Multi-engine checkride and the V_MC demonstration
What an examiner actually asks for on a twin practical test, why the V_MC demonstration is flown the way it is, and where the certificated speed in the flight manual came from.
What happens on a multi-engine checkride?
An oral that leans hard on systems, then a flight of roughly ninety minutes covering normal operations, asymmetric handling, the V_MC demonstration and single-engine approaches. Nothing has to be sat at a test centre first, because 61.63(c)(4) lifts that requirement once an airplane rating is already on your certificate at that level.
The oral is where most of the difficulty lives, and it surprises people who expected the flying to be the hard part. A twin has two fuel systems with a crossfeed between them, two electrical sources feeding one bus structure, propeller governors, a feathering mechanism and an accumulator that stores the pressure needed to bring a feathered propeller back. An examiner will ask you to explain all of it, and will keep asking until the explanation is a mechanism rather than a memorised sentence.
The flight portion divides cleanly. Roughly a third is ordinary flying that proves you can operate the airplane. The remaining two-thirds is what happens when one engine stops, in the air and near the ground, and whether your response is a practised sequence or an improvisation.
One thing worth knowing before the day. Examiners do not fail people for being slow. They fail people for doing the right things in the wrong order, and the most common wrong order is feathering before verifying.
Why is the V_MC demonstration flown so high, and so gently?
Because the manoeuvre deliberately walks the airplane toward the edge of directional control, and because at low altitude and high bank the same manoeuvre has killed people. The FAA Airplane Flying Handbook directs the pilot to choose an altitude leaving at least 3,000 feet of air below.
What the demonstration is actually showing
You are not being asked to find V_MC. You are being asked to show that you notice directional control beginning to go, and that you trade height for airspeed at once instead of pulling and holding. The recovery is the examined item; the approach to it is only the setup.
That is why the standard rewards a prompt, coordinated reduction of the yaw and a lowering of the nose, and why a heroic recovery that holds altitude is marked down rather than admired. The airplane in that condition has no altitude to give you back.
Why the bank angle matters more than it looks
The certification condition list caps bank at five degrees toward the operating engine. Bank a little toward the good engine and a component of lift acts sideways, opposing the yaw, and the airplane stays controllable at a lower speed. Bank the other way, toward the dead engine, and the same effect works against you.
So bank angle changes the answer. A demonstration flown wings-level, or flown banked the wrong way, produces a different and worse number than the one in the flight manual, which is exactly why the certification condition is written down.
The stall is the other boundary
Two boundaries close in on the same manoeuvre. One is directional control, which arrives as the rudder runs out. The other is the stall, which arrives when the wing does. Which one you meet first depends on weight, configuration and bank, and meeting the stall first while asymmetric power is applied is how a demonstration becomes a spin.
This is the real reason for the altitude. Not because the manoeuvre is likely to go wrong, but because the failure mode is one that needs several thousand feet to unwind.
Where does the V_MC in the flight manual actually come from?
From a certification flight test, conducted by the manufacturer under conditions the regulations prescribe. In 14 CFR 1.2 the term is given a one-line definition: minimum control speed, critical engine out. The current airworthiness rule at 23.2135(c) puts it in operational terms instead, as the calibrated airspeed at which control of the airplane can still be maintained once thrust is suddenly lost on that engine.
The conditions, and why each one is unfavourable
The FAA Airplane Flying Handbook lists them: takeoff power initially on each engine, propeller controls set as for takeoff, the least favourable weight and centre-of-gravity position, gear up, takeoff flap, trim set for takeoff, airborne and clear of ground effect, and bank kept within five degrees.
Take the centre of gravity as the example. Move it aft and the tail arm shortens, so the same rudder deflection produces less yawing moment, so the speed at which you run out of rudder rises. Certification uses the worst legal case, which means the published figure is a floor rather than an average.
- Takeoff power initially on each engine
- Propeller controls in the recommended takeoff position
- Least favourable weight and centre of gravity
- Landing gear retracted
- Flaps in the takeoff position
- Trimmed for takeoff
- Airborne, with ground effect negligible
- Bank limited to five degrees
The gear condition is the counter-intuitive one
Landing gear retracted raises V_MC, and the handbook says so directly. Gear hanging below the fuselage adds keel area behind the centre of gravity, which helps the airplane point into the relative wind and takes some of the load off the rudder. Retract it and that help disappears.
The practical consequence is a small piece of real airmanship: an airplane on approach with the gear down is, on this one axis, in a slightly more forgiving state than the certification case assumed.
