great idea!!!  by the way, did you all see that numbskull that jumped out of his Taylor craft?  Destroyed a nice plane and we know it was a stunt as he wore a parachute, the fuel selector seemed to be disconnected in the cockpit dangling above his right shoulder, there was no fuel on the wings or ground post crash, and there were perfectly good dirt roads below in the valleys for landing on.  

Jeff Edwards, Bob Jeffrey, and Chris Rust saved my bacon with the Lancair training they provided to me.  

I wrote up my.... Compromised Crankshaft saga on the "other forum" in Oct 2020.

Without training, I would surely have made a smoking hole.

I hope this is not too late for your study, Bob, but I guess it is time to fess up about my forced landing in Tennessee in 2015.   I had never been able to get pressurization in N31VP - my IVP and so I stopped in Tennessee to have the pressure vessel investigated.   The major leak was found and mitigated so when I left the next day for home, I was merrily enjoying the cabin pressure when, passing through 13,000' there was a loud crash and wind was blowing all around the cabin.  The upper half of the door was gone and my headset was dislodged, but other than that, flight was fairly normal.  I was only 10-15 miles away from an airport with a good runway so I declared an emergency with ATC and immediately turned that direction.   Talking with ATC throughout the landing was difficult even with LightSpeed ANR headset.  The most disconcerting part of the landing was transition from cruise to landing configuration.   When I slowed down and lowered the gear, there was a very strong vibration that had me concerned about flutter, broken parts in the tail assembly and other thoughts.   Fortunately I was able to make a long slow turn to final with speed up and the landing was uneventful.   The upper aft door latch was still attached to the cable and I surmise that this part waving in the breeze caused the vibration I experienced.

The cause of the door blowout was design error on the part of the engineer who created the upper door hinges.   Fortunately or unfortunately, that engineer was I.  Going back over my build notes, I did math calculations on the upper door hinges and concluded that 1/4" carbon fiber hinges here would be strong enough to hold the door together under pressurization.   My notes clearly specified I would test the system on the ground before pressurizing the aircraft.   As I had not been able to achieve pressurization for the first three years or so of flight, I forgot that promise and suffered the consequences.  

Regarding training for emergencies, I had a very thorough checkout in the airplane from Ron Galbraith that was crucial in helping me to fly the aircraft safely.   Even though I had a few hours of familiarization flying in a friend's IVP previously, that would NEVER have sufficed as adequate training. I have attended numerous ground school LOBO courses at the fly ins and have had recurrent training from EPS in Bend. 

I could certainly benefit from more recurrent training, but I feel relatively comfortable as a result of all the above training resources I've been able to take advantage of.    I might also mention that through close attention to the Forums over the years beginning in 1995, I have acquired incredibly useful information that helped me in the build and continues to help with maintenance, safety, and enjoyment of Puffin

Thanks, Bob, and all the LOBO board members and volunteers for that.   My thanks extends to the many contributors over the years whose shoulders we all stand on with regards to the enormous and very useful bank of data assembled and available.

"We don't train until you get it right.. we train until you don't get it wrong!" Navy Seals. LOBO training spends a significant amount of time on engine out landings until you don't get it wrong, because some day you will be a glider pilot.

Jeff