The simulated engine failure to a landing and the field selection mistakes that bust more checkrides than you think

The simulated emergency approach and landing is one of the most commonly failed maneuvers on the private pilot checkride — not because it’s physically difficult, but because most students never learn how to pick a field. Establishing best glide speed and running a checklist are practiced endlessly, yet the critical skill of rapid field selection under pressure gets overlooked. Understanding what examiners actually evaluate, and where students consistently go wrong, turns this maneuver from a checkride risk into a confidence builder.

Why Do Students Fail the Simulated Engine Failure?

The number one mistake isn’t picking the wrong field. It’s taking too long to pick any field.

From the moment the engine goes to idle, the clock is running. In a Cessna 172 at best glide speed, you’re descending at roughly 700 feet per minute. At 3,000 feet AGL, that gives you approximately four minutes — and that time must also cover running a checklist, making radio calls, setting up a pattern, and managing energy. Four minutes evaporates fast.

Most students immediately start scanning the horizon for a perfect flat green rectangle. They’re searching for a runway that doesn’t exist while burning altitude with their eyes sweeping back and forth.

What Should You Do First When the Engine Quits?

Pitch for best glide speed immediately. This must come from muscle memory.

• Cessna 172: approximately 65 knots indicated
• Piper Cherokee 140: approximately 73 knots indicated

Know your aircraft’s number cold. Not “around sixty-something.” The examiner will notice if you’re hunting for it.

How Do You Pick a Suitable Landing Field?

Stop looking at the horizon. Look down, at roughly a 30- to 45-degree angle below the nose. That’s where your realistic glide range is. Anything on the horizon is almost certainly out of reach.

Pick a field within 60 seconds. It doesn’t have to be perfect — it has to be reachable. You can always upgrade your choice if something better appears as you descend, but you need a plan immediately.

The Airman Certification Standards uses the word “suitable,” not perfect. That single word is where all the trouble starts.

What Makes a Field Suitable?

• Large enough: minimum roughly 1,000 feet of usable surface for a light single-engine airplane; more is always better
• Relatively flat
• Into the wind if manageable
• Free of obstacles on the approach end — a beautiful open field is useless if there’s a line of trees or power lines right before it

The Surface Trap That Busts Checkrides

The mistake that catches more students than any other: they pick a field that looks great from altitude but completely ignore surface conditions.

• Green in spring often means crops. Crops can be knee-high or taller. A freshly plowed brown field is often a better choice — plowed dirt is relatively smooth and predictable.
• A hay field that’s just been cut is ideal.
• Water hazard: from altitude, a pond or marsh can look like a flat open area. Students glance down, see something flat, and commit before their brain registers what they’re looking at.

The Field Selection Hierarchy

1. Best: An actual airport or paved road within glide range (watch for cars, power lines, and signs on roads)
2. Second best: A large, dry, flat field that’s been harvested or mowed, oriented for a wind landing
3. Third: Anything large, flat, and clear of tall obstacles, even with imperfect surface conditions

How Do You Set Up the Approach Pattern?

Once you’ve selected a field, energy management becomes everything. The standard technique is the key position method:

Fly to a point abeam your intended touchdown spot at roughly 1,000 feet AGL, as if you were on a downwind leg for that field. From there, fly a normal base turn and final approach, just like at the airport.

The examiner wants to see a recognizable traffic pattern — downwind, base, final. A common failure mode is flying directly to the field and attempting a circling spiral descent over the top. This makes altitude and energy nearly impossible to judge and typically ends with the student either way too high in a steep dive or too low on the wrong side.

Managing Energy: Too High or Too Low?

If you’re too high:

• Forward slips are your most efficient tool for losing altitude without gaining airspeed
• Extend the pattern with a wider base leg
• Add S-turns on final

If you’re too low:

• Cut the pattern short and turn base early
• Do not try to stretch a glide. Stretching a glide path leads to stalling on final — that’s no longer a checkride problem, it’s a survival problem.
• If significantly low, switch to a closer field.

What About the Restart Checklist?

This is where many students fall apart. They pick a field, set up the glide, and then just… fly toward it, completely forgetting the restart procedures. Or they remember but can’t execute because their focus on the field overwhelms their ability to multitask.

The restart checklist (talk through it out loud):

• Fuel selector — both (or switch tanks)
• Mixture — full rich
• Carburetor heat — on (or electric fuel pump for fuel-injected engines)
• Magnetos — check both, try left, right, back to both
• Primer — in and locked
• Master switch — on

The ACS specifically requires you to attempt to determine the reason for the malfunction. Verbalize your reasoning: “Fuel selector is on both. Mixture is full rich. Carb heat is on. I suspect possible carburetor ice or fuel contamination.” The examiner can’t read your mind. If you’re thinking it but not saying it, they may assume you’re not thinking it at all.

The secure checklist (performed on short final before the go-around call):

• Fuel selector — off
• Mixture — cutoff
• Magnetos — off
• Master switch — off

How Do You Determine Wind Direction Over an Unfamiliar Area?

At 3,000 feet over a random field, you may have no obvious wind indicators. Landing with a tailwind means overshooting your field — and the examiner will notice.

Wind clues to look for:

• Smoke from chimneys or agricultural burns
• Flags or windsocks at nearby facilities
• Ripples on lakes or ponds
• Wind turbine orientation
• Your preflight winds aloft briefing — recall what direction the wind was from at your altitude

An exact reading isn’t necessary. A general estimate like “wind is generally from the west” is enough to set up your approach from the east.

How Should You Handle Communications During an Engine Failure?

Follow the priority order: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate.

1. Fly the airplane — best glide, pick the field, set up the pattern
2. Navigate — determine your position so you can report it
3. Communicate — squawk 7700, call on 121.5: “Mayday, mayday, mayday, [callsign], engine failure, landing in a field approximately [location relative to nearest airport]”

Do not let the radio call compromise your flying. Students who pick up the microphone and lose their scan — airspeed wandering, nose hunting up and down — now have two problems instead of one.

The Eight-Step Mental Checklist for Checkride Success

1. Engine goes quiet → pitch for best glide. Muscle memory. Don’t look it up.
2. Within 30 seconds, pick a field. Look down, not out. Announce it: “I’m going to land in that large brown field at my ten o’clock.”
3. Turn toward the field and plan a key position. Arrive abeam the touchdown point at approximately 1,000 feet AGL on a downwind.
4. Run the restart checklist out loud while flying the pattern. Talk through what you’re doing and why.
5. Manage energy. High? Slip or extend. Low? Cut the pattern short. Never stretch the glide.
6. Set up for final approach. Configure for landing with flaps as appropriate.
7. On short final, run the secure checklist. Fuel off, mixture cutoff, mags off, master off.
8. Examiner calls go-around. Power up, climb out, clean up.

Throughout all of this, explain your actions and reasoning — not a running monologue, but enough that the examiner knows your brain is working.

How Should You Practice This Maneuver?

Practice at different altitudes. Not just 3,000 feet. Have your instructor pull the power at 2,000 feet, 1,500 feet, even 1,000 feet AGL. The checkride pull can come at any altitude, and if you’ve only practiced from 3,000, an unexpected pull at 1,800 will cause scrambling.

Practice when you’re not expecting it. Ask your instructor to pull the power at random times — on the way back to the airport, heading out to the practice area, during cruise. The checkride pull won’t come when you’re ready. It’ll come when you’re thinking about something else entirely.

The students who perform best aren’t the ones who memorized a procedure. They’re the ones who’ve been caught off guard enough times that the surprise doesn’t rattle them. The pitch for best glide becomes automatic. The field scan becomes second nature. The checklist flows.

The examiner isn’t expecting a greased landing in a corn field. They want to see that if the engine quit for real, you’d get the airplane on the ground in one piece with everyone walking away.

Key Takeaways

• Pick a field within 60 seconds — the biggest checkride bust comes from indecision, not from choosing an imperfect field
• Look down, not at the horizon — your realistic glide range is 30-45 degrees below the nose
• Surface matters more than color — a plowed brown field often beats a lush green crop field
• Fly a recognizable pattern using the key position method; never spiral directly over the field
• Verbalize everything — the examiner can’t evaluate what they can’t hear

Primary references: FAA Airplane Flying Handbook (FAA-H-8083-3C) and the Private Pilot Airman Certification Standards (FAA-S-ACS-6B), both available free on the FAA website.