[Josh]

I stumbled across this excellent selection of scanned Pilots Notes

I haven’t been able to stop leafing through - British, American and German, though my language skills aren’t really up to the latter!

Particularly geeking out on how awful the twins were in an EFATO - Vmc in the Beaufighter was 160 mph vs a liftoff speed of around 100, the P-38, Mosquito and B-25 are “only” a delta of 30-40 mph

[Iceman]

Those must have been some butt-clenching few seconds attaining Vmc after liftoff with the aircraft at max. weight and the engines straining at max. chat, all whilst flying a ‘bomb’ just waiting to go off !

Iceman

[timjenner]

Thanks, fascinating link.

I was fortunate enough to experience one of the two-seat Spitfires at Biggin during the summer, as part of the deal they give you a repro set of Pilots Notes. The section on Emergencies includes the following:
"Whenever possible the aircraft should be abandoned by parachute rather than ditched, since the ditching qualities are known to be very poor".

[johnm]

Just the other day we were reading some of the stuff left by my father in law who flew Beaufighters around the Greek islands destroying shipping.

[Hooligan]

No idea if it's true but I've heard tales that BBMF Spitfires taking part in flypasts over London are required to ditch in the Thames in the event of an engine failure - I believe the aircraft has rapid submarine-like tendencies, so one would hope the tide was out and foreshore available...

[Ibra]

Thanks for the link,

On vintage twins EFATO, someone I know from LaFerteAlais had the ugly taste of it at Villaroche AIR LEGEND two weeks ago in the Bitc*18, very docile one given that Vr is about Vmca both about 85kts, that is the theory, in practice, with vintage tailwheel twins just cut the power off and leave the grass to take care of the rest…

[kanga]

..

Particularly geeking out on how awful the twins were in an EFATO - Vmc in the Beaufighter was 160 mph vs a liftoff speed of around 100, the P-38, Mosquito and B-25 are “only” a delta of 30-40 mph

One of the 'what if's of WW2 is whether the Air Ministry was wrong to reject the Gloster F.9/37 and its F.18/40 and F.29/40 developments. Developed, they could have fulfilled just about all the Beaufighter and Mosquito roles (and easily the Blenheim ones); while its twin fins would have meant that asymmetric handling ought to have been much more docile than in any of those, reportedly a deliberate feature of the design. Also, unlike the Mosquito, it was designed to be rapidly reroled:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloster_F.9/37

Obviously, there is a scale model on display at JAM

Oh, and the Beaufighter had Bristol (ie Filton, South Gloucestershire) engines and Rotol (ie Cheltenham, Gloucestershire) airscrews, so engine failures were relatively rare

[RisePilot]

are required to ditch in the Thames in the event of an engine failure

The same still applies today with helicopter flights.

There was a Times article years ago on this titled something like "It is illegal to crash a helicopter in the City of London"

[Oldfart]

The Beech 18 vid showed very little rudder use, presumably on the brakes and overdid it?

I had the fortunate experience of flying a UK based NA B25 for a number of years.
The WWII Pilots Notes for the weights flown then, approx 34,000 lbs was “ EFATO land straight ahead” So no SE performance there.
At the weights we flew for demos etc., approx 24000lbs perhaps, the SE performance was predicted to be somewhat better.
Other than simulated failure in training, I luckily never had the chance to try the real thing.
The all engine performance was quite sprightly, and although of course with higher control forces and speeds, the SE performance would not be much different to an Aztec/ Navajo, Cessna twin, all with marginal SE performance at MTOW.
Airborne at 105 mph, the aircraft speedily attained the approx 165 mph SE safety speed in a shallow climb as the gear retracted. No flaps were used during T/O.
As a rule of thumb for an EFATO, I planned for up to 1000ft definitely land ahead. 1000-1500ft with the gear retracted, evaluate the performance and perhaps again land head. Above 1500ft with no obstacles in the vicinity, (Climbing at 170 mph at hopefully 200fpm covered a lot of countryside) some very gentle turns to land back on the departure runway. Keeping in mind the possibility of having perhaps to reduce power on the good engine, to control the yaw.
Early in my B25 experience, we flew to an ex Swiss Air force airfield, 3000ft amsl. Situated in a narrow valley surrounded by 4/9000ft terrain, it did though, give one food for thought in the event of a failure.
At least the previous Mirage/ Hunter airbase occupants had the option to eject!
In normal operations though the B25 was a sprightly performer for its bulk, great experience, and a privilege to be let loose in.

[Genghis the Engineer]

are required to ditch in the Thames in the event of an engine failure

The same still applies today with helicopter flights.

There was a Times article years ago on this titled something like "It is illegal to crash a helicopter in the City of London"

When I was an apprentice at RAE, we had a Gazellecopter in A-shed boasting a placard stating "It is prohibited to crash this aircraft".

G