we won’t actually be getting to VMC here. The actual speed for VMC goes down with altitude, and as we all know planes stall at the same indicated speed regardless of altitude (all things being equal) so it just gets worse the higher you get. So you simulate VMC by setting up on one engine, slowing to 77 knots, freezing the rudder, waiting for the yaw and then recovering.
Then there’s engine failure scenarios to play with, loss of an engine at altitude, including full shutdown and feather. There’s also loss of an engine on climb out and of course loss of an engine for an approach and landing and finally loss of engine on takeoff roll.. I didn’t find control too confusing, i.e. putting the wrong rudder input in. I did have to have it beaten into me that heading and airspeed are the important things here, get them under control and then start futzing with mixture, props etc.
The rest of the time was spent shooting the approaches at Rocky Mount and practicing landings. We just need normal and short field, no soft-field landings for the multi it seems. Another point I’d heard made was to be sure you’re up on your instrument procedures and skills before you go for the training. I certainly shot enough approaches that my instrument skills got cleaned up, but it was well worth the session I spent in the air shooting some approaches and the 2 hours I spent in the simulator brushing up on my scan before going to ATP.
On Saturday we also spent about 2 hours going through the aircraft systems. For the add-on all you need to know is the systems and multi-engine operation theory, all the rest like cross-country, rules and regulations etc. you’re presumed to know. Though I say it myself, I’d pretty thoroughly prepared for the aircraft systems. This is still a useful session however, because Eric was able to brief me on a number of specific areas this examiner likes to get into, and sure enough some of the “special” areas that were pointed out came up.
I’d read some reports of other people’s ATP training in which they indicated they thought the check rides were “canned”, and of course I can’t comment on any location but Raleigh. My check ride was with Ray Wells and I didn’t feel it was at all canned. Of course Eric’s been doing this a while with this examiner, so he knows what’s going to be expected, but Eric described a check ride and the order of the maneuvers, and we ended up doing things in a different order. So I think within the limitations of the PTS the DE’s shake it up to keep you on your toes.
So Monday morning dawns bright, clear and cold. We meet at 8:00AM and head off for Rocky Mount. Review the maneuvers on the way over and shoot the approach one more time.
The oral was about 2 hours, maybe a bit less; of course we started off with all the various bits of paperwork. ATP is adamant that the check ride fee has to be in cash, so cash it was. It was a complete oral, and like any good oral you get to show your stuff and the DE gets to teach you something as well so everybody can leave feeling like they contributed. I do have a tendency to talk myself into a corner from time to time, but if you remember to pull out the books I can usually talk yourself back out.
Then we flew for an hour, covered all the maneuvers, shot the approach and back into the office for a nice shiny new temporary certificate. Then Eric and I flew back to Raleigh, with me logging a total of 2.2 MEL PIC (including the check ride).
So once again, I do highly recommend the Raleigh ATP location. I enjoyed the training (not least because I passed the check ride J. If you have any questions for me, feel free to contact me.
