Fellsteruk wrote:engine failure....
Fuel on, change tanks
Primer secure
Mags on both
Fuel pump on
Throttle open
Mix rich
Carb heat
Restart- no joy
Mix lean cutoff
Throttle close
Fuel pump off
Mags off
Fuel off
Ready to force land.
Carb heat 8th in the list? No way.
Carb heat
first, and instantly at the first sign of engine spluttering. No p1ssing about with checklists, pull the damn knob out.
If it's carb ice (and engine failures often are), you cannot afford to leave any more time than is absolutely necessary before getting hot air through the carb. Once the engine is no longer developing power, the exhaust gases are not hot, so hot air isn't as hot, so it's not going to melt ice as well.
Checking that fuel is on? Eh? How did you get airborne in the first place? Have you randomly switched it off in the meantime?
Mags on both? Eh? Have you randomly switched them off in the meantime? Maybe you want to see if it'll run on one or the other rather than both if you have time, but what is the point of checking that the mags are still both? I suppose you might have inadvertently been flying on one mag and that's died, but you'll see that as soon as you look at the switch, and can make a decision where to switch to.
If you actually
think about this checklist you can see that there are three elements to it.
1. Have I done something completely dumb? (eg let a tank run dry, failed to check for carb ice periodically). If you have, fixing it quickly may see the engine come roaring back to life quickly.
2. Am I going to try a restart? If you're at 500', then probably not, so don't sod about with those bits of the list, you haven't got time. At 5000', yes, almost certainly. Unless there was a big bang, the prop is now stationary, and there's oil all over the windscreen, in which case, not so much - work on your landing.
3. I'm landing in a field. Get everything switched off so that if I smack it in hard, there's less chance of fire.
This is why I say you want to
think about these actions, so that when the emergency happens, it's not a mindless series of actions, it's a problem-solving process where you make judgements and decisions.