Tonight, me and a friend of mine went out to Long Beach airport for a bit for an hour of sight seeing flight around LA, LAX and finally Queen Marry ship... or at least that was our plan. With the first Cessna, I detected a light that was out, so I logged that, and got another one. Had them com and fuel it up, did my walk-around, got my ATIS information, pulled her out, and started the engine. At that point, everything was fine - engine sounded normal, and oil pres was ok, so after completing my checklist I taxied out to the run-up area.
Flight controls check, instruments set, mixture rich, power up to 1700 RPM, alternator check, suction gauge check, pulled carb heat... got 100 RPM drop. Then I set Magnetos on left, got 150 drop plus a little rough ness... hmm... thought maybe its a little cold... so I continued... Magnetos set to right... no change... strange... so I Pulled the mixture half way and pushed the RPM up to 2200 to heat up the engine and maybe clear any dirty spark plugs in the engine. Little bit later I did the magneto test and it sounded just a bit better... enough to be ok to fly.
Clearance was obtained and I too off... it was actually a cool zoomy take off for my friend that I preformed . Anyways, I started to climb out and the engine started to hesitate... but a little bit of it is usual with those Cessnas, then it got worse... and by the time I was about 4 miles out it was really coughing where I was doubting if I wanted to go any further... then then RPM dropped down 1500 for a few seconds till it came back up continueing REAL rough and there I made my decision to get back to LGB. Radio transmitions are as followed:

Me: LGB Tower, Cessna 4734 Hotel, I'm doing a 180 and I’d like to make a full stop at 25R.. I'm having some engine problems here.
Tower: 34H you need any assistance?
I really didn’t need emergency because I was close and didn’t feel like any paper work so..
Me: 34H, Negative on that, I’d just like to make it back at this time.
Tower: Ok 34H you're #2 following a traffic on freeway 605 clear to land 25R
I guess he didn’t really know the fact that my engine was about to quit, so I replied:
Me: Cessna 34H I’d really like to make this quick, if that's possible.
Tower: Rgr 34H I'll make you #1, Clear to land 25R.
Tower: [other traffic] other traffic, please continue doing 360 untill advised, you're #2 for landing after the Cessna with emergency.

And we landed ... safely
The controller had to make a Jetblue turn at a different taxiway since he had to give me 25R.

After all, flight prep took 2 hours, glow stick for the cockpit lighting was 50 cents, Sniker bars that we ate before going up were $2, but my .4 hour on a night flight with an engine failure was... Priceless
I literally didn’t pay anything for that flight... I didn’t have to...

Hope I didn’t give y'all a head ache with this. One thing I'm happy about is that surprisingly, I happened to stay real calm throughout all of this... which would be a good thing

-Funky

PS. Seeing this happen to others is one thing, having it happen to you is... an experience

Glad the outcome was positive! Good call to return Funky! Never hesitate to call an emergency for something that may seem benign because of "paperwork" or worrying about creating a hassle for yourself. It's still less paperwork than you'd be filling out working in a real office in as little as 10 minutes and it gives you, the PIC, the right to deviate from any FAR to the extent necessary to meet the emergency! It's available to use if needed!

I've had to declare a few emergencies, most of which were far less critical than what you describe, but I completely understand the thought process that goes through ones mind. I once had to dead-stick a 152 after the engine quit while on final at an uncontrolled filed. The silence and wind noise that fills the void will get your heart racing. Couldn't even call an emergency to anyone per se, but didn't really have time for it either. I never really felt I was in grave danger until you stop and think about it afterwards. What if I hadn't retracted flaps to an intermediate setting and lowered the nose for more airspeed immediately etc. I'll never know, but luckily the "glider" landing was uneventful and I'm here to talk about it.

Good call to be proactive and turn around! Sharing a story like that, priceless!

Lawndart

Wow.. Great work.. KUDOS to you!!... How did your friend react to all of this while it was going on?
So does this adventure mean that you are gonna be a bit more critical in your fre flight checks... seeing that you changed aircraft for a burned out or faulty light and not a sputtering engine...

In my M1A1 Main Battle Tank, my driver also did the same thing and figured that since the engine was runnning fine and idleing slightly below normal.. and would hestitate during throttle up ( we have Blackhawk Engines in our tanks) that it would be fine .. and we ended up spending 2 days and 1 night in the Cold (very cold) desert because the fuel pumps were bad...

I would have rather did the paper work and either not be involved in that days engagements or listend to the Mechanics bitch and moan while they fixed it.. rather than be out there at night...

My friend was all fine... You know, passengers often get their expressions by looking at the pilot... so when pilot freaks out, they freak out BIG TIME, and the other way. So I was calm, and he stayed calm too. The emergency wasn’t that bad, I could probably still make it even it had gone out completely... I had 1200 feet or so and 3.5NMs to fly to then end of the runway. Just like LD said earlier, I never felt I was in grave danger either, until yesterday afternoon when I really thought about it .

Eh, something I really don’t want to happen is crashing in a Cessna, before reaching my dreams of flying real suckers and making a living off of it!

Man sorry to hear about your "cold" experience... At least you were on the ground... but having to take all the coldness for 2 days is also something, especially in mid desert, should be something. Where were you? didn’t you have any coms? And BTW, I'd imagine you guys have an APU, don’t you?

Funky

Hey Funky, good job on the return to land, it's funny with those old Cessnas but it can be quite difficult sometimes deciding how much of that ever present roughness is normal! After flying Pipers for some time I had the chance to take someone up in a C152 again and spent a miserable flight waiting for this rattling monstrosity up front to quit on me. Took me a while to get used to the fact that it just naturally sounded rougher than the Pipers. Weirdest emergency I had was a 270lb body building student who freaked out on me on short final when a hornet poppeed out of one of the air vents by his head. He let go of the plane and just started flailing wildly, completely forgetting that two seconds ago he was in charge of the aircraft. I didn't declare because I was trying to land, but would have done because I couldn't control him. We had a little chat on the ground about it, you know, hornets sting, airplanes kill!

Good job, Funky! Sounds like the ice in your veins served you well. To paraphrase a saying, "Flying in and of itself is not inherently dangerous; but, like the sea is unforgiving to those who make mistakes". Good-on-ya for your training and cool head.

Regards,

Bon Jobie

Nice work, try not to think about it much, since your not dead =D.

that never apened to me but i bet it must be pretty scary to feel the engine go down....

During one of my flying lessons, I was staying in the pattern to practice some landings and i was about to turn final when my engine started to sound funny. I turned final and tried to increase power only to find out it wasnt doing much. Then I noticed my engine was out and my propeller was pretty much a windmill. Anyways, the flight or 2 before, we had practiced engine out landings so it was fine and we landed and our plane just stopped on the runway. Didnt realize how dangerous it could have been until I realized that I started a little crowd by the small airport. It wasnt a long final so its not like it was cutting it real close but its amazing how something like that can hit you when u least expect it. Very good experience from my view. I didn't get paid for that flight but I felt like I learned the most in that flight.

lol engine started to look funny ......

well i seen people that forget to lower their landing gear , so dont complain.