That thing is pretty bad ass. I'm lucky enough to live close enough to the Udvar-Hazy center to pay it a few visits every year
Those who fly the C-Push Pull do not have to get a twin rating since the power is in line.An engine out is simply a little bit less power and a lot of drag.
I read where this thing on one engine was as fast as a P-51. I worked with the chief engineer and test pilot on this A/P in 1956 at Boeing when he was in Prelim. Design there. A fascinating man who never said much about his other exploits during the war. The DO-335 was never to see action due to the fuel shortage at that stage of the war. It would have brought hell on the bombers.
+1!! Otherworldly, I'm sure! IIRC, it could climb to about 25K in 8 minutes and comfortably exceed 300 MPH on one engine, right? What a beast...
One of the issues with that Cessna; suggested to start the rear engine first and get it running smoothly, so that you're sure it's running before starting the front. There were a number of early-on cases of pilots trying to take off with only the front prop turning... on a hot day, it didn't turn out well. Literally forgot to start the rear engine.
After digging around on the web I found that the airplane in the Manila incident as reported by the Philippine Air Authority was over loaded, had a cargo of fuel on board, and was fueled with 70% auto fuel, 20 % avgas. Those engines require 100/130 octane. pre-ignition, detonation? The operator has a history of infractions according to the report.
Oh jeeze...why am I not surprised? Some of these smaller overseas aviation outfits are pretty horrifying. I guess the cargo explains the relatively large explosion when it went in.
The C-17 crash in Alaska was the result of the pilot hot-dogging so much that he used up all the energy of his airplane with a steep pull up on take off and then a series of hard banking turns and climbs until when he tried to turn the airplane quit flying. C-17's ain't A-10's.
After watching this video a few more times and with the knowledge that the engines were fire-walled with bad gas, suffering from heavy pre-ignition, I seriously doubt it would have made it much farther even if he didn't try the turn. The engines were blowing their guts out from the bad gas and I imagine that he would have melted and/or blown holes in most of the pistons in short order. So this begs the question, was the pilot the owner that pulled this stunt or was the person responsible still on the ground watching these people get murdered due to his own greed?
Disturbing but extremely interesting information in this thread. Videos like these can sober up even us young engineers.
