Plane with student pilot and instructor lands in field near Elizabeth City
The flight instructor was able to take control of the plane and perform an emergency landing in a soybean field.
About the time I started my PP training there was a news report of a plane that ran out of fuel and landed on a road not too far from me. The accident report was pretty thorough on the fueling history and fuel burn calculations. Doing the math, it turned out that forgetting to lean meant the fuel would have run out exactly where it did. That was a good lesson for me.
One problem with some types of flight training is it’s all up and down and very little cruise. Without doing a cruise checklist regularly it’s easy to forget there’s something other than rich for takeoff and rich for descent (of course, adjusting for elevation).An Archer should be able to make the reportedly 3-hour flight with reserves to spare. But not without leaning. An Archer II is a slow plane with a big engine and small fuel tanks, which means there is little margin for error on longer flights; any flaw in engine operation technique or flight planning (e.g. wind and groundspeed) is flirting with disaster. I've seen and heard that puppy mill flight schools don't lean, like, ever. Ridiculous.