Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
You have to do what you have to do in an airplane. You have to
have some respect for the engine, but you don;t have to go nuts!
UI mentioned earlier a place I worked did ab initio training in a J-3
(BTW, with no radios, starter or intercom) and, as you might
imagine the engine was up and down a lot. Standard practice in
airplanes like that is to chop the power on downwind opposite the
touchdown point and regualte your approach by varying the size
of your pattern from that point. Now, with some regard towards
rapid cooling we reduced to about 1200 rpm initially and then
chopped it a bit later. Needless to say the students had very little
trouble doing forced landings when it came to that time in their
training.

That's the method my CFI used.

I've also taught just the same in Cherokees and Cessnas, although
teaching relatively recently within flying clubs I've had to go with
the flow because somewhere some asshole back in the '70s got
it in his head that since airliners do power stabilised approaches
it;s a good idea in a lightplane as well. "Makes the whole trianing
experience more professional" you know.
Now there's a new thread!

I'll bite (re the new thread)...

In an accident here last year, two pilots (CFI and a student) flying an
A-36 from a local airline-pilot factory came over the fence at around
120 and bounced after their initial touchdown. The CFI finally attempted
to take control (too late) without announcing the exchange of controls
while the student applied power (presumably for a go-round). The plane
veered off the runway at high speed, across the ramp, miraculously
missed tied-down planes in the first couple of rows and then slammed
into a V-tail Bo tied-down on the ramp, completely cutting it up w/the
prop, ripping the chains out of the ground, pushing it into the middle
of the rows, and destroying it. The two pilots were shaken but fine, and
the A-36 had substantial damage but nothing like the V-tail.

After the accident, their excessive over-the-fence speed was discussed,
and it was said that the school does not teach airspeeds during
approaches -- since the students are largely airline-bound individuals,
they teach "descent-rate". Much discussion ensued in the following weeks
about teaching the proper approach *for the airplane you're in at the
time* vs teaching airliner approaches in small, single-engine aircraft.

Your comment caused me to do some Googling. This had some in interesting
stats for a limited accident database.

archive.aya.org/safety/levyhibbler200207.pdf