How to Prepare

Updated July 2026 · by Jeff, pilot and builder of Zeekin Around

The multiengine add-on is the shortest rating in this catalog and the one with the least margin for sloppiness. It is a class rating added to a certificate you already hold — so there is no knowledge test, no minimum hour requirement, and nothing to hide behind on the oral.

1. What it takes

Adding a class rating means a practical test against the multiengine tasks of the ACS for the certificate you hold — the Multiengine Operations area plus the multiengine emergency tasks — and a training endorsement from an authorized instructor. There is no minimum flight-time requirement for an added class rating; you train to the standard, and most people get there in about 10 hours. Verify the current requirements in 14 CFR 61.63 and your ACS before you schedule.

2. The oral is about Vmc

Expect to be walked through the certification conditions behind the published red line and asked what happens to actual Vmc when each one changes — weight, CG, altitude, bank angle, gear and flap position, a windmilling versus feathered propeller. If you can reason through those rather than recite them, the rest of the oral follows. Sections Vmc and the critical engine are the core.

3. Know your airplane's numbers cold

Nothing in this guide asserts a Seminole or Duchess airspeed, because those numbers belong to your POH and getting one wrong is the kind of error that matters at 200 feet. Build your own card: Vmc, Vsse, Vyse, Vxse, single-engine service ceiling, and the accelerate-stop and accelerate-go distances for the day you're flying.

4. Chair-fly the drills until they're reflex

An engine failure after liftoff gives you seconds and a specific order of operations. The chair-fly scripts walk the drill step by step — pitch, power, drag, identify, verify, feather — plus the Vmc demonstration and the single-engine approach. Say them out loud. In a real twin you will not have time to reason it out.

5. Respect what the second engine actually buys

On one engine a light twin typically loses most of its climb performance, not half. The second engine buys you options and altitude to use them — not a guarantee. The accident record for light twins is dominated by loss of control after an engine failure, not by the failure itself. Fly the airplane first, every time.