I agree with all of the recent advice about knowing your airplane's engine out performance characteristics but have some reservations about the implied conclusion that this knowledge is always important in handling an actual engine-out situation.  In fact, there is a serious choice that needs to be made before relying on max glide range information, whether it comes from the pilot's knowledge and experience, from the Chelton or from some other source.  If you don't have to glide to max range, don't even think about trying.  I agree that there may be times when there is a great field just at the limit of glide range and nothing closer that offers a reasonable chance for survival.  In that case, being able to fly the optimum profile (starting with knowing what it is) may save your life.  On the other hand, if the option at the limit of your glide range is not orders of magnitude superior to any closer option (from a survival rather than an a/c damage perspective) choosing the closer option is clearly the better choice.  Not only are you assured of getting there but you have more chance to set up for the approach and landing/controlled crash and therefore a better chance of surviving it.  This is equally true whether the options are all good (wall to wall fields) mediocre (a few feasible spots here and there) or terrible (Western Montana).

I think the appropriate conclusion is that, if your survival depends on coming within 5% of optimum glide, you are in deep trouble and your chances of survival are not good no matter how much you know about the optimum profile.  If that's where you really are, the more you know, the better your chance will be.  But if you have other options, forget about optimum glide, get thee to the best one and good luck!

As someone has recently observed, the Lancair dead stick grand champion of all time is Don Goetz.  Don did my first flight and, before doing so, he made it absolutely clear that, in the event of a problem, he had no interest in what happened to the airplane.  Given his record, it is hard to imagine anyone better qualified to play superhero with a max range glide so it is interesting that he professed no interest in doing so.