Do I detect some armchair heroes airing their views? This is what it is like - for real:-
My instructor pulled an EFTO on me on climbout. He said nothing, and resisted my efforts to open the throttle again by hanging on hard to the throttle lever.
I was not sure if this was an exercise (I had never been briefed on an EFTO up till then so I did not know what he was up to) or whether he had taken over control from me without saying the magic words "I have control." After all, if the instructor takes over one of the major controls of the aircraft, how is the pupil to know who is meant to be flying the aircraft?
So I did nothing, and he did nothing while waiting for me to respond. As the flying speed got closer and closer to the stall, I realised that I stilll had charge of the elevator, so I pushed the stick forward to prevent any further loss of speed.
He later criticised me for 'being slow to respond,' but he in turn got some stick from ATC for failing to tell them in advance what he was up to. They probably had their finger on the crash button because the engine had 'failed' while the aircraft was in such a nose up attitude.
Some years later, I had an engine failure for real. The engine put a conrod through the side of the crankcase. The lessons to be learned from that were:
1) The vibration is such that ALL the instruments are useless. Unless you know how high you are above the ground (not just the departure airfield) before the failure, the only way to work out an approach procedure is to judge it by eye.
2) You should have an idea of wind direction, but if you have been doing some exercises you may not be certain which way it is.
Instructors please note - teach forced landings by first covering up all the instruments and then failing the engine. And teach a pupil how to work out which way the wind is blowing.