[mhcasey]

So the heavier airplane flies at a higher angle of attack to produce more lift, which can be slipped into the operating engine creating more stability. It seems the higher angle of attack results in two things, though:

1) Higher stall speed (lower critical altitude)
2) More P-Factor (less stability)

I'm guessing 2 is probably out-forced by the additional weight in most cases, though I guess we'd need some engineering data for that one.

Another question from my flight school's multi engine packet: "With flaps extended a lesser angle of attack is necessary to produce the same amount of lift. Therefore, P-factor is less as well as yaw. Additionally, flaps increase drag aft of the C.G., providing a stabilizing effect."

Is this necessarily true? Flaps also increase drag and therefore power required, so to maintain altitude it seems you might actually need to increase the angle of attack, even if that means the pitch attitude being slightly lower than without flaps. My understanding was with flaps extended you may take a trade off and actually increase angle of attack in order to decrease the stall speed? Your thoughts?

Another quote from the DE: "That means that Vmca is a limitation on the ability to control the airplane around its vertical axis. The only flight control that can control the airplane around its vertical axis is the rudder. Once the rudder is at full deflection toward the operating engine, Vmca has been achieved."

Is it safe to say that his theory about bank angle is bunk because the rest of the vertical stabilizer will produce weather vaning when the aircraft is slipping, so really he should be saying, "Once the rudder is at full deflection toward the operating engine with no more than 5 degrees of bank according to FAR 23, Vmca has been achieved?"

The checkride is in a Duchess.