Day 7

Flying again at 9 this morning. My turn to suffer engine failures just south of the Needles (Isle of Wight, see picture opposite).

Engine failures in the twin demand a lot of rudder initially, so very tired legs (equivalent to pushing over 50kgs with the leg opposite the failed engine) . The drills are also quite long, so a very tired brain after just 30 mins or so of practice.

Then this afternoon we had another briefing, this time on performance. That is aircraft performance, in case you were thinking that Gary and I would be hitting the cabaret scene in Dorset any time soon...

Aircraft performance: Question. Why does the co-pilot shout 'V1, V2, rotate' in all those aviation films?

1) because it sounds cool
2) because the aircraft is trying to avoid Nazi rockets of the same names?
3) because V1 is the highest speed at which the pilot could abort the take-off (so once V1 is reached he/she is obliged to continue the take-off), and V2 is the speed at which the aircraft nose should be rotated (raised) in order to lift-off. If you get to V1 but fail to achieve V2 you really are having a very bad day indeed.
4) none of the above

Hint: as usual with multi-choice questions, it is often safest to opt for the longest and most complicated answer.

More tantalising performance questions tomorrow....

By the way, please feel free to let me know what you think of my blog (boring, silly, irrelevant, or otherwise) and anything else that you would like me to include.