Bill, I like your idea of testing your vertical speed at various airspeeds during a power off glide. Doing so during the emergency could work if the power loss is at or above 5,000' agl as you speculated.
My power loss cross country was a scenic flight. After the last place I viewed at 1,000' agl, (straight and level - ain't no stupid "buzzing" blood in my family tree), I was cruising for home no higher than 2,000' agl, only about 10-12 miles from my home airport when the engine first got quiet. Then the power came back for a short time, then it stopped, then it came back - several times as the ice progressively closed the metal fuel line fitting in the firewall. I was midway between the two nearest airports and only about 8-10 miles from each. Home was ahead over empty farmland, the last was behind but would require passing over a small city - no way! But right about then the power did NOT come back and I was gliding. By this time I was certainly no higher than 1,500' in my second flight in an aircraft type with which I had no familiarity and no transition training (no one in the area to give it). This is the time to have your best glide (and best endurance-time) number memorized - but I didn't. My attention was quickly riveted by the fact that my chosen field with bare ground lined up into the wind was shown to be unreachable due to the strength of the headwind. By now I was low enough that only one change was possible and the nearer field looked as good as any - flat, open and covered by some amount between 5" and a foot of somewhat packed snow. And now I'm down to 500'. You can see why I'm so adamant about doing a "minimum speed as shown by that ASI" test in any different aircraft I fly, shortly after takeoff the first time. I've come to think that is a minimum smart thing to do, for me. As for the trim setting, I have no memory of that. I was manually setting the airspeed to 70 and holding it there with the skill of someone who had passed the PP checkride just days before (no sloppiness in that technique!) so the trim just didn't come into it. Though I didn't know it that day, the installed VSI was virtually useless as it was a WWII surplus fighter plane VSI. My Coupe could barely make the needle twitch off zero (later replaced). That was a "fun" and defining learning experience for me. For all the time I owned my Coupe I often went up and did careful flight testing and practice sessions. I found that being a smart and cautious "test pilot" is more fun than just drilling meaningless holes in the sky. http://ercoupe.org/EOC2006/Fly-in%20Reports/Gas-line-ice.htm Ed
