Do people really not plan for the engine to stop? I would have thought that it was constantly in the back of the mind when flying SE (and sometimes flying ME too!)
Hopefully!
However, consider how many accidents occur in the circuit.
The accidents often occur because the pilot was distracted. Something else was going on, the gear failed to travel, a passenger was being sick, another aircraft was too slow. The pilot gets slow, the aircraft drops a wing - the classic stall, spin.
Poor airmanship - of course. Taught, planned for etc - of course. In the back of your mind on every approach - I am sure. Still happens though. It still happens even with pilots that are flying regularly.
Same thing after an engine failure. Stress, the temptation to stretch the glide into that inviting field, to hold the stick back to squeeeze over that tree, etc.
Stick rudder skills of course dont just come from doing aeros - but it is a hell of a good way for developing a superb feel for the aircraft, and it is a good way of training the brain to do the correct thing to give you the best chance of recovering.
Hopefully it will never happent to you - or me, our superior planning skills will prevent it
, but should it happen, knowing how to recover might just save your life.
.. .. .. and this business of wishing you were up there etc., well I agre with IO540 for this reason. If you fly often there are occasions you feel comfortable in departing in conditions that are close to your limits. Why? By definition if you set limits, the limits are limiting. If your limit is an overcast of 1,000 feet, if the forecast and METARS support an overcast of 1,200 you may well elect to go. The enroute weather proves to be 15% worse. You are now below your limits. Moreover you planned to be IFR / IMC, and you are. You probably dont know the overcast is 900 feet, until your engine fails and realise 900 feet is not enough to enable you to set up for a forced landing, which is why you set a limit of 1,000 feet in the first place.
The problem with limits is the more you fly the smaller the margin between your limits and what is safe or sensible. As in my example above, you might start with a limit of a base of 1,500 feet. Hopefully more than enough height to set up for a forced landing. You are flying often, gain an IMC, and find that limit restricting. In consequence you impose a limit of 750 feet. In the first case if the forecast is 10% worse than expected you have every chance of a successful forced landing in the second case, you needed all of the 750, 675 is not enough.
Yeah, I know the limit should include a factor for the weather being worse than forecast. However, there are plenty of high time pilots who will fly with a base of 1,000 feet. Would they be comfortable with 800 feet?
There are a fair few ATPLs who have landed within the cross wind limits of their ops manuals, but find themselves picking up the pieces, and their are a fair few who have had a look "around" the limits of their op manual.
This is the real world of GA for most. The disciplines of the commercial world are not as honed because most pilots are prepared to accept a higher degree of risk - in the same way that commercial IMC ops have never been approved for SE in the UK.
Interesting posts, but I do feel some of you are kidding yourself that PPPPPP, is enough to avoid every accident, and that is perhaps more worrying.