October 19th 2023, I had an engine failure. We only had one tandem scheduled for today along with one fun jumper. I took off runway 24 at Franklin Country Airport with three jumpers on board. On takeoff I noted that I was making good power and temps and pressure were normal. I had one jumper that was getting out at 5000ft AGL. So at five thousand feet I turned a one mile jump run on a heading of 240 which is right down the runway. Over the field the jumper got out and I shut the door to continue the climb to 11k AGL with the two remaining jumpers.

The climb from five to eleven thousand feet was completely normal. At around nine thousand feet the tandem instructor began hooking up to his student. As I was climbing though 11k MSL I was on a mile jump run in line with runway 24. Before turning jump run I noted that my oil pressure was in the green and my temp was at 170 which was well into the green. As I was about a mile from the field I noticed a violent vibration and faint knocking. I immediately begin enrichening the mixture to see no change. I then tried leaning the mixture. About 20 seconds later the engine stopped instantly. Prop was at a dead stop and not windmilling. The RPM went from about 2380 to 0 in a second.

Immediately I turned and told the jumpers to open the door and get out. When they left the plane I closed the door. I begin a restart procedure from memory. This included checking the fuel selector, mixture full rich, giving one shot of primer, checking the master and mags. When I pressed the started button I got nothing. Tried again and still nothing. At this point I called New York center and told them I was jumpers away and descending. I decided not to declare an emergency because I was right over the runway. Then I went to the CTAF frequency and made a jumpers away call and engine failure call telling no one to over fly the field. Since restarting didn’t work I pulled the mixture all the way out, turned off the mags and shut the fuel sector off. I had still had power and radios so I left the master on. Since I was directly over the field by the time the jumpers had left. I maintained a 100kt airspeed and did a slow circling decent. At about five thousand feet I began setting up for a half mile final, in an effort to ensure that I was not short. I got onto final and put the airplane in a slip. Shortly after I realized I was so high I wouldn’t make the field. I decided to make a 360 about a half mile from the field. When I finished the 360 I was reestablished on final at about 3k feet. I then entered a slip again and held it while adding first and second notch of flaps. About the time I crossed the threshold I exited the slip added full flaps and flared. I touched down nice and smooth and rolled the airplane off the runway. Finally I made a radio call saying I was parked on the taxi way and turned off the master.