I've had 3 engine failures in an SEP, 1 in an Auster and 2 in a Prentice. The Prentice failures resulted from magneto failure while flying in cloud in Italy, and from an engine fire just after take-off in Baghdad. In both I was extremely lucky to get away with it, mainly because the training and culture at Sleap in the early '60s was superb. We practised forced landings, stopping the propeller, spot landings without engine, and similar, usually competitively to add interest.
The Auster incident is relevant to the Impossible Turn. The club had a rule that before a first solo, the CFI would take the student on a check flight, usually a couple of circuits. On my check ride, at about 300ft the engine stopped suddenly. As I pushed the nose down to land ahead among some trees there was a shout of "I have control" and Les executed a diving turn to port, levelled off and landed downwind on the grass. He was an ex-RAF fighter pilot, Spitfire and Hurricane, I believe. The chances of surviving the procedure in the book, ie landing in the trees, were about 50/50.
For years afterwards I campaigned to have the basic training requirement changed to including teaching and practice about calculating for every take-off, with all the variables of weight, wind, temperature etc,, the height from which the turn can be made safely by a pilot who has been taught the manoeuvre, A letter to Flight magazine headed "The Impossible Turn" saying this started a heated and often acrimonious correspondence, in the early '70s.
When the dogma came into being, nearly every airfield was surrounded by fields offering fairly safe landings. But from WWII onwards this changed so that by the '60s a "straight-ahead crash" would be on housing or otherwise built up areas. However, the reliability of modern engines has reduced the risk of a properly maintained and managed piston engine failing to almost zero, so this is probably an academic discussion.
Unless, of course, you still fly behind an old-fashioned engine like a Cirrus or Gipsy Queen. And if you do, you probably know how and when to make the Impossible Turn, should you need to.
Last edited by old,not bold; 6th Nov 2021 at 13:36.