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I have one instructor-induced actual engine failure in a '65 337 under my belt. The instructor turned the fuel off to the rear engine, unbeknownst to me, as we were on short final to a near sea-level runway on an 85 degree day. *We were light, a total of 600 lbs of passengers, and half tanks.* As I flared, he yelled "go around, go around". I initiated goaround, and as I advanced the throttles, the rear engine failed. I had to identify-verify-feather the rear, milk up the flaps from full to no flaps, all while maintaining altitude. I left the gear down, not wanting to have the gear door drag. After I got the flaps to 20 degrees, we started climbing. It took about 4000' of the 5500' runway to do this. When I got the flaps up completely, we climbed at about 250 - 300 fpm (hard to read a VSI really accurately). The climb performance was quite sensitive to blue line speed, you have to maintain it exactly, or you lose a lot of climb performance. And getting slow exacts a big penalty in climb until you get the speed back up.
After I changed my underwear later, I asked my instructor why the HELL he did that. He told me he would never do it again, but he thought every pilot should see what an engine failure at the worst moment is like at least once. I think it was an unsafe thing to do, and at the same time I am happy to have had the experience (I would be less happy if I had feathered the wrong engine for example).
Somewhere in the messages on this site is the result of a test I did on a '73 P337 to see if single engine performance was as advertised at altitude. Although I did not feather the rear prop at that time, I found lots of climb performance left at 12000' with feather simulated on the rear engine, as I recall.
So, if you are not getting near book climb performance out of your airplane, there is something wrong, in my opinion.
Ernie, I think where these "better than book" ideas come from is that most folks do their testing at less than full gross, and forget that that will improve performance. I, like you, seriously doubt the airplane will do better than book. I think it is like takeoff performance. Your mileage will vary, and it will always be at least a little worse...
Kevin
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