When teaching the forced approach I spend hardly anytime on field selection criteria. Close, Open (no obstacles on the approach) and Flat in that order are the only criteria care about.
My 02 cents
1) 80% of all engine failures are directly caused by the actions or inactions of the pilot. Flying schools should stop concentrating on teaching complicated pneumonics for selecting the "right field" and obsessing about the relative differences in the suitability of crop types or farm animal species, and spend more time in educating pilots on how not to cause the engine to fail and if it does, get it going again
2) A uniform 9 Gee deceleration from 60 kts to 0 kts requires about 25 feet. Obviously it would be hard to get a perfectly even deacceleration of that magnitude but the take away is you don't need a lot of room to stop.
3) The instant the engine stops the insurance company just bought the airplane. The only criteria for success in a forced landing is no passenger injuries. What the airplane looks like when it comes to a stop is utterly irrelevant, see point 2 above.
4) Further to point 3 the accident statistics clearly show that the key to survival is having the aircraft hit the ground in as close to a wings level, level flight attitude as possible with a short ground run. The "killer" accidents are the ones where the aircraft hits the ground steeply banked/nose down not under control or hits a solid object at flying speed. Keeping the aircraft under control is the most important thing a pilot can do if the engine fails.
5) if you are cruising along sitting behind a certified Continental or Lycoming engine which had its fuel drained of contaminates, had a normal run up, is supplied with sufficient fuel from a properly selected tank, and you are regularly checking it's engine gauges and checking for carb ice......the chance it will suddenly and without warning, fail is basically zero.
6) The only truly safe way to deal with a night engine failure is to always be in gliding distance of a lighted airport.
Last edited by Big Pistons Forever; 29th November 2012 at 00:33.