So I was tooling along the other day and pulled up into a simple positive-G aileron roll, and 90 degrees over, the engine quit. At the same time my cell phone fell off its magnetic mount onto the floor which of course I ignored since I had other things to worry about like getting right side up and the whole engine not running thing.
So: fuel selector, switches - huh why are both mag switches off? Well there you go, the phone was above the switches and when it came off its mount it flicked them both off. Flipped 'em back on and it fired right up. No appreciable loss of altitude and no time to even get perturbed, back and running in 8 seconds according to the EFIS log.
Two takeaways:
1) The obvious: Don't have un-secured stuff on / around the panel or controls. A lot of us use IPADs - no doubt more secure with ball mounts and such but still, if that isn't tight I can imagine similar things happening, like interference with the stick.
2) Practice actual engine out procedures. I do that now and then (as in, intentionally letting a tank run dry up high over an airport or dry lake bed). I believe that served me well - muscle memory kicked in with no panic, diagnosed / resolved in a few seconds. We all know this stuff in our heads, but practicing it for real makes it automatic.
But yeah, DUH on the whole phone magnetic mount thing!
So: fuel selector, switches - huh why are both mag switches off? Well there you go, the phone was above the switches and when it came off its mount it flicked them both off. Flipped 'em back on and it fired right up. No appreciable loss of altitude and no time to even get perturbed, back and running in 8 seconds according to the EFIS log.
Two takeaways:
1) The obvious: Don't have un-secured stuff on / around the panel or controls. A lot of us use IPADs - no doubt more secure with ball mounts and such but still, if that isn't tight I can imagine similar things happening, like interference with the stick.
2) Practice actual engine out procedures. I do that now and then (as in, intentionally letting a tank run dry up high over an airport or dry lake bed). I believe that served me well - muscle memory kicked in with no panic, diagnosed / resolved in a few seconds. We all know this stuff in our heads, but practicing it for real makes it automatic.
But yeah, DUH on the whole phone magnetic mount thing!