He is for real. His integrity is not questioned. If you're going to contact someone, he's the kind of guy to contact.

With that being said, I still wouldn't do it.

Not sure that I'm following you either... I don't recall saying they don't have rudders. If I did, please cite that quote.

What I did bring up was stick and rudder skills. I'd imagine you understand the difference between flying an airplane "with a rudder' versus stick and rudder skills right?

It wasn't until after I got my PPL that I was fortunate enough to get some tailwheel/aerobatic time, and it was eye opening to say the least. Previously, I thought I had a pretty decent set of stick and rudder skills, because as you mentioned, I'd swing the nose around during a crosswind landing. Even though the decathlon I was flying is pretty benign as far as tail draggers/aero planes go, it will INSTANTLY let you know if your rudder skills are not up to par. It was a great experience, and I still try to get up in that plane every so often to stay sharp. I'm overdue for a tailwheel workout, so hopefully I can get into one soon.

As far as your question above, the turbine airplanes I've flown as a commercial pilot have all had some type of rudder boost assist (even the king air 90) and have so much power that engine out work was pretty much not a big deal. Use rudder to hold your heading, set the trim, take your time and work the problem.

The piston multis without rudder boost aren't really that different... The actual engine out procedures require a strong skill set and you have to be pretty fast if it's an engine out on takeoff, but frankly I've not found it very challenging from a rudder point of view. After all, you're just using it to keep the HI or a visual reference point from moving. Seriously, what's so hard about that?

Landing in crosswinds are a fun challenge, but again in the bigger airplanes it's MUCH easier than a smaller airplane - at least in my experience. Your approach and landing speeds are usually significantly faster, so your crosswind component is a smaller percentage of your total airspeed. The larger aircraft weighs SIGNIFICANTLY more than a small single, so you don't have to fight a gusty crosswind nearly as much as you would an airplane with small weight/inertia. Once you land on the runway, I've seen a lot of people in large multis/jets pretty much stop flying the plane. Because these planes weigh so much, you can pretty much get away with doing that, no problem. A small single in a really strong surface wind? You need to "fly" the airplane all the way to the tie downs.

I've landed a jet in winds that were much stronger than what I've landed a single in, but due to the increased weight and clean design, I really didn't find it to be that big of a deal. Swing the nose around with rudder just before or during the flare and plant it on. Even when it's really gusty, it is far less work than flying a small single. Also, as a percentage of the total flight, a crosswind landing is maybe 1% of the total flight time? Even when I was teaching students crosswind landings all day, it was a pretty small percentage of the total flight around the pattern.

Anyway, this is all just common sense really. I'd think that anybody that has a few hundred hours in singles would find everything I've written to be pretty obvious.

Serious answer: Technically, each of these airplanes have yokes and one of them has a flight director, yaw damper and rudder boost.

For the record: My first three airplanes were c150/c172/pa28-180.

Just to make my point: What were the first three airplanes that you ever flew?

Uh, ok? How does that answer the question?

I've flown some aerobatics (with an instructor for my own benefit) in a CITABAREA back when I was working on my Commercial SEL and got a lot out of the experience if you are referring to this, but to be completely frank, my worse experiences (in terms of having to apply skill) in landing in X-winds have all been in larger aircraft, the most memorable of which was in an A319 with a 39G51Kts wind that was about 30 degrees off the nose.

All I know is I was working that joystick like a 10 year old works the Nintendo controller during a video game.. it was almost all random-like and instinctive jerking back and forth, left and right, with constant work on the rudder to align the nose in the flare...

Were as my experience in smaller aircraft has been they weather vane all the way to the flare, and as the airspeeds are so slow, and the proximity to the ground so close (sometimes with a direct view down below, as in with Cessna's)... it was easy to then just kick the nose straight and add wind correction with the stick as I rolled out (all 1000' of it) the landing.

I don't mean to degrade your experience, as you might have landed in far worse x-winds with the smaller craft, but again, the landings I've had on large aircraft, with low-slung engines and 20-40' cockpit heights during flare were quite the challenge to my "stick and rudder" skills.. here is one such landing (the KLM guys were IMHO the best MD drivers in the world).. Don't let the steady appearance of the approach fool you, you're going for a bumpy ride, and your yoke is moving all over the cockpit (we called it, clearing out the cockpit)..


YouTube - KLM MD-11 Crosswind Landing at Montreal

Typing as slowly as possible;):

Unless you were trained from zero time in the military or you are the son or daughter of a physician, your first airplane was probably a:

Katana
or
C-152
or
PA-28-161

Not a High Performance, Constant Speed Propeller, Retractable Landing Gear machine like the san-juan-ers.

Your second airplane was one of the above simple machines or possibly a c-172.

Not a high performance twin.

Your third airplane may have been a mooney or another single retract.

Not a nineteen seat commuter airliner.

Get it now?

(They attend a part 141 school that trains them in three challenging aircraft, they graduate with an associates degree in aviation and a commercial, multiengine instrument)

nothing wrong with crawling before you walk... My frist plane was a PA-28 .. I have plenty of 152 time, 172, 182, 210 and piper/beach twins.. all are now a distant flashback when I contrast them to the 7 types I've flown since that require a minimum of 3 weeks course and in two cases 6 weeks+... What you learn to fly on is irrelevant... how well you're graded/weeded out of the system at that critical time is what is at issue.

You know by 250 horus, and an Instrument rating weather a person has "what it takes" to be a career pilot, or is he going to always be behind the power curve.

Wow, well I didn't realize 40 hrs of light single time endowed a pilot with a lifetime of "stick and rudder" skills. Plus an associates degree in aviation! Wow, I sure wish I could turn back the clock.

No, I don't feel like you're degrading my experience at all... I still have a lot to learn, and am looking forward to the day that I move up to a large transport category airplane and the many learning experiences it will provide.

I've never flown an airliner, but as far as the list of airplanes mentioned by SmoothOnTop, I have flown similar types and did not find them to be extraordinarily challenging in the stick and rudder regime. I guess it's just me!

Yeah, the whole aviation degree thing cracks me up.. Now if you had an aerospace engineering (or any engineering) degree, that would be something to boast about... but if you're going to get a college degree, get one in Business, or Science .... that's worth a lot more in the real world, and in many cases, in the aviation world.