Engine out practice

[Immelman]

Take your time running the airplane at low power before pattern entry... if you're at altitude, plan on arriving at TPA 3-5 miles before reaching the traffic pattern, with a 500fpm descent. Running LOP helps. If you fly this profile, then the time you get to the pattern, your CHTs should be cool - I would say around 300dF or below. Once you're in this range its no big deal to do pattern work. I fly the majority of my patterns tight, and approaches power off. If I am doing a touch and go, in my experience the cylinders do not have a whole lot of time to heat up in the 60 seconds it takes to climb back to pattern altitude (cowl flaps open), retard the throttle to 15" (and close cowl flaps) or so to maintain altitude at a nice pattern airspeed. Now if I were doing full-stop taxi backs with lengthy ground time, or in hot weather this would be different.

 

Running for an extended long period power off descent from altitude seems unnecessary to me... sure, practice for a short while to get the glide picture of where you will go (keep in mind, the airplane will NOT go as far with the engine out versus at idle power). You can go through the motions of practicing your emergency procedures with some power applied. The procedures aren't affected. What counts, I think, is your ability to make a spot landing with the power off, in varying wind conditions. You can practice this from 1000 AGL and hone your skill without an extended power off descent,