Last week, I talked to Zach about finishing up my multi-engine training. He told me to plan on doing it on Monday, and that he’d get me finished up quickly. I called him on Monday morning, and he told me that the left seat was broken, but that it should be fixed by Tuesday and to fly Tuesday at 1pm. On Tuesday morning, he told me to come in at noon.

I did, and the plane was ready. It was entirely too hot. It took me about 5 minutes to get the fuel cap off the left wing tank. I’m not sure what’s wrong with it, but it’s a needlessly complicated affair. There’s a tab in the center of the cap that lifts up and then twists, and then the whole cap rotates a bit. First I couldn’t get the tab to twist, and then after it did, the whole thing wouldn’t come off. After endless turning the cap and the tab back and forth it magically appeared in my hands. All that to see that there was, in fact, fuel in the tank. I strained some water out of the left tank as well, and crawled around under the wing straining fuel from the other three drain points on that wing. The cap on the right side fuel tank came off very easily. With it came a flood of av-gas. It had clearly been filled when it was quite a bit cooler outside, and now the gas had expanded. After depositing a gallon or so on the ramp, I got the cap back on. Zach yelled at me from the parking lot. “We have to take a prop to Okmulgee!” “Yay!” I yelled back. “Do you know how to get there?” he asked. “I have a chart!” He gave me a thumbs up. I wondered where Okmulgee was, and figured I’d try to see how to get there. But I couldn’t find my chart. I realized I must have pulled it out of my bag when Joanna was asking me where Altus AFB was. I told Zach I’d left my chart at home. He doesn’t own one. We talked a student into loaning us one, though he seemed very reluctant to give up his $7 chart.

I like starting two engines. It makes me feel like a real man. The sound of the second engine coming to life and almost, but never quite syncing with the first makes a wonderful sound. Two engines and steerable nose gear that actually works make taxiing relatively easy. I thought getting back in the left seat would be weird, but I didn’t even notice it.

Zach pulled an engine right after I released the brakes. Way too easy, and I heard it before anything else, so I didn’t even swerve. Rotate at 71 knots, accelerate to 85 knots. A comment about “a complex airplane…” as I remember to pull them up, rather late. In a twin, it’s a good idea to get the gear up early in case you lose an engine. Which I did, right at about 300 feet when Zack yanked the right throttle back to idle. I was totally unprepared and after about 3 seconds of losing airspeed and trying to get my body and brain to do what was needed, Zach said, “Oh, brutal. I don’t want to see any more, take your engine back.”

We consulted the chart, and headed out over Lake Thunderbird. We leveled off at 5500 ft. I would have liked to go higher, but the visibility was only about 5 miles, and the higher we got, the harder it got to see stuff on the ground. I muttered that we might should have just filed IFR. Zach tuned in the Okmulgee VOR, which we were able to pick up over Thunderbird or so, and so I flew more or less at that. We made out I-40, and a few lakes in succession. After about 45 minutes, Zach pointed to the right side fuel gauge. It read 1/4, while the left side was nearly full. I quickly reasoned that if we were losing fuel from the right tank, the left side seemed to be good, and provided the crossfeed worked properly, we could fly a really long time off the left tank only. Okmulgee was probably the closest airport anyway. The fuel cap looked good.

We called Okmulgee traffic, and talked to someone going missed on an instrument approach. They were making a right turn out, and were no factor for us as we made left traffic. I made a rather steep approach, overshot final just a bit, but made a beautiful landing. Come in at 85 knots, and the plane just lands itself provided you don’t try to help it. We taxied to the appropriate hangar, shut the plane down, and pulled off the right fuel cap. It’s a 50 gallon tank, and there’s labels inside to help you judge fuel level. A little over 40 gallons. Same on the left side. “Bad guage” we concluded, and set about getting the propeller we’d wedged behind the rear seats out.

Of course, no one was expecting us, so I looked at a prat and whitney turboprop engine that was being dismantled in the shop while Zach called our maintenance people to figure out what was up. Eventually they got things straightened out, and we headed back to Norman. The right side fuel guage switched randomly between reading 1/4, the correct amount, and pegged past F.

I flew again on Wednesday, shot 3 localizer approaches which weren’t awful, but weren’t beautiful either. Zach figured he could have me ready for a check ride after one more flight, and told me I was scheduled for 4pm that afternoon. He called me around 3:30 to tell me he was a few hours late with his last flight because he thought there was a problem with the right side prop governor, but it worked fine for the mechanics. He called me again around 6pm to tell me that it just wasn’t going to happen because of their Monday night meeting. He called me again at 8pm and said, “Come fly now!” I showed up, filed a flight plan, did the preflight, making sure all the lights worked. The engines always start up with no problems, unlike the endless cranking and sputtering most of the cessnas produce. I started the left engine, checked the engine instruments, selected 1,000 rpm and moved on to the right engine. Fuel pump on, fuel pressure verified, throttle closed, mixture rich, mags on both, prime for a few seconds and start. CLICK, and nothing. The prop didn’t budge, and it didn’t make any more noise. I let go of the started and tried it again… again CLICK. Zach looked over at me was like “what are you doing?” “Nothing, apparently,” and I shut down the left engine to see what the right one sounded like when I tried to start it. Click, WHIRRRR… Zach went and reported to the chief flight instructor, who came out along with everyone else who was about to go home, to see what kind of funny sounds the Duchess was making. They spun the prop, tried the starter again with the same result.

Zach’s gone out of town today, so hopefully the Duchess will be fixed by the time he gets back on Tuesday.