Date of flight: October 14th
Tail #: N978WC (Seminole)
Instructor: John Nadolski
It was very helpful to be able to do a ride along observation flight in the Seminole. Dave Atkinson was the PIC, and they were on their seventh lesson, which is helpful since they practiced mostly all maneuvers and approaches that need to be done for the multi-engine rating. The main thing I noticed when flying the Seminole is that you really need to be ahead of the plane, since it goes a bit faster than what we are used to. On approach, gear is put down at the FAF and flaps are added in when descending down to MDA.
Another very important thing I learned is that you MUST have the checklist items memorized. When the instructor cut out an engine, Dave was able to go through the flow immediately and decide whether to fix or feather the prop. He would make the decision right away and take appropriate action. When the instructor cut an engine when we were at 10,000 feet, Dave decided to try and fix it, since we had a lot of altitude to lose. However, when the engine was cut after takeoff, he made the decision to feather (since you don’t have time to fix it, just time to turn around and try to land at the airport).
The power-on stall was different in that he had to pitch up a lot higher than we are used to (since airspeed is higher). The steep turns are more difficult because you have altitude changes and airspeed changes much quicker than the Arrow or Archer. The VMC Demo went as I expected, but it was nice to see what we learned in multi ground actually being done in the plane. The last thing I noticed that made a big difference was not being able to use the turn coordinator when an engine fails. You have to watch the yaw string and bank slightly into the good engine to stay coordinated.
I think that the observation flight is a really good learning experience and a good preparation because I now know what to expect when I begin my rating.
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