A section number to be careful with
The handbook attributes that list to 14 CFR part 23 section 23.149. That section does not exist in the current part 23. The rule was rewritten in performance-based form and the old numbered requirements went with it, including 23.1545, which used to prescribe airspeed indicator markings. Controllability is now 23.2135 and instrument markings are 23.2610.
We check citations rather than repeating them. If a page you are reading cites 23.149 or 23.1545 as current law, that page has not been checked recently, and it is fair to wonder what else on it has not been.
Three speeds you will be asked about that are not in the regulations
V_YSE, best rate of climb with one engine inoperative and the blue radial line on the airspeed indicator. V_XSE, best angle of climb in the same condition. V_SSE, the safe speed for an intentional shutdown, beneath which an instructor ought not to be failing an engine deliberately.
None of the three appears in 14 CFR 1.2. We read the section. They are flight manual speeds and instrument markings, defined for pilots in FAA-H-8083-3C, and an examiner who asks where a number comes from is asking a better question than one who asks what the number is.
No V-speed figure for our own airplanes appears anywhere on this site. Yours comes from the flight manual for that airframe, at that weight, on that day.
What does the examiner actually ask you to fly?
Broadly five groups of tasks. Tolerances come from whichever Airman Certification Standards match your certificate, and the multiengine tasks live inside that same document rather than in a separate multi-engine standard.
Normal and crosswind operations
Takeoff, climb, cruise, approach and landing on two engines, plus a short-field and a crosswind if the day offers one. Quick, and mostly about whether the airplane is being flown to a standard rather than merely operated.
Engine failure before and after lift-off
The decision, not the flying. Below a speed and short of a point you reject; beyond them you continue and clean up. An examiner is testing whether you had decided before the roll started.
Manoeuvring with one engine inoperative
Straight and level, turns, climbs and descents with a propeller feathered. Zero sideslip is the target: a small bank toward the operating engine and the ball displaced, which is the configuration that actually produces the climb performance in the book.
The V_MC demonstration
Flown high, recovered promptly, coordinated throughout. Loss of directional control is the cue and altitude is the currency you spend to fix it. Recovering by holding altitude is the error the task exists to catch.
Single-engine approach and landing
An approach flown with one engine feathered or at zero thrust, to a landing. The go-around you are not really going to get is the point of the exercise: a light twin on one engine, gear and flap out, low and slow, may not have the performance to climb away.
What does checkride preparation cost?
Nothing separate. Preparation for the practical test is inside the $5,100 rating, including the mock oral, the rehearsal flight and the endorsement 14 CFR 61.63(c)(1) requires before you may take the test.
Multi-Engine Add-On
The rating, with checkride preparation inside it rather than sold beside it.
- ✓Twin flight time to test standard
- ✓A mock oral covering fuel, electrics and propellers
- ✓A rehearsal flight with a second instructor
- ✓The 61.63(c)(1) endorsement
- ✓Fixed at enrolment
Redbird MCX session
Full-motion and fully enclosed. Identification drills, flows and the shape of a single-engine approach rehearse well here at less cost than in the airplane.
- ✓Never cancelled for weather
- ✓Strong on procedure and sequence
- ✓Weak on landings, and we say so
Airline Career Track
If the twin checkride is one of five in a career sequence, the whole route carries a single price.
- ✓Five phases, one number
- ✓Financing from $2,500 down
- ✓Nothing repriced at a boundary
Assessment flight in the twin
An hour of dual instruction in the Seminole before any of this becomes a commitment.
- ✓Sixty minutes in the multi-engine trainer
- ✓You do the flying
- ✓Credited whole if you enrol inside a day
What makes checkride preparation credible rather than reassuring?
Repetition in the right airplane, with instructors who meet a legal bar, in a place where the flying actually happens on the days it was booked.
Make-and-model hours behind every multi instructor
14 CFR 61.195(f) prevents anyone from giving the training required for a rating in a multiengine airplane until they have flown five hours as pilot in command of that specific make and model. It is a legal minimum rather than a preference, and it is worth asking about anywhere.
14 CFR 61.195(f)Hours of flight training an instructor may give in a day
14 CFR 61.195(a) caps a flight instructor at eight hours of flight training in any twenty-four consecutive hours. It exists because tired instruction is poor instruction, and it quietly shapes how a compressed course has to be scheduled.
14 CFR 61.195(a)A twin owned by the operation
Rehearsal needs the same airplane repeatedly, which means the airplane's calendar has to belong to the school rather than to a third party. The Seminole is ours and is maintained under the regime that applies to instruction for hire.
Inspected under 14 CFR 91.409(b)Training days a year measured at this field
Counted from NOAA ASOS observations over the year ending 1 August 2026, requiring a ceiling of 3,000 feet with five statute miles of visibility, across four qualifying daylight hours, before a day was counted. Checkride preparation decays when lessons are cancelled.
