"Mike O'Malley" wrote in message
...
"Captain Wubba" wrote in message
om...
Howdy. I was discussing with a friend of mine my concerns about flying
single-engine planes at night or in hard IFR, due to the possibility
of engine failure. My buddy is a CFI/CFII/ATP as well as an A&P, about
3500 hours, and been around airplanes for a long time, so I tend to
give credence to his experiences. He asked me how often I thought a
piston engine had an in-flight engine failure. I guestimated once
every 10,000 hours or so. He said that was *dramatically*
over-estimating the failure rate. He said that in his experience it is

I would say the failure rate is not uniform, and would depend a lot on how
the
aircraft are maintained and utilized. Ex: the large univesity flight
school I
went to that flies on the order of 10,000 hours a year, has had no engine
failures in the past 10 years that weren't due to pilot error.

However, the company I towed banners for had two complete engine failures
and
two partial power failures in the two 3 month seasons I worked for them.
In my
1100 hours, I've had one quit on takeoff when a mag that was improperly
torqued
down slipped and put the ignition way out of time, and one partial power
loss
when a leaky oil control ring finally let go and fouled out one cylinder.

And be careful using NTSB data for your analysis, as not all engine
failures are
cause for a report; both of mine ended with me making it home and no bent
metal,
so they aren't in the database.

I had an engine failure (sort of on landing) when a plug failed. I noticed
it after landing at Everglades City. I put on some power to turn and
backtrack and boy did the engine run rough.

I then spent a couple of hours speculating about what would have been the
result if I had screwed up the final approach and had to go around again.
The engine did not like full power. My home base runways are small than
Everglades City so it was not too bad.