On 16/07/2015 10:36, Rod Speed wrote:


"Nightjar.me.uk" "cpb"@ insert my surname here wrote in message
...
....
Most light aircraft need all their engines to take off.

Particularly with the short runways the RFDS used.

One pilot, who flew the Drover on commercial flights from Perth,
recounts trying to see whether it would take off with just the centre
engine running. That was, however, with the Lycoming engines fitted. He
didn't say whether it was successful.

....
From pilot forums, it seems that the Drover carried one spare,

Don’t believe that with the RFDS given the wiki
comment about the lack of power in hot weather.

The aircraft was an exclusively Australian development, so all users
would have much the same experiences. When you are up there, if an
engine fails, what is important is whether you can climb or simply have
longer to choose where to make an emergency landing. The consensus seems
to be that, with the later engines and feathering props, it could climb,
but with fixed props you would need to be looking for a landing spot.

although, if an engine were going to fail, you would prefer it to be
the centre engine, as it was not an easy aircraft to fly asymmetric.

Statistically that's unlikely.

About a one in three chance, probably.

--
Colin Bignell