Photo by Tom Horne The best education you can get in any endeavor, Twin Commander flying included, is a combination of book learning and learning from experience. We learn from our own experiences, of course, but tapping into what others have learned over many years and many hundreds of thousands of hours of flying yields a treasure trove of insider wisdom—what we call tribal knowledge.
Hooper Harris is a retired FAA General Aviation Safety Inspector who flew Twin Commanders and instructed at FlightSafety International’s Twin Commander Learning Center in Bethany, Oklahoma, before that program was taken over by SimCom and moved to its campus in Orlando, Florida. Harris has taught pilots in every turboprop Twin Commander model, and he sums up his impression of that experience by echoing the words of former Commander Tech Rep Lloyd Ferris: “They are all alike except each one is different.”
Even so, some piloting techniques work well across the board. He cites the example of starting the takeoff roll with full power while attempting to track the runway centerline using nosewheel steering. As all Commander pilots know, the very finest touch is required to apply just enough pressure on the tops of the rudder pedals to activate nosewheel steering without applying so much that the main landing gear wheel brakes come into play. If your touch is a bit heavy-footed and you transgress the line separating nosewheel steering from main landing gear wheel braking, the airplane lets you and your passengers know by jerking from side to side as you vainly struggle to correct.
Harris advocates a different technique when starting the takeoff roll. “I found that putting the airplane nose about 15 degrees left on a Dash 5 or 10-powered Commander or the same to the right on a Dash 1 or 43-powered model and using only rudder to steer worked well. Hold the brakes, set about 95% Torque or the equivalent margin below limit HP or ITT/EGT (to allow for rise during acceleration) then release the brakes and let the nose swing as you accelerate while holding the appropriate ‘power rudder.’
“By the time the nose passes through runway heading/centerline, the rudder becomes effective enough to stop the swing. There’s no inadvertent dragging a brake to keep it straight. There’s just the drag of the deflected rudder, which at those airspeeds is pretty minimal.”
