Originally Posted by
LOMCEVAK
My philosophy regarding engine failures/loss of power, total or partial, is that there are 4 potential causes: mechanical, fuel, ignition, icing. If a pilot mis-selection, inadvertent or otherwise, has been made then it typically falls under fuel or ignition. If this philosophy is taught clearly then it applies to all piston engine aircraft and only the detail of how to analyse and potentially correct the cause needs to be taught for the type being flown.
The other generic aspect to consider is with a variable pitch propeller: leave it as set/fine if a restart is to be attempted, select coarse if the engine is to remain shut down.
I am not involved in PPL level instruction so I would be interested to know if these philosophies are taught at this level and if it is considered reasonable for an ab initio student to have the capacity to to think them through.
Generally speaking PPL teaching, such as it is on engine failure handling (and it tends to be pretty rudimentary) focuses not so much on what the cause is, as what is the solution. Along the lines of ...
(1) Oh sh1t, engine's misbehaving
(2) Point somewhere I've a chance of landing, trim for glide
(3) [If time and height is available] Sweep across cockpit changing anything that seems likely to either improve things, or at-least not worsen them - e.g. switch tanks, pump on, select carb heat, richen mixture, (if fully stopped) operate starter...
(4) If problem has resolved, find runway to land on, do so.
(5) If problem not resolved, set up forced landing.
My experience doing refresher training with PPLs is that the majority will do (1), followed by (5), and take considerable coercion to dally with (2)-->(4) in the middle. If it was well taught to start with (which is far from certain), then it's seldom been practiced much since.
Once on (5) I'd say around 50% of PPLs will have a useful strategy for managing their rate of descent to a meaningful touchdown point, the rest will either try to find an unalterable straight approach or rectangular circuit onto a predetermined field with no plan B, or fly a continuous straight line in the hope that a perfect field will magically appear right in front of them. In particular there must be instructors teaching "pick a field and make sure you make it" from the frequency with which I see aeroplanes flown that way.
Strategies for height management generally are twofold. Either they'll fly S-turns about a straight path to their intended touchdown point after starting high, or they'll fly a military / glider style constant aspect approach from somewhere around downwind to base down to the touchdown point. Personally I massively favour the second, as the first has far too often when I've seen PPLs use it, resulted in them losing SA and sight of the planned field.
Training for energy management and positioning / rectification in the event of a partial engine failure is non-existent in the EASA and FAA PPL and CPL syllabi, so far as I recall. The assumption is (in Europe) that the engine is either on fire, or stopped, and in the USA that it's just stopped.
G