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During a cold day with high atmospheric pressure, a multi-engine piston pilot is climbing at the speed for minimum controllability, when it suffers an engine failure. The pilot should expect...

  • A

    Better controllability due to high VMCA

  • B

    Better controllability due to low VMCA

  • C

    Reduced controllability due to high VMCA

  • D

    Reduced controllability due to low VMCA

Refer to figure.
Minimum Control Speed (Air) - VMCA

When an engine fails or is inoperative in-flight, the rudder is used to counteract the asymmetrical thrust yawing moment, however for a given size of the vertical tail with rudder, there is a speed below which the generated rudder side force is not large enough to counteract the asymmetrical thrust and the heading and/or bank angle cannot be maintained below this speed. This speed is called Minimum Control Speed VMC.

With regards to this question,
Cold air and higher atmospheric pressure make the air more dense. This makes means the engines are able to produce more power due to being able to achieve a higher mass flow with the higher density air. As power increases, the operative engine requires more rudder authority to maintain directional stability due to the higher amount of thrust. As a result, the airplane requires higher indicated airspeeds to maintain directional stability. Therefore, we have a high VMCA in this scenario. Since the difference between aircraft's speed and VMCA is low, the aircraft will also have much reduced controllability. The bigger the difference between both speeds, the better the controllability of the aircraft.

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