Is this for real?

[Cactus99]

D&D Cell Report, 01/09/2006; Cessna 172,

Pilot lost, Pan declared, steers given for Cranfield. When asked if he could climb and maintain VMC, the pilot stated he did not know what VMC was. Later when asked to squawk 3305, the pilot replied he did not know what a transponder was!

Well I will answer my own question.........it is real :sad:

What on earth is someone with knowledge like this doing in charge of an aircraft, with possible pax on board.:ugh:


Anyone else care to comment?

[Monocock]

It was a very early start for me that day and my combined hangover and dyslexia made the letters VMC very difficult for me to understand clearly what was being asked.

I'm sorry if it has embarrassed us as a fraternity but I just can't help it sometimes ok?

The worst part was that I thought I had tuned into Cranwell. Imagine my shock when Cranfield started talking to me. I didn't have the heart to admit the error of my ways and just continued to avoid having to own up.

My wife was with me navigating at the time but she was of little use as she is afraid of heights and had her skirt jammed in the door which caused an alimighty distracting noise making matters even worse.

We all have days like this....don't we?

[gcolyer]

It was a very early start for me that day and my combined hangover and dyslexia made the letters VMC very difficult for me to understand clearly what was being asked.

I'm sorry if it has embarrassed us as a fraternity but I just can't help it sometimes ok?


Did you not pass the Human Performance exam?

1) Early Start
2) Hangover

If you were tired as it was so early you should not have flown until you were sufficiently awake, and If you had a hangover you should have canned the flight for the day.

So really there is no excuse. Fair cop if your dyslexia played havok with VMC but what about not knowing what a transponder is?

[tangovictor]

It was a very early start for me that day and my combined hangover and dyslexia made the letters VMC very difficult for me to understand clearly what was being asked.
I'm sorry if it has embarrassed us as a fraternity but I just can't help it sometimes ok?
The worst part was that I thought I had tuned into Cranwell. Imagine my shock when Cranfield started talking to me. I didn't have the heart to admit the error of my ways and just continued to avoid having to own up.
My wife was with me navigating at the time but she was of little use as she is afraid of heights and had her skirt jammed in the door which caused an alimighty distracting noise making matters even worse.
We all have days like this....don't we?

April 1st is a long way off, isn't it ?

[Monocock]

I did most of my training at a small military base near Guwahati in North East India. It was in a C150 that had no radio or transponder. When I returned to the UK I had my licence converted by a friend who owed me a favour after I helped his son's lame polo pony get better with hydyotherapy. My last two bi-annual checks were done by instructors in a "non-electrics" Jackaroo.

I'm hardly dangerous. I make sure I see and avoid and fly to the best of my ability at all times.

[Diddley Dee]

Oh its for real alright

Monocock...... you are a naughty man;)

Diddley Dee

[Farmer 1]

Monocock, I know you - you're the chap who, when asked, "What is your endurance?" replied, "I'm with Prudential!"

[maxdrypower]

[I] think you will find mono is taking the piss , do youo really think he is being serious

[gcolyer]

I'm hardly dangerous. I make sure I see and avoid and fly to the best of my ability at all times.


What do you mean???

You fly when you are tired
You fly with a hangover

You don't know what a transponder is
You get your wife who does not like heights to navigate for you, then get surprised when an ATCU you don't expect talks to you.

I would hardly say thats safe.

[tangovictor]

id suggest that the administrator deletes this thread, not at all funny !

[Cactus99]

id suggest that the administrator deletes this thread, not at all funny !

TV, my intention of this thread is not to ridicule this person or the subject, but to illustrate that people like this are flying around our skies and the likes of D&D have to rescue and bail out these guys when they get themselves in the Sh1t.

This IS real, lets do something about it.

[IO540]

3 possibilities

This thread is a windup
The plane was flown (stolen?) by an untrained person
Somebody should have a word with his instructor (or whoever signed off his last check flight)

[tangovictor]

TV, my intention of this thread is not to ridicule this person or the subject, but to illustrate that people like this are flying around our skies and the likes of D&D have to rescue and bail out these guys when they get themselves in the Sh1t.
This IS real, lets do something about it.

