Pondlife
I would set up best glide speed, do my best and hope to survive the subsequent bang, since your scenario is pretty grim.
Strangely enough I am night rated and just over 200 hrs and my risk assessemnt of an engine failure flying after dark in a SEP is Probability: Low, Severity: Likely to be fatal.
Thus, it's my choice to fly at night in SEP only in a tight circuit to stay current and to restrict my use of the night rating to stay legal when flying around the dusk period.
Night flying is one instance where I believe that MEPs are inherently safer due to the inability to pick a field with any reasonable degree of certainty. Even if blue line speed means a slight descent, it does buy time to consider how to get to an open airfield.
The other factor often overlooked in night flying is that you can become disoriented by optical illusions thus leading to poordecision making and even may worse end up over an area where there is no visible horizon thus requiring instrument flight - hardly ideal when you are looking for a forced landing site.
Last edited by Final 3 Greens; 10th January 2003 at 09:13.