btw, I forgot to tell that my flying experience isn't with early Merlins, so de facto I have never had a cut out with the Merlin. I had it with other gravity fed machines (I once had a very hair raising experience with a Tiggie which left me falling down like a leaf with a dead engine..), but I asked one of the engineers this afternoon and he said that yes, power loss and cut out would be quite abrupt. As you probably know negative G or inverted flight is not recommended on a Merlin anyway because of its lubrication system configuration: you'd have oil coming up and messing up the cylinders and leaving the crankshaft dry. Another advantage that the DB engine had over the Merlin apparently.

A.