# The Great Ongoing Aviation Thread (general and other) (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 23, 2011, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499 "2011-10-23T02:17:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 4696
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2023, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499/4696 "2023-10-07T19:32:52Z")
Prior mentions of VMC within this thread for anyone wanting more context on the phenomena. In each case here I’m only citing the first post of a group of back-and-forths on the topic before the thread moved on to the next issue: > [@The Great Ongoing Aviation Thread (general and other)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other/600499/675): > > There must have been more to it than that; any twin will roll on its back if you get too slow on one engine. That’s why there’s a Vmca, the minimum safe speed for flying with one engine failed. > [@The Great Ongoing Aviation Thread (general and other)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other/600499/1425): > > You’re right they’re by far the exception as to GA airplanes and are mostly unheard of in larger engines / aircraft. I’ll fill in that “mostly” later. Partly it’s history. Multiengine airplanes date back to the very early days. As such, the early engines all turned the same way and torque, etc., is just what it was. Once somebody decided to invent counter-rotating engines, the usual way for ICEs is not with a reversing transmission. Instead you grind the camshaft as a mirror image of the n… > [@The Great Ongoing Aviation Thread (general and other)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other/600499/1708): > > Good points all. Landing in water or a marsh with gear extended (or fixed) in a light plane is pretty much a guaranteed end-over-end flip to finish inverted with the gear pointing at the sky. Lack of stall is over-hyped by the canard manufacturers. As you say, a high sink rate once you get slow and power required is much greater than power available is equally fatal and often less obvious. I’d be more interested in Vmca issues with a twin than whether it can or can’t stall. Hyping that “It ca… > [@The Great Ongoing Aviation Thread (general and other)](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other/600499/3429): > > He’s real nose high and mushing from the git-go. Looks like flaps are up. Which at first glance is an odd configuration for an impending landing. Could be either a stall / incipient spin or a Vmc roll. My bet is Vmc roll. I’d expect a more violent wing-drop if it was a true stall. Whether there was already an engine / prop failure or we just watched one happen in real time I can’t say. Or maybe they just got real slow, noticed the mistake, crammed on full throttle, and one engine accelerated… And some other threads where VMC made an appearance. Including appearances by Dopers who’ve left us and Doper’s who’ve left the Earth. > [@Why don't prop planes need to counter the prop like a helicopter?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-dont-prop-planes-need-to-counter-the-prop-like-a-helicopter/245119): > > A helicopter needs a tail rotor or it will rotate around the main rotor. Since a center-mounted prop plane is the same basic layout but rotated 90 degrees, how do they deal with the problem? > [@TransAsia Flight GE235 crash](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/transasia-flight-ge235-crash/711804): > > 23 dead and counting. frowning Grim reading. But it makes me remember Captain Sullenberger’s landing on the Hudson. > [@Pilots -- General Aviation: For a long flight over water would you prefer a twin piston or single engine turboprop?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pilots-general-aviation-for-a-long-flight-over-water-would-you-prefer-a-twin-piston-or-single-engine-turboprop/920975/53): > > I’ll disagree a touch and argue that in a thread headlined ‘long flight over water’, ETOPS (AKA Engine(s) Turn Or Passengers Swim), while a piece of jargon, isn’t an obnoxious or unexpected one. And at least the pilots in the thread have been sparing with the jargon so far. YMMV. Question I had for them was in the twin engines, takeoff regime, and an engine fails. There is a minimum flight speed below which the airplane may be above stall speed for a particular configuration, yet may not be… The fact VMC keeps getting talked about suggests that pilots failing to recognize and avoid its dangers remains a perennial problem in aviation. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-great-ongoing-aviation-thread-general-and-other-part-1/600499)._