Any flight training needs to be geared towards the reality of the situation that you are training for.
Hence why in jets so much is done in sims.
A PL flown to 500 feet on a glorious day is completely useless when the reality is more likely to be that an aircraft is flying low level in poor visibility and surrounded by mist and clouds maybe rain and turbulence or icing.
So there should be three aspects of training
Slow flight and short field landings under power!
Identification of suitable landing areas
Operations in low visibility conditions.
An off airfield landing can be for a number of reasons which require the aircraft to be on the ground as quickly as possible so not just for a situation where the pilot has flown into weather conditions he or the aircraft cannot handle but also pilot unwell, mechanical or structural problems, smoke, fire etc.
Going by the stats a PL is a skill which would be more likely to be used than a FL although both are important in a SEP
Operating in low visibility conditions is a skill of its own and the cause of many loss of control situations with the pilot fixated on looking out and not controlling airspeed or attitude
Pace
Last edited by Pace; 11th Jan 2015 at 10:05.