I Know Cactus, its obviously someone attempting to be funny, there's NO way this is serious,
if it is, then his friend didn't do him a favour, he signed his and maybe some others death warrant !

[HGFC1]

I for one am sure it is all too real. Earlier in the year I had reason to contact D&D - I'm not going to go into the details here but it involved being unsure of my position, serious radio problems and, eventually, a wonderful pilot in an Emirates Airbus somewhere over the continent relaying messages for D&D (they could hear me but I couldn't hear them) The Head of Training was chatting to me a day or two later and told me that it is not unkown for D&D to have to teach someone to fly straight and level before they can do anything else to help - something confirmed by them when I visited them later in the year to thank them. Having heard the exchanges between another 152 from outside the local area, and Shawbury recently (I won't embarrass the FI or the School involved here - you know who you are) I am not surprised. The student seemd to be completely oblivious to everything, it took him three tries to read back a simple QFE and four for the squawk - eventually read back by the FI. He was so unaware that on being told that there was one ahead in the circuit at EGBO (me) he replied that he was visual with HIM! Now, I had made several calls to Shawbury during the time he was on their frequency and the same at EGBO so if he was paying attention then he would definitely have heard me speaking. My point is that he wasn't on his own (and yes, he was a "he") he had someone qualified with him and it wasn't an emergency situation and yet he managed to make mistakes, so how much easier must it be for someone on his or her own? It is very difficult to judge who will cope and who will not and it isn't always the person you think it will be.
As an aside, I was very saddened to hear that the vast majority of people helped by D&D do not even bother to ring them and thank them for the help they were given so, if you are ever in the position of needing their services, once you are safely on the ground again, just pick up the phone and thank them, better still send a card or drop in with some biscuits. :ok: It's a small price to pay for being dug out of a potentially nasty hole.

[Cactus99]

Guys,

Just to clear up any misconception, it is no wind up, the details of this incident were taken from the latest GA Occurence listing issued by the CAA!

If you have a copy, you can read it for yourself, its on page 8, third from the top. I dont know whether all PPL's get a copy or whether its because I'm an instructor?

Cactus:ok:

[dublinpilot]

Could it be a solo student?

Many students are flying aircraft that are not transponder equipped, and as such are quick likely never to have encountered a transponder or know what a squawk is.

The term IMC may not be familiar to a student either. Had they been asked could the 'remain clear of cloud and in sight of the surface', or even 'can you maintain VFR', I'm sure they would be more familiar. I'm not sure the term IMC is used that often in the PPL (VFR) syllabus.

Do we know it was a qualified pilot? Do we know that they were passengers on board?

Even if it wasn't a student, an overloaded pilot in a state of panic can do strange things.

dp

[Pianorak]

It’s not a windup – have just checked my copy.
Seem to remember an old thread (either here or elsewhere) when a poor soul uncertain of his position contacted D&D and was stumped when asked was he Victor Mike Charlie. Being stressed and probably hyper-ventilating his brain was apparently unable to connect that with VMC.

[Sky Wave]

gcolyer

You are falling for this hook line and sinker. Monocock is extracting the urine.

Cactus on the other hand is being serious.

SW

[Diddley Dee]

All a fuss about nothing IMHO.

Yes the pilot concerned was a student & he did the right thing calling us.

Thought it was VERY obvious Monocock was pulling legs, suprised anyone took it at face value.

DD

[gcolyer]

gcolyer

You are falling for this hook line and sinker. Monocock is extracting the urine.

Cactus on the other hand is being serious.

SW


Well I may feel a **** but at least someone put me right on Monococks urine extracting :bored: After all he has some good posts.

[IO540]

Sounds like my 3rd option is the one.

