I've twice had a partial and turned back, both times the aeroplane was unscratched. One was a plug failure, the other a pump failure. The art, in my opinion is flying field to field whilst keeping speed speed about min drag (~best glide at first approximation), then approach once the landing runway / field is safely achievable.
I've flown with a student - a very low hour UK PPL trained at an overseas school somewhere sunny that I was doing a syndicate checkout for. He believed that a turnback was appropriate in the event of an EFATO, and had clearly been told this by somebody who had trained him - despite his never having practiced it. I assume the instructor at his overseas school, as he had many other bad habits as well, although I didn't ask specifically.
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Last edited by Genghis the Engineer; 15th Jun 2013 at 20:35.