File:Plane at Málaga - Flickr - sylvia@intrigue.jpg

I have ended up with a bit of free time.

Lee, my ex-instructor, just got his type-rating on a 737, and also happens to have a bit of free time at the moment. He's a bit of a masochist and decided to offer five days of that time to go flying with me.

So we flew.

He is well aware of what I'm probably out of date on and we did engine failures, my most unfavourite past-time. This involves the normally quite sympathetic man sitting next to me suddenly closing the throttle and saying "Your engine has failed, now what."

Screaming, apparently, is not an option.

The first step is to get the plane gliding from whatever configuration you were in before. The next step is to work out which way the wind is going. I scan the ground for smoke stacks, hoping to get a hint; meanwhile the plane is falling out of the sky.

"You are taking too long," Lee says, sounding calm and patient despite the fact that I've clearly lost the plot.

I point the plane based on what the wind was when we took off (I found out later, there was no wind, it didn't matter one jot which direction I chose) and start looking for someplace I could land.

"That field, there."

"The one with the tree in the middle?"

I wince, but there's plenty of room either side. Yeah, that one.

It's only now that you start looking at what is wrong with the engine and whether it's recoverable. I put my hand on the throttle.

Lee knows me too well; he shakes his head. I leave the throttle where it is and pretend to check all the other things that might have gone wrong. Fuel, oil, magnetos, fuel pump.

"Right, I'm taking her down."

My supposed check for the engine failure has failed, I've now turned off the fuel and we're landing in a field.

"Might want to tell someone?"

"Oh yeah.... Mayday mayday mayday November 666 Echo X-ray has an engine failure, somewhere south of Granada, putting her down in a field."

I should be trying to give them a more exact location but at the moment I'm more concerned about aiming for the field and aware that the fake radio call is the least of my worries. I turn the plane again and my eyes flit between the field and my altitude. What's ground level here?

It strikes me that this is rather critical and I break protocol to ask.

"How high is the ground?"

"Coming up quick, Sylvia, come on. Wheels?"

Lee doesn't give hints. Well, I guess he does, as landing gear is pretty critical. I put the wheels down and turn again, now I'm heading straight in for my field, on final. I'm proud of myself for remembering the next step.

"As we come down could you please open your door and adopt the brace position."

He nods with a slight smile. I gained a point for briefing the passenger.

I'd feel good about this but we are still going down. I'm expecting him to break off the exercise and let me put the power back on, but he's taking advantage of the fact that we are in the middle of nowhere. Low flying rules are a bind in southern England, less so "somewhere south of Granada" where it's all fields and no populated areas to avoid. We are now 3000 foot above sea level, I reckon the ground to be at least 1800'.

I put the flaps down and we continue to descend. The ground is scarily close. On the third level of flaps, with the tree now stealing my entire focus, he finally says the magic words,

"That's fine, go around."

I push the throttle in and climb away.