Originally Posted by
shdw
In response to your real world experience, you had a particularly unusual situation. For the most part, we are talking about what speed to fly when total power is lost. Your situation would have been best if flown at min sink with the engine as lean as possible, I assume you did this.
I'll give you my thought process during that situation (after thinking about what was wrong):
1) The Atlantic is a pretty big place
2) Ditching is going to suck:
a) it's starting to get dark (my current course is making it worse) -it's going to double suck being in the ocean at night
b) high-wing airplane
c) how am I'm going to get this 40lb life raft out of the airplane and then inflate it - it'll probably sink
3) Wow the Atlantic is big... I can see how people get lost out here and never found (note: avoid ditching)
4) Thank God for true airspeed (vs. indicated)
5) No one is ever going to believe me that the fuel valve stuck to one side!