That's not my point. Those other risks are a necessary part of many flights; there's no point piling unnecessary risks on top of them. I have a >1 in 6 risk of dying from cancer some day, but I still don't play Russian roulette.
No point in flying gliders then. No point in flying pistons then because turbines are more reliable. No point in flying at night. No point in flying over water. No point in flying IFR.
Actually, there is. First, a motor glider is designed and intended to fly and land with no power. Second, it is flight tested in that configuration. And finally, in order to fly a motor glider, you have to have a glider certificate. Which means training in and quite a few landings in a plane with no power.
You intentionally put yourself into all those scenarios. I have a glider rating. I was 3000 AGL above a runway. An SEL is also designed to continue to glide with no power. I simply see no difference between my going gliding and shutting off my engine 3000 feet above a runway. In fact, the later is considerable safer. Odds are very high the engine will start right back up, and I was never out of glide distance from the runway. In the glider, the engine will never start up, and if you get real unlucky you can get enough sink to be well out of glide range of the runway.
Soaring is the point of flying a glider. Turbines are unaffordable for most of us, so pistons are the only way we can fly a powered plane. Flying at night is sometimes necessary to get home ahead of bad weather. Flying IFR makes the airplane more useful for transportation.
So it’s not gratuitous to fly a glider, but it is to shut down the engine. Okey dokey then.
Well, I know exactly what will happen if my engine quits. You don’t. I gained that knowledge by actually doing it under controlled circumstances that were pretty darn safe, and I took every possible precaution when doing it. In my opinion, I’m safer than you because I did it, not the other way around. I think it’s “scary” to think about, but actually doing it once is not any more risky than flying a glider is.
So back to your original claim, do you really still believe that a pilot who isn't willing to shut down their engine in flight shouldn't fly at all?
Where the hell did I claim that? You’re making stuff up now.
That's not what I said at all. Your statement makes it sound like I am saying you shouldn't fly. What I'm saying is that if you feel that shutting off a perfectly healthy engine at 3000 AGL is so dangerous that it should never be done, then you should feel that flying at all is too dangerous because there are dozens of things far more risky that you do every time you fly.
According to some around here, it's to make sure you can.
You did it, it worked, good on you. However, had anything gone wrong and the FAA got involved, they'd charge you with careless or reckless flying. I did almost the same thing, except I pulled the throttle. I know I could have gotten the engine back immediately, you don't.
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Especially, since such a restart is a certification requirement.
I’d almost go so far to say, there no difference whatsoever. If the props still turning, anything that could prevent it from restarting would likely kill it with throttle pulled out.
THANK YOU for this reference! For nearly two decades I've been told that the clutched, free-wheeling prop on a gyrocopter produces far more drag - thus significantly reducing engine-out glide distance - than one that is not clutched and fixed in position in the event of an engine-out, dead stick landing. I own and fly both, and experienced fuel-related engine outs in both. I could not tell the difference, they all have the same 4:1 glide ratio, regardless.
The salient point of interest to me in the NACA report is found in the conclusion section at the end:
