Learn From my mistakes!

[Pilot.Lyons]

Hi all thought it would be a good idea to start a thread on the mistakes we make......
Basically we could write a story (not too long or people will read past it) on some experience which could have turned out bad but didn't....

Then less experienced people can read about it and learn from it as they may not be so lucky

[Lucerne]

I once went to work for a company that I was dubious of. That was a huge mistake and I will certainly not be repeating it.

The moral to that story is that, if you have any reservations about a company, for any reasons at all, don't even entertain the idea of flying for them. It's just not worth the heartache!

[mad_jock]

Well took a C172 over the Cairngorms above cloud for maint.

I had done the usual limited engine inspection that you can do with a C172 ie shone a torch down the oil filler cap.

When waiting the Engineer came through with the oil cooler pipe which had been chaffed down and was now weeping oil. If that had gone at FL90 over the Cairngorms I would have been stuffed.

This was the beginning of my adverstion of flying singles at night and out of sight of the ground.

[Pace]

Not really a mistake as such but a 1 in a million :E

I was flying a Seneca Five twin from the South of England up to Inverness.
I knew there was a line of storms running West to East right across the top of Scotland Hence I needed to stay visual to find a way through and down into Inverness.
I had been pushed up by a rising solid deck of cloud and took a climb in IMC to FL 130.
During that climb I picked up a lot of ice used the boots and was then clear on top but with one engine feeling lumpy.
There was a bang and a large piece of ice flew almost straight forward crossing the nose and came back hitting the prop on the other side.
This slightly bent the tip.
The props are counter rotating and that prop threw the ice into the side of the nose puncturing a 2 in break in the skin.
The ice then came back and hit the Screen where thankfully it went into a snow shower.
I found a gap in the CBs ahead near Aberdeen and descended through there landing at Inverness where they had had hailstones the size of marbles.
There were three wires which went to the props on the pilot side these had rubbed through on the nose and had cut meaning no prop deice on that side.
I checked the satellite pictures and out over the Scottish islands was clear so I elected to take the aircraft back low level down Loch Ness out over the islands down past the IOM.
But 1 in a million chance

Pace

[flybymike]

Hi all thought it would be a good idea to start a thread on the mistakes we make......
I married the wrong woman....

[thing]

Went on a long scenic tour of Yorks coast and moors on a very hot day a couple of years ago. Decided to land out at a favourite grass strip on the way home to have a drink as I was parched. Let down into the overhead, got the runway and wind and couldn't work out which way I was supposed to go. Eventually saw another a/c in cct and followed it. A/c I was following promptly disappeared right in front of me.

Made a very shaky landing on what I thought was the right runway and poured myself out of the cockpit breathing heavily.

Dehydration is a killer. Always carry a bottle of water/non fizzy pop on a hot day. Gatorade is very good.

[piperboy84]

Back in the 90’s had some family in town visiting so took them for a flight to Catalina Island in a rented 172 from KSMO. Landing went fine and had a nice buffalo burger, upon departure preparations half way thru the check-list my numeric pager (yes, before mobile phones) went off so I checked it then went back to the check-list then proceeded to line up, power up and roll on RNY 22. I felt I was not getting the speed/acceleration as usual but kept going, with the departure end of the runway fast approaching and I'm not quite at rotate speed yet I realised I am in big trouble. The end of the runway consists of a bit grass at strip level then a severe drop away of several hundred feet. Now at the departure end I raise the nose and stall warning blaring and the passengers as anxious as me I lower the nose run across the grass and over what could best be described as the cliff!

Initially I did not lose any altitude, but did not gain any till I built some speed. The passengers were now terrified and I was bewildered. On the flight back across the water to LA I said to myself I better figure WTF happened here so I got the check-list back out and went down thru it till the item where the pager went off, the next item was “Brake Release”. I guess that upon returning to the check-list after the pager interruption I had skipped that one item and as I had not fully engaged the brake for run up the plane could get moving but not quite enough to get to rotate speed.

Lesson learned? Turn off and/or ignore all unnecessary bull**** and take care of the business at hand with 100% of your attention.

[thing]

I did that once in a 172. Luckily the parking brake was so ****e it didn't make much difference.

[Pilot.Lyons]

Bloody hell... Some scary stuff.... At my airfield they don't even use the parking brakes.... I still check though!

I once skipped some of checklist out and flattened the battery trying to think why it wasn't starting..... ( was in a hurry on one of my first solo trips ) i left the mixture lean!!!! Omg i learned never to rush and that those engines can start on one dull crank of the prop :)

Novice mistake! I was blinded by rush and panic... Tut tut for shame on me.... Glad i did it though

[flyinkiwi]

I refueled the Pa28 I was going to take on a 2 hour round trip including 10 minutes over water and didn't wait the requisite rest period before rechecking the fuel drains. All the moisture that had condensed overnight on the insides of the (nearly empty) tanks took about 30 minutes to reach the carburetor by which time we were cruising at 4500 feet.

One precautionary landing later followed by