Originally Posted by
shdw
Doesn't surprise me with that one since Vmc is likely well below Va and the yaw force is applied by the engine for the snap, not the tail. If it was anything like the RC, it isn't a snap but it rolls with the speed of a snap.
I question the accuracy here. I suspect he doesn't understand what a split S is. Since flat spin recovery is getting to a normal spin then recovering from the normal spin your exit would be close to 90 degrees nose down. This is what I suspect happened. A split S would be him being inverted, level, and then pulling through.
If the "powering up the dead engine" is accurate a split S, only guessing, would be well over Vne. Doing a split S in our cap 10s we would pull about 4gs and use 16-1800 RPM. Entry speed was ~20 below Va and exit ~60 above Va if I remember right, it's been 5 years.
Finally, how often do we accurately account for things in a high stress situation? How accurate does the media then take our inaccurate accounts to sell it's articles?
Either way, still amazing he pulled through and kudos to him for those skills.
I think Va in the B55 is like 180mph... which is pretty high for a light twin. It's really hard to power back to 180mph at sea level... I've seen 19'' still hovering around 190-200...
If you power up that Baron and dive... it's pretty clean so it'll pick up speed quick. I'm not sure if I would have powered up that engine... but maybe powered down the other one.
Either way it's hard to play Monday morning quarterback... I can honestly say I've never been inverted in a light twin. One good thing about the Baron is that it has an unusually good, responsive ailerons so I imagine the "roll rate" is pretty good for a light twin with neutral power.
* as an off topic rant.... Everyone says the B55 is a fuel guzzler... it's really not, you can honestly get around 11-12 gal/hr a side ('bout 22 total) and still true at about 200.