Adam
My feelings are that too many pilots can't land well under stress
anyway and NEVER practice precision landings. With an emergency, you've
got lots of stress and often limited areas to land....most of which
will require a precision landing to minimize the damage potential to
occupants. (This for an off airport landing of course.)
With thousands of hours crop dusting and operating off marginal strips
I've had ample opportunity to pass that information and experience to
the pilots and students I fly with.
Just to have an airport close by does not automatically mean you can
dead stick it and walk away a hero. That nasty STRESS factor raises its
head and screws up what could have been a very Ho-Hum landing and a
push or tow to the maintenance area. I've made hundreds (if not
thousands) of off airport landings with airplanes and only wrinkled one
aircraft in the process but when the engine failed it was only about
200'agl and not many options. OTOH, I've had engine failures during a
spray run and got it down OK just thinking ahead of what I was doing.
If you are concerned, there is no reason why you can't limp from
airport to airport just in case you have an engine failure. Better safe
than sorry but it sure will limit where you go and what you see!
I'd rather spend some time on precision landings just in case you have
to do an off airport touchdown.
Fly safe and enjoy it.
Ol Shy & Bashful