There was I 2000ft in a shadow on a very sunny hot and humid august day over the patchwork eiderdown of north kent countryside. I was back from a 10 year break from flying, and doing a PPL(m) for a holiday, and was doing some practicing stalling. Stick forward and throttle gently opened to recover and shock horror, nothing except the same rough idle!
Being used to comparative brick-like glide rates on spamcans of my long previous flying experience I lapse into piper mode and start looking for anything long and flat and NEAR. No wind to worry about.
I select my field and I make my mayday call. I am very pleased with myself for this and register a mix of simultaneous terror & calm. The field is a bit narrow and there's a few shrubs at the end but the others were all postage stamp size and lined by borders of trees. In I come on left base and spot the telegraph wires handily marking the threshold. Ok, I'll keep the height on a bit then. What I feel should normally be a delightfully gentle whooshing breeze is rapidly becoming the eeriest sound I've ever heard. It's then I notice the appauling downslope of the field, and those bushes at the far end are nothing less than fully 60 ft trees! No question of hopping over them and into the next think I. About now I am beginning to think it's conceivable that this damn field is the last thing I will ever see, as the Shadow floats gracefully onwards, unwilling to return to earth! Flaps on the Shadow are pretty useless, but down they go. Nothing. On we fly. What else can I do but point the nose down, aim for a gap between 2 large trees and wince as the shadow makes contact with the ground about 20 feet before the end of the field, doing about 40kts.
The trees rip both the wings off, and I briefly black out for a couple of seconds. When I come to, I run a quick diagnostic and agree that I wouldn't be feeling such pain in my straps if were not still alive. Notice a smell of fuel though, and am appauled to realise I FORGOT TO TURN THE ENGNE OFF!
I get out, dazed and confused and stagger off to interrupt Lord XXXXX's Sunday family lunch and be fed tea and biscuits by his lovely wife. The rest is a story of broken fences and a very annoyed flying club owner, but I got the following out of it:
1. Be aware of the AC's glide characteristics. There was an actual grass strip I could have made had I know.
2. Size was good, shape was good. Slope and obstructions were awful, and on a return flight 2 days later I saw that I should have spotted these earlier.
3. Turn the engine off once I was commited. Even the tickover was giving me some thrust.
4. Maybe question the sanity of practicing stalling in a 2 stroke engine notoriously prone to carb icing on a hot wet day.
( I also gave up on 2-stroke engines after a crank went on my shared X-air 6m later, but that's a personal preference thing!)
Do I practice PFLs regularly now? No I don't. Not nearly enough, and writing this has made me determined to do so!