Keeping your altitude and spiraling down is an excellent choice. Two seaters can glide for miles from altitude. If there is any doubt, a road or rail line is a better bet than some of the cramped aerodromes with their devious fences and trees just waiting for the unsuspecting pilot! Condolences on your pilot loss. I am probably on my fifteenth or sixteenth Rick Rawlings...
I will take a road over an aerodrome any day with a dead engine! As you say, no room for error.
Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear or a fool from either end. BOC Member since....I can't remember!