How can modern aircraft fly on just one engine if the other one fails? Shouldn’t the torque produced by the functioning engine make the aircraft yaw?
In: Engineering
Here’s some trivia. You know how when a helicopter rotor is spinning in one direction, the body of the helicopter wants to spin in the opposite direction? This is why they usually have a small tangent propeller on the end of a rear boom that can speed up or slow down to help the craft steer.
Well it’s the same with twin engines aircraft. If the engine that is still spinning a propeller has its inner half moving downwards, then it is also trying to hold the plane up level. If the engine that is still running has its propellers inner half spinning upwards, then it is also trying to make the plane corkscrew around the running engine’s axis.
In WWII, there was at least one plane that had a “reverse spinning” V12 on one side, so no matter what side got shot up, the pilots job was a little easier.
It was a huge logistical pain in the @$s, so they quit doing that, and made both V12s the same.
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