FlyingSpaniard: You make a very good point, and of course having experienced a real engine failure you are in the best position to describe the workload in that situation.
I regret(?) (well I don't actually, but I hope you get my meaning), that I have never experienced one for real myself. However I do remember my own early PPL days, and the FREDA checks were enough to shut down my speech centres. I would quite litterally sound drunk on the radio giving, "midwind downfield", calls in the circuit and reading back the runway numbers back to front.
So along with most other pilots I can certainly imagine the adreneline surge as the engine sputters to a halt, and the mental turmoil as half your brain jumps out of your skull on a parachute and leaves Neanderthal Man as PIC going "Ug" at whatever he recalls from his checklist.
The thing about workload is that checklist actions are a skill as much as any other aspect of flying. The more we practice them the better we get, and the more automatic it becomes.
There are only 3 memory items I listed:
1) Carb Heat
2) Vg
3) Select Field
Then the question of: "Any sign of fire or mechanical failure?"
Now ALL the remaining drills "should" be read off the sheet, and certainly a CPL would be expected to do this.
But assuming (for PPL purposes) that's floating around the luggage compartment where it was chucked just after the takeoff checks, then it can all be summarised as follows:
4) Fly the aircraft and plan your descent as circumstances allow.
5) FIRE: Switch everything OFF and descend as quickly as possible. Land where able
6) No Fire: Switch everything ON and change tanks.
Not really so difficult.
The more it is practiced, the more we can take those generalised statements and explore them a bit further. For example, selecting a field and the 5 esses...
But God knows, I sometimes struggle to remember HASELL when the workload is high... (was the "A" for Airports or Airframe?). But this should not deter us from teaching this in the classroom, and endeavouring to put as much of it into practice as possible during the exercises.
IMHO, the more that sticks, the better when it comes to the real thing.
HFD Nice idea about the oxygen, but - well I can\'t point to any research, but I can say with reasonable conviction that its the source of fuel which is the major concern. If its nice high calorific stuff like 100LL then the plane will burn quite nicely even if it were stationary on the ground. "Starving" the fire of oxygen by flying slowly is hardly going to be an option.
Head earthwards at a high rate of knots is going to be your best bet for two reasons.
1) It WILL fan the fire, but this will mean the fuel will be consumed more quickly, and if you have isolated the source you can expect the fire to extinguish faster.
2) If you are making turns AWAY from the fire, then you will be using the Relative airflow to direct the flames away from the source of fuel and this may well succeed in "blowing it out". Even if it doesn\'t, it will be keeping most of the flame front outside of the cowling rather than within.