As aviators, we see no irony in being sustained aloft by an ongoing series of violent explosions of a volatile chemical mixture generating a hearing-damaging roar that calms us to the point of somnolence. Yet when that soothing roar ceases, without our command, and the resulting silence brings us to a level of terrified hypervigilance and frenzied activity, one of the unhelpful recriminations that races through our minds when we should be concentrating on dealing with the emergency is “Why the hell don’t I have an airplane survival kit on board?”
Now is your chance to avoid having such a thought distract you from the process of successfully stuffing your airplane into a safe landing site on the day when all goes wrong, and you cannot convince your engine(s) to continue reciprocating.