The Wright Flyer had two propellers driven from one engine. Aside from airworthiness issues, would an ASEL or AMEL rating be needed to fly it?
What about the opposite design, with two engines powering one prop?
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Well, it's in the name. Single ENGINE, not single propeller. It's the number of torque generators that matter, because that's what determines the performance hit if one goes south.
You can have two engines driving one propeller, but if one quits, you are still stuck with 50% power just as if you had two propellers, so it would be considered a multi-engine airplane (though it may get a unique designation as multi-engine-single-propeller for identification purposes).
John K
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There have been a few airplane models with 2 engines 1 propeller: Wikipedia list – jpa Jul 31 '23 at 18:12
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@jpa there's also a list of pushers! – kwc Jul 31 '23 at 20:46
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The Wright Flyer has some failure modes in common with twin-engine aircraft, such as asymmetric thrust if one of the drive chains fails. – Mark Aug 01 '23 at 03:43
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Look into the Soloy Dual Pac -- including their C208 conversion. Also, multi engine helicopters may be relevant. – Rob McDonald Aug 01 '23 at 04:07
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@RobMcDonald how does the FAA handle pilot training requirements? Is there a special multi-engine sub-rating for that particular STC? – John K Aug 01 '23 at 04:54
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@Mark Ironically, if that happens you're going to have to throttle way back to keep the remaining prop from overspeeding, so you are effectively in the same boat as a regular twin. – John K Aug 01 '23 at 04:56
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@JohnK I'm not sure. Soloy certainly advertises it as the reliability of a twin with the symmetry of a single (no Vmc). I doubt you could get your twin engine rating in one (or take your twin engine checkride). There was a previous question about the Soloy... https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/3271/is-the-soloy-dual-pac-recognised-as-two-engines-or-one-engine – Rob McDonald Aug 01 '23 at 05:21