Forget the pilot; he's nothing to do with this kind of thing :ugh:

[shortstripper]

Mono's probably like me .... There was no human factors test when we got our PPL's. So we can do what we like when it comes to that sort of stuff :} VMC? Doesn't that mean Very Merry Christmas?

SS :ok:

[ChampChump]

I saw this in the reports too and wondered the same thing. However, if there was a language problem, it all makes a bit more sense.
I preferred Mono's first post, though...:E

[dublinpilot]

Can't we give a poor student pilot a break?

So what if a student hasn't come across a transponder yet, or isn't able to recall the term IMC when under pressure?

:rolleyes:

dp

[alexpeterflynn]

I guess a highly stressed pilot - I'm sure we've all been there, not doing things we should because of pressure. Some just don't handle it as well... But at least he tried radio comms. It could have been far worse had he not.

[Mike Cross]

We're imperturbable steely-eyed sky-gods, worshipped by adoring lovelies. We look down scornfully on mere mortals who have the temerity to aspire to emulate us. We were born fully fledged and were never students. We never got lost, overloaded or panicky.
We have no sympathy with those less able than ourselves. If someone falls off a horse let him lie there, he should never have got on it in the first place. If someone has a problem, ridicule him, that way he'll give up.
As far as I can see this guy was stressed and did the right thing. Top marks to him.

Mike

[jonkil]

Mike Cross SaidAs far as I can see this guy was stressed and did the right thing. Top marks to him.
Well Said Mike

[Whirlybird]

Even if it wasn't a student, an overloaded pilot in a state of panic can do strange things

Thank God! Until I read this, and then the comments by alexpeterflynn and Mike Cross, I was utterly appalled by the lack of understanding and condemnation of someone they don't know by some of the people reading this thread. Don't some of you know anything about human factors, overload, the effects of anxiety? Didn't you ever experience those kinds of things when you were low hours?

As a solo student, I got lost, called Shawbury, and when asked to squawk ident, had to tell them I was sorry but I didn't know how to do that. I'd been shown how to squawk a code, but not ident, and in my tired and overloaded situation (I'd been flying for about two hours), I couldn't work it out. Did that make me an awful person who should have been banned from the skies?

People do still learn to fly in aircraft without transponders. And has it ever occurred to you that maybe the pilot didn't understand the term VMC because he didn't hear it properly? It's bloody hard to understand radio transmissions when you start flying. Don't any of you have memories? Or maybe in his overloaded state he actually forgot the term! Dear me, a hanging offence of course. One can't fly without knowing every acronym, can one?

Full marks to this guy for calling D & D and coping. Now he needs a little more training, which is no big deal. We all have things to learn.

No marks whatsoever to some of the critical, unsympathetic people on this thread...and if any of you are instructors, I really feel for your poor students if this is the level of your understanding of human nature.

(Grrrrrrr.....what have they done with the smilie for really, really mad?)

Incidentally, Mono, I found your takeoff very, very funny.

[IO540]

This is why I said one should see the instructor and not the student.

In this age, nobody should get a PPL not knowing what a transponder is. if they do, the PPL probably won't be much good to them.

I think these matters should be discussed - within civilised bounds of course. There are several reasons for this:

ATC is generally very professional and (UK ATC certainly) will always handle these situations very calmly. BUT when the man retires to his teabreak at the end of his shift, with his nerves a bit more stretched than they would be otherwise, he will share his experience with his mates, and with the passage of time this results in prejudices building up within the profession.

I went to a NATS presentation (West Drayton) a while ago and - even though these are IFR sector (enroute) controllers and not tower or FIS/OCAS controllers - the institutional bias against certain groups who are just a bit less perfect than "British Airways Public School Accent Nigel" was quite blatent. Bizjets got slagged off big-time; it's unsuprising that these have more level busts since they often fly to random locations at short notice so the pilots have less time to learn the route by rota. Foreign airlines likewise; I got the impression that if NATS got their way they would ban all foreign planes from UK airspace. They certainly wanted to ban all single pilot jet ops, claiming this would be CAA policy; this would be an eventual disaster for all private IFR because modern small jets are no harder to fly than so much other old stuff that nobody questions.

