Simulators

The light-twin takeoff decision: if an engine quits near rotation, can you stop in the runway remaining or climb out on one engine? The stop and go distances trade off around a decision speed.

The descending blade throws faster air over the wing behind it, so the extra lift lands outboard on the right wing and inboard on the left. Fail an engine and the survivor rolls you toward the dead side; the right one does it with the longer arm. The A in PAST.

Why the left engine is critical on a conventional twin — P-factor shifts each thrust line, the moment arms stop matching, and a counter-rotating engine erases the difference. The P in PAST.

Losing one engine is a 50% loss of thrust but an 80–90% loss of climb — see how a windmilling prop, gear, flaps, sideslip, and altitude each spend the tiny margin that’s left.

Only the left engine’s corkscrew wraps onto the fuselage and strikes the fin, pushing the nose left. That helps when the right engine quits and does nothing when the left one does. The S in PAST.

The propeller turns one way, so it turns the airplane the other. A clockwise prop rolls you left, which is toward a dead left engine and away from a dead right one. A pure couple: no moment arm, only a sign. The T in PAST.

How bank angle, weight, CG, density altitude, and propeller state move a light twin’s minimum control speed — and how it converges with the stall.

One Engine Inoperative (OEI) flight in light twins — why a few degrees of bank toward the good engine beats a centered ball.

The wing-down, top-rudder crosswind landing: bank cancels the drift, rudder keeps the nose straight, and you touch down on the upwind wheel. Find the slip a given crosswind needs, and where technique becomes essential.

The center of gravity sits behind the main gear, so a small yaw grows instead of damping. Compare a taildragger with a tricycle, and watch how fast — and how little rudder timing — separates a save from a ground loop.

P-factor, torque, spiraling slipstream, and gyroscopic precession all yaw a taildragger left — and all take right rudder. See how power, airspeed, and an abrupt tail-raise move the stack, and why rudder is weakest exactly when you need it most.

A crosswind swings the nose into the wind about the mains, and your rudder fades as you slow down. Watch the balance tip from rudder control to a weathervane you can’t hold — and why the tailwheel makes it worse than a trike.

Air sinking off a ridge can out-descend a light airplane at full power, and density altitude has already shrunk your climb. Run the encounter and see why the answer is to turn toward lower terrain, not to pull harder.

Turn radius grows with the square of true airspeed — and density altitude inflates it. See whether your 180° fits between the canyon walls, and why the fix is slow down, add flaps, and bank.

High elevation, high temperature, and humidity thin the air, so the wing, prop, and engine perform as if the runway were thousands of feet higher — watch the density altitude climb and see what it costs in power, runway, and climb.

Wind, stability, and moisture decide what forms over a ridge: a smooth upslope, a cap cloud, building thunderstorms, or a standing wave with lenticulars and rotors. Watch the air move and read the hazards.

Why you cross a ridge at 45° instead of head-on: if the lee side sinks, the abort turn back to lower ground is far smaller, so you lose far less altitude. Trade off crossing angle, wind, and your buffer.

A pass is a venturi: wind squeezed through the gap speeds up like flow through a carburetor throat. Narrow the pass or raise the wind and watch the speed — and the turbulence — climb past 20 knots.

Without GPS you arrive in a cone, not on a point — widened by every degree of heading you missed and every knot of wind you didn’t know about. See why aiming straight at a small field is a coin flip, and how big an offset has to be to beat your own error.