NOAA ASOS via the Iowa Environmental MesonetCharged for a second attempt at the training
Nothing. If the standard is not there, you keep training on the same $5,100. The examiner's fee for a retest is yours, because we neither employ nor bill for the examiner.
Fixed at enrolmentWhat we can and cannot say about the checkride
We can tell you what the tasks are and how we prepare you for them. We cannot tell you the outcome, because a designated pilot examiner decides that on the day against the Airman Certification Standards, and no school controls it. Any school that implies otherwise is describing something outside its authority.
No pass rate appears on this site, for this rating or for any other. The operation is new and any percentage would be drawn from a sample too small to carry meaning, so publishing one would be a marketing act rather than an informative one.
Training here happens at Van Nuys Airport under part 61. This is not an airline, it is not owned by one, and there is no cadet program, pathway agreement or hiring relationship with any carrier. Nothing on this page offers an interview, a job or a salary.
What people ask about the twin practical test
An oral covering fuel, electrical, propeller and feathering systems in detail, then a flight of roughly ninety minutes: normal operations, engine failure before and after lift-off, manoeuvring with one engine inoperative, the V_MC demonstration and a single-engine approach and landing. Tolerances are set by whichever Airman Certification Standards match the certificate already in your pocket.
High enough that at least 3,000 feet of air sits beneath the manoeuvre, which is what the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook directs. The reason is the failure mode rather than the likelihood: meeting the stall while asymmetric power is applied is how the exercise becomes a spin, and unwinding that takes altitude.
The definition in 14 CFR 1.2 runs to one line: minimum control speed, critical engine out. The current airworthiness rule at 23.2135(c) goes further, casting it as the calibrated airspeed at which control can still be held once thrust is lost suddenly on that engine. It is a number a manufacturer demonstrated, not a technique a pilot acquires.
No, provided an airplane rating is already on your certificate at that level, since 61.63(c)(4) lifts the extra knowledge test in that situation. The oral at the practical test is the knowledge examination, and on a twin it is considerably more searching than most candidates expect.
Because a small bank toward the operating engine tilts the lift vector so that part of it opposes the yaw, letting the airplane stay controllable at a lower speed. The certification condition list caps bank at five degrees for exactly that reason: without a fixed bank angle the number would not be repeatable.
Yes, and it pushes it upward. Retracting the gear raises V_MC, as the FAA Airplane Flying Handbook says directly. Gear hanging down adds keel area aft of the centre of gravity, so the airplane weathervanes into the relative wind more readily and the rudder carries less of the load.
Blue marks V_YSE, the best rate of climb with one engine inoperative. Red marks V_MC. Neither V_YSE nor V_XSE nor V_SSE appears among the abbreviations defined in 14 CFR 1.2; they are flight manual speeds and instrument markings described for pilots in FAA-H-8083-3C rather than terms fixed in the regulations.
No. The multiengine tasks sit inside the standards for the certificate you hold rather than in a document of their own, which is why the same checkride is marked to private tolerances for a private pilot and commercial tolerances for a commercial pilot.
You retrain and retest. 14 CFR 61.49 requires additional training and an endorsement of competence before a retest. The extra instruction is not re-invoiced here because the $5,100 covers training to standard, but the examiner's fee for the second attempt is yours, exactly as the first one was.
Sequence rather than skill. The identification drill has an order for a reason, and the failure that costs people the test is feathering before verifying, which shuts down the engine that was still producing thrust. Repetition on consecutive days is what turns that order into a reflex.
Where to read next
The rest of the multi-engine cluster
Multi-engine ratingMulti-engine rating costAccelerated multi-engine trainingCommercial multi-engine add-onPiper Seminole trainingOther practical tests
Commercial pilot checkrideCFI checkride and the fundamentals of instructingInstrument rating requirementsWhat supports the preparation
Full motion simulator trainingOur fleetCertified flight instructorEvery program price on one pageAsk an instructor to show you an engine failure at altitude
Book an hour of dual instruction in the Seminole and ask to see one engine brought back to idle at a safe height. It is the clearest hour you will spend on this subject, the time is loggable, and enrolling inside a day takes the fee off the program.
Fly the aeroplane once, then decide
The assessment flight is the first hour of the syllabus and a two-way evaluation. You fly it from the left seat with an instructor beside you, they write down what they saw, and you get an honest read on whether the plan is realistic. It is loggable, and it is credited in full against enrolment if you enroll within 24 hours.
What happens on an assessment flight →