Also a military pilot.
Anytime you feel twitchy with reasonable grounds you should call a pan (in your case) or mayday, as required. You can always downgrade or withdraw it if the situation improves. You'll get the full attention of the tower and the bloodwagons until you're safely down. You'd feel a pratt sitting in the burning wreckage thinking 'I wish I'd called a pan'.
Personally I wouldn't recommend shutting down and deadsticking it in. I think you're just adding to your problems. Far better to make a sharpish controlled landing under power than to shut down the engine, try to glide and stall/spin in or land in trees/hedges/hillsides/brickwalls as many have done in the past. It's very difficult to make a judgement on something that is essentially subjective without being in that cockpit but I think aviators with more experience than me might concur.
So what do you think, chaps?
BTW, if you do an aerobatic sequence in a Chipmunk and DON'T smell avgas, then something's wrong.
Edited for spelling avgas with a tur. Haven't used pistons for a wee while.
Last edited by Fg Off Max Stout; 22nd February 2005 at 12:05.