I had owned this plane for about three weeks, and decided to travel from my temporary base in Port Macquarie to Horsham via Mildura. On the first leg I departed for Scone with full tanks leaving a nice Fuel buffer in addition to the normal VFR reserves, as I was still convincing myself what normal fuel burn looked like in this aircraft. Being a current PPL, and having a mode C transponder on board, I climbed for 8500ft, as I was heading directly over the Great Dividing Range, real tiger country. I religously performed normal cockpit checks throughout the first 45 minutes, and when the left tank was indicating about 3/4 full reached over to turn the tank back on, and continued with my other routine.

A couple minutes later the noise just stopped without warning, the prop windmilling in the breeze.

Taking a luxurious second to swear loudly, I began slowing to best glide and heading for a landing spot, I had preselected as a part of the normal tiger country routine. The spot I selected was a bit of a clearing on a fairly steep looking slope deep in a valley, hopefully it would be survivable.

As the aircraft had a bit of speed to wash off, I began the first run through the emergency checklist including changing the tank selection as a matter of course. When I completed the checklist for the first time, I focused on retrimming for the glide speed, and just got this set when the engine miraculously sprang back to life, running like a swiss watch.

After circling for a while, within reach of this admittedly dubious landing field (but the best option that was nearby) I got my heart rate back to normal and had a think about what had happened. As you've probably already guessed I had turned the left tank off instead of the right tank on during my routine checks, meaning there was no fuel flow to the engine. Once I had established this was definately what had happened I continued on to Scone for a coffee and a walk around the field, to allow me to appreciate ground that was not looking to kill me, and allow some new found wisdom to sink in.

How do I do things differently now? I have worked out that the fuel cocks point along the door frame when they are turned on, and across the frame when turned off. I also now put my hand on the valve, then pause and cross check before altering the setting, and monitor the fuel pressure instrument for a couple of minutes after touching anything to do with fuel.

What else did I learn? Rushing routine checks is not a smart idea, slow down and do them properly. I had spent time sitting in the aircraft on the ground, after taking delivery, with the Pilot Operating Handbook and hand written all the checklists, doing slight modifications along the way, to improve the logical progression through my specific panel, especially the emergency checks. I then repeated them on the ground until they were committed to muscle memory. This time really paid off when I had to do it for real. The training I have received, both from instructors and myself did kick in automagically, I didn't have to think about it, as it was just a drill, with the pass mark being survival.

Although I only lost about 100ft during this event, in my mind I had a real engine failure, and the emergency checks saved my bacon.

The sound of a smoothly running rotax is a sweet sound indeed these days.

This story was submitted by an anonymous user for the purpose of passing on information which might help someone else. Rotax-Owner has no affiliation with the writer nor takes any responsibility for accuracy or technical content.