What am I hearing / seeing

He shut down both engines.

 

One of the most startling and exciting air show routines ever was when Lyford came roaring down from over the Frazer River Valley in the P-38 with both engines shut down. He was probably at 20k ft. when he started and when he reached the show line I imagine that he was close to 300mph or better. He showed what a P-38 sounds like with just the air rushing over it. He then pulled into a big loop with a roll on top and came down along the show line, pulled up into some rolls and headed south east where he cranked up the engines and continued the show. He then talked Hoover into doing the engine out routine with the Shrike. It was featured in Hoover's show the following year after he perfected it in the desert during the winter.

 

Yup, I watched him do it. It is still dumb for a run of the mill flight instructor to shut down his single engine.

 

Finally got a picture of the plane this AM. Not sure what kind it is.
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Kind of dim but I would guess a Cessna 172 or 182

 

I will try to get a better picture.

Am I correct that it seems plausible this type of aircraft is used for training?

 

Yes, training and general aviation. Not an aerobatic type but can do loops and spins and aileron rolls.

 

A number of students are from Japan. Things are so expensive there, it's cheaper to train in Hawaii even with the travel expenses.

 

If you're ever curious what type of plane is flying overhead, Flight Radar 24 and ADS-B Exchange are two easy places to look it up. Flight Radar has a phone app that I frequently will use to find out what type of plane is flying by. Unfortunately it doesn't work for most military since they refuse to use ADS-B even for the most mundane flights.

 

I think there are several things at work here so here goes. First the exhaust on these light airplanes are very loud. They are virtually a straight thru design and are very short, like maybe the exhaust gas travels 24” from the engine to where the exhaust pipe ends. If your car had a similarly designed exhaust you’d constantly be given a ticket for excessive noise. Second has to do with what power levels an airplane engine runs at compared to a car engine. So in a typical car when your driving at 60 miles per hour it only takes like 15-20 horse power to maintain that speed on a level road which depending on what car you have is only 5-10% of the maximum engine power. On the other hand an airplane usually cruises at 65-75% power. So on a small airplane like a Cessna 172 with an O-360 Lycoming 180hp just normal cruising is using in the neighbor hood of 120 hp. Now I haven’t looked this up but probably in a car like a Camaro a 120 hp is probably enough to push the car well over 100 mph on level ground. So you basically have a really loud exhaust system on an engine that’s working much harder than what a typical normally driven car engine makes so it’s really loud. Now the third issue is the plane is probably further away than you realize and also it’s at altitude so there is most likely a fairly strong wind that helps carry the noise away from where you are. So when the pilot pulls the throttle back to idle it gets really quiet to people on the ground. Unless you can physically see the prop stop turning most likely the pilot has pulled the engine back to idle and it’s so quiet that it sounds like the engine has been turned off. As others have said while there might be an occasional person/instructor that would actually shut the engine down that is very rare and us quite dangerous. Pulling the engine to idle at altitude and practicing various maneuvers is a normal part of flight training and a good pilot will continue to do this practice after they get their license.