A number of years ago, I attended an Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association flight-instructor refresher class as a newly licensed CFI-I. The instructor asked a roomful of about 60 CFIs if anyone had lost an engine and made a forced landing. I have never forgotten that day, when almost half the people in the room raised their hands. Surely this would never happen to me.
On a crisp, clear September morning in 2003, my wife dropped our three cats and me off at the Asheville, North Carolina, airport to fly home to Orlando. My wife much preferred driving 12 hours over flying with us in our A36 Bonanza for the 2:45 flight. I checked the weather, and other than Hurricane Isabel churning 300 miles off the coast of north Florida, skies were clear all the way to Orlando. I would learn later that morning why this was important.
