Jay Honeck wrote:
Question: how often do you practice simulated engine failures over
places you aren't used to flying patterns?

Sadly, I have to admit that our fear of harming our engine has far
outweighed our fear of an engine-out landing. There is simply nothing
you can do to your engine (in normal use) that is worse than simulated
engine-out landings, so we do them very rarely.

I personally think that is a myth. I've read about shock cooling until
I'm blue in the face and I simply don't buy it. However, the main
reason is that my primary flight instructor, who is also an A&P and was
an airport manager for many years, always flew all of his airplanes on
power-off gliding approaches. He operated 2 C-150s, 1 C-172 and 2 C-182
for probably two decades and several other airplanes for the two
decades prior to when I met him.

He operated N38 for something like 45 years and flew scenic tours over
the PA Grand Canyon in his 182s and 172. These flights lasted 10-15
minutes and he glided power-off from pattern altitude to landing and
shut-down between runs. His airplanes were started, stopped and "shock
cooled" literally dozens of times every Saturday and Sunday. His 150s
trained students to also fly the way he flew (I'm one of them).

He never had a engine failure in these airplanes to my knowledge and
they routinely ran to TBO. He often groused how the FAA made him
rebuild a perfectly good engine just because he was a commercial operator!

So, I've seen scads of real-life experience that says that shock cooling
is just not real. The real part is people who don't practice engine-out
landings and then crumple an airplane botching the real thing.

Let the games begin! :-)

Matt