Originally Posted by
mary meagher
Having a check ride with the man I know is the very best and cleverest pilot/instructor/ATPL training captain in the UK, in my little piper cub, over Banbury, he pulls the throttle back to partial power at 5,000' and says "Now what are you going to do about it!"
Five thousand feet looks useful to me, even with a glide ratio of about 12 to one, or therebouts. So I headed back to the airfield - Sheningtin, aka Edgehill. which happened to be downwind from Banbury. So far so good. Decided that there wasn't enought height to do a circuit, so I landed downwind. It is not a bad idea at all if you have an airfield or nice big farmers field to land in and the wind is not too strong.
Surprised my instructor, who fully endorsed my decision as a good idea.
So being aware of your aircraft's glide ratio, don't entirely discount a downwind landing, it is much much better than trying to do a circuit and screwing up the turn. That's where people spin in.
That is exactly the kind of a real world scenario that sharpen pilot decision making skills and makes it such a good exercise.
There should be more of that IMO opinion.