Was there a lot of student activity while you were there?
Have a Tower?
Did the locals living close cause you much grief?
And now, for something entirely different…
Cessna made a VERY short-coupled cabin twin (4xx series, IIRC) which became infamouse for crashing if it lost an engine.
Again, IIRC, Cessna set out to PROVE that it was a fine airplane.
With cameras rolling, their test pilot shut down an engine to simulate “engine out”. He crashed.
By the mid-90’s these were so highly regarded that you could buy one for $40K - the price of a crapped-out single 4 seater.
Name that plane!
Do you have a cite for that? It is trivial to control a twin after a failure just by reducing power on the operating engine.
I heard something like that about their old T-50 / UC-78 “Bamboo Bomber”, except the problem was that it couldn’t maintain altitude on only one engine even at full power. If you lost one, you were going down.
The 411 had that reputation. Also had too small vertical stabilizer & rudder according to a lot of pilots.
Also the old Piper Apache with 150 HP engines could just extend it’s glide a bit on one engine.
Ever see the twin engine Aeronca ? or Tri-pacer?
If you took your Swift with the 85 HP engine to Denver and landed it, unless you got a perfect winter day & a long downhill runway into a good breeze you needed to take it apart and truck it to a lower elevation.
They were behind the power curve even in a full power vertical dive. Bawahahahah ( Yeah, I owned one in the late 60’s. )
Controlled decent and getting back to a runway are two totally different things.
Losing an engine on takeoff with a 411was usually lethal with even a moderate load if you were in a place where you had no good place to put down right in front of you.
Most can not fight the desire for full power during an engine loss on takeoff with nothing but boulders or houses as your only options even knowing the short comings of the type.
If you can not tell yourself or your boss that a full load on this day at this airport is not a safe thing to do.
Need to really know about the maintenance & condition of the engines and hope & pray that Murphy is not around…
IIRC, the Bamboo Bomber could maybe hold 5000’ density altitude if it was light and already up there. ( If you are near Denver in the summertime, you needed to tell Huston that you had a serious problem. ) Remember they did not have feathering props. You really needed to get in high pitch and stop that engine from windmilling.
Kinda cool. Not so the Twin Cub. 
Not a problem with an Ercoupe.
The problem with the Cessna was roll-over, not loss of altitude, IIRC. It simply didn’t have a big enough tail or the small tail was way too close to the wing, however you want to look at it.
I had a book on Airplane types - a page or two on each. Can’t find it.
For this plane, there was a side view with the notation:
The problem is obvious. Not nearly enough vertical.
Looking at pics, the 402 may have been the problem. It looks kinda like a first-gen kit plane - too short with no rudder or elevator authority.
This pic has a dorsal that looks like an “after-market” add-on:
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Air-Texas/Cessna-402/0736038/L/
There were times I really wished I had a JATO …
Coups are fun for me if they have the added rudder controls. Not a fan of the interconnected system like they were built for so many years.
Any of that era are fun when you can open the canopy or don’t even have one.
You want an Ercoupe with real controls?
The Mooney Cadet was the last (so far) iteration of the 'coupe - they put a straight tail and stick-and-rudder controls.
Go wild!
And:
The American/Grumman AA1 could be opened halfway at speeds less than 140mph indicated.
With that all-glass canopy, you either slid it open or you roasted.
I never asked about the AA4 or AA5 Tiger, which still gets build from time to time.
yah, I need full control of plane. I’ve had to cross control the aileron/rudder in a bad situation and wouldn’t want to give it up.
I couldn’t find a JATO option for my plane so I put in a bigger motor. It still won’t get out of it’s own way but it climbs a lot better.
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.
yes but that doesn’t mean there is enough power to climb or manuever which I think is the problem with losing an engine on takeoff.
Correct. Light twins have no guaranteed performance for continuing a take-off after an engine failure.
**
Richard**
Forgive me but I have a problem with flat, absolute statements. You are implying to the uneducated about airplanes that they won’t even though you threw in the word ‘guaranteed.’
Will the plane you fly do it if all the power on one side quits at rotation? Will it even fly at ½ load? Much less from rotation?
Early Aerostar I flew would do it if the density altitude was low, dry air and no significant obstacles to climb over. Been there, done that. ( No, not guaranteed. But it is expected to under these conditions.)
Same for a 1970 Turbo C-310 Q model. I had some practice in that aircraft so I did not need as much atmospheric help.
(Please try to use the words
‘mostly’
‘that I know of’
‘in most cases’
instead of that ‘g’ word so my blood pressure does not spike so hard.) 
I am truly curious about what your kind of big iron can do? Two out? One inboard & the opposite side outboard engine at rotation? In flight? With just a lite load and ½ fuel? Stuff like that.
I’ll rephrase. Light twins are not certified to continue a take-off after an engine failure. It might do it, might not, depends on the day, and the manufacturer makes no promises. Foremost in the pilot’s mind should be the possibility that landing ahead is the only safe option.
By contrast, and to answer some of your questions, the Bae146 meets the four engine transport category certification requirements which means that with an engine failure of an outboard engine recognised at V1:
- It can maintain a climb gradient of 0.5% with take-off flap and the landing gear down.
- It can maintain a climb gradient of 3.0% with take-off flap and the gear retracted.
- Once above 400’ It can accelerate to the flap retraction speed in level flight with an available climb gradient of 1.5%.
- Once flaps are retracted it can maintain a climb gradient of 1.5% with remaining engines at max continuous thrust.
To account for variation in airframe, engines, and piloting technique, the figures stated in 2, 3, and 4, are reduced by 1.0% when calculating the obstacle clearance flight path.
To make all of this work, the manufacturer supplies enough performance data so that a performance analyst can produce easy to read data for the flight crews to use to determine a maximum allowable take-off weight taking into account the ambient conditions on the day, and the specific obstacles in the take-off path for a particular runway.
Taking the process even further, if the crews work out that at maximum take-off thrust the allowable take-off weight is higher than the actual take-off weight, they may reduce the thrust used so that the performance requirements are still met and engine wear is minimised.
If you lose two engines at once, you are on your own, no guarantees.
We also have the ability to commence a take-off with one engine shut down. There’re basically only two reasons to do this. To ferry the aircraft to a maintenance base, or to do an inflight start of an engine with a failed starter motor.
However the situation in this case is more like a light twin. The manufacturer supplies no performance data (no guarantees) regarding what happens if you lose a further engine at the rotate speed. If the second engine fails while the gear is still down you are in no man’s land.
As for losing a second engine on the same side in flight, it is no great drama and is regularly practiced in the simulator. Provided it is not a hot and high airport you can do a two engine approach and go-around at about 2000 kg under the maximum landing weight (call it 20 passengers under a full load.) It is the go-around performance that is limiting, the approach and landing is fine at higher weights.
All of this take-off certification stuff is why a four engined airliner has much worse performance with all engines running than a twin engined airliner does. The quad-jet only needs to cope with a loss of 25% of its thrust during take-off while the twin needs to cope with a loss of 50%. Therefore with all engines operating the quad is operating much closer to its critical take-off performance.
Thanks for the info Richard.
I did not know that about 4 engine big iron.