Don, Hook,et al:
Since we are discussing engine failure procedures tha may get us to a safe landing spot...not necessarily an airport...I thought I should share my experiances with 3 engine failures in my 8,000 hours. Most of these were in the last 3,000 hours. Two were sucked exhaust valves and one where the engne just fragmented. Actual cause was not determined by the Jabiru engine manufacturer.
I am in Sothern California and we have several dry lakes on which to practice actual engine off landings.
My group f flyers set up traffic cones at the touch down point and small flags at 100 foot intervals before and after the touch down target.
We climb to 1000 AGL and halfway on down wnd the engine is shut down. The flags let us know how short or long we are from the touch down target. We can also practice the "deadly turnback" procedure. These sessions build confidence so there is minimal panic when the engine goes silent.
This practice has paid off in my three actual engne failures two of which were on an airport and one off airport. No damage in each.
In practice sessions I adjusted pitch to minimize descent rate and use that IAS in my susequent engine out landings. However, that speed was just a close proximation of the best speed for the actual conditions. For my aircraft that IAS is 55-60 MPH.
I fly the Idaho back country each year in the Johnson Creek area where an engine failure will most likely put you in the trees or in a stream bed in a deep canyon. In that case I just have to remember on the way down that the airplane will be the property of the insurance compay and my job is to survive.
In our tests for private or commercial tickets an instructor may pull to an idle to simulate an engine failure. However, your glide with the prop idling is better then when actually dead. You can clearly see this if you let off the brakes while on the ground. The airplane will move forward so there is some thrust. So glide range is a bit better at idle.
John M