Fortunately the people who expressed these views were not policymakers but there is no prize for guessing what sort of things get discussed over the beer with a visitor from the CAA or the DfT.

In time, this sort of thing will work its way up into policymaking, which is obviously not going to help private GA.

The other thing is that a lot of "lower-level controllers" in the UK, notably some A/G types at certain airfields, have zero patience and will give a pilot who is not quite on top of things a hard time. Totally out of order but it happens.

There is a fair number of tower controllers in certain places abroad who will do the same to a UK pilot who is under pressure and cannot find some VRP.

I guess we will always differ on how much a PPL should be taught...

[zkdli]

IO540,
Interesting post. I don't believe NATS at West drayton are against people who are any less perfect than Nigel etc (they are not perfect either) BUT are you saying that it is alright for pilots to bust levels on step climb SIDS because they are foriegn (most of the foriegn airlines are regular scheduled flights) or business pilots who don't fly to the LTMA very often?
The amount of effort that has gone in to trying to stop level busts in this area is enormous and still they happen. The biggest reason for level busts in the UK at the moment is when a crew acknowledge an instruction correctly and get it wrong. (Perhaps something to do with SOPs)
The stats also show that for SID level busts, far and away the biggest group getting it wrong are the business aviation community.
I personaaly have never heard an ATCO at West drayton say that single pilot IFR ops should be banned. All any atco wants is for there not to be any level busts or errors that could lose separation.:)

[IO540]

are you saying that it is alright for pilots to bust levels on step climb SIDS because they are foriegn

I don't see how one could infer the above from what I wrote, at all.

[HR200]

I am finding this all very hard to believe. You shouldn't fly if u are hungover or dont generally feel up to it.

Not even knowing what a transponder is, is just appauling, its even in the theory exams.

Also, if he doesn't know what VMC means makes me feel so ashamed that we have pilots like this flying around in the UK.

If a pilot cannot handle the pressure, he should seriously reconsider.

I have been under pressure on many flights, but I have kept calm throughout (even during a radio failure on my skills test).

[mcgoo]

I am finding this all very hard to believe. You shouldn't fly if u are hungover or dont generally feel up to it.



Why don't you read the thread properly Mr Perfect.

[wbryce]

well, thank god he knew what a radio was....:}

[Whirlybird]

I have been under pressure on many flights, but I have kept calm throughout

And your point is?

Overload doesn't necessarily manifest itself as panic. It's possible to appear quite calm, and think you're behaving quite rationally, but miss things, musunderstand things, not be able to take in everything, etc etc. So your statement above is actually totally meaningless.

And even if you're right, and you do cope well with such situations, what on earth gives you the right to criticise someone who can't? Take it from me, you don't sound like the perfect pilot. You sound like someone with little understanding, either of yourself or anyone else. Someone who needs to grow up! And if it wasn't for your very young age, I'd be considerably less gentle with you than I am, since I'm heartily sick of the blinkered, holier-than-though, aren't-I-wonderful, super-pilot image that so many people on this forum like to project. Oh, for some normal, average, human beings, made of flesh and blood like the rest of us!!!!!!!

[tiggermoth]

...(gulp)...

[Diddley Dee]

All a fuss about nothing IMHO.

Yes the pilot concerned was a student & he did the right thing calling us.

Thought it was VERY obvious Monocock was pulling legs, suprised anyone took it at face value.

DD

I am beginning to think that several posters on here havent read the whole thread all the way thru.....Please read what I said above.
He was a STUDENT pilot.....Cut him some slack & stop wearing out your heartbeats about it. We get to deal with fully qualified pilots too, some of which dont cover themselves in glory either, its all part of flying, we are all fully qualified in performing below par at times.

Regards
DD

[scooter boy]

This pilot did the right thing - so what if he put his foot in his mouth on the radio. D+D once took care of me when I experienced an engine failure and I can assure you that my transmissions were hardly textbook! In fact I am sure I would be very embarrased if I were forced to listen to the tapes again - however when we lose our reserve the communication is often the first thing to go.

I must admit to experiencing a feeling of impending doom during both my fixed wing and helicopter solo cross countries. A rapid splattering type of death seemed imminent and inescapable. Something to do with you suddenly realising you are in charge of a large lump of metal quite far above the safety of terra firma without having an instructor there to save your bacon if it all went pear shaped. :uhoh:

It really doesn't take much extra stress to induce panic when you are trying to aviate and navigate all at once - I think we have all been there, it is fear that keeps us alive.

SB

[Bandit650]

since I'm heartily sick of the blinkered, holier-than-though, aren't-I-wonderful, super-pilot image that so many people on this forum like to project. Oh, for some normal, average, human beings, made of flesh and blood like the rest of us!!!!!!!

You have a point there sir.:ok:

[neilmac]

Whirly you are so right !! God forbid us from being human and making mistakes! I work as an ATC chap down south remember taking peeps on their first ever light plane flight to Compton Abbas, called their freq no answer, oh well their not playing landed anyway blind calls......only to find wrong freq dialled up, yet on a regular basis I say their freq to other planes!! Yes perfection is great but flying light planes is not easy and I wish people would remember that. Im a 250 hour IMC-PPL and I flew my renewal the other day with an ex airline training capt and he said I keep the ILS better than most IR peeps do. I know sometimes in our business some people do have more money than brains, but at then end of the day....we are all pilots and should look after each other. Through extra training or experiences shared in the bar.

HAPPY XMAS AND GUID NEW YEAR

[Whirlybird]

You have a point there sir.

Bandit650,
Thank you. However, for the sake of accuracy I should point out that I'm not a "sir"; I'm one of the other sort. I'm a Whirly - Bird, geddit? No problem though. ;)

[Bandit650]

Bandit650,
Thank you. However, for the sake of accuracy I should point out that I'm not a "sir"; I'm one of the other sort. I'm a Whirly - Bird, geddit? No problem though. ;)

Sorry...ma'am.;)

[the dean]

stii not accurate bandit...itssssss WHIRLY MA'AM...:}

dean.

[jamestkirk]

It;s brilliant. Monocock posta a obviously funny and well worded reply.

Then as people sometimes do on pprune, jump down his throat to make a point because they are sooo avove the rest of us notv realising that he or she is making a tit of themselves.

Great!

[jamestkirk]

sorry about the spelling, doing three things at once.....feeling the pressure.

[dublinpilot]

sorry about the spelling, doing three things at once.....feeling the pressure.


Don't panic! :}

[Nil Flaps]

I must admit to experiencing a feeling of impending doom during both my fixed wing and helicopter solo cross countries. A rapid splattering type of death seemed imminent and inescapable. Something to do with you suddenly realising you are in charge of a large lump of metal quite far above the safety of terra firma without having an instructor there to save your bacon if it all went pear shaped. SB

Great post scooterboy - you mirror my thoughts exactly!

The other day I was doing my second solo (just circuits obviously) and these very same things constantly played on my mind both before and during the flight. Nothing concentrates the mind like the prospect of a grisly death without your trusty FI there to drag you out of the mire.

Several landings and several pints of sweat later :} I came back down to earth safely but even now those thoughts persist and I'm sure they will for many hours to come. Thankfully, the local aviators (and fly-ins) are able to spot duffers like me easily (I've been known to drop some clangers on my radio calls) and are remarkably patient and forgiving of our shortcomings. I only hope if something more significant as is being discussed here ever happens to me, they'd react the same way. We've all got to start somewhere. Quite often we may be 'in control', but that doesn't mean we're not sh1tting ourselves. Let's cut the guy some slack - at least he kept it together long enough to ensure he didn't become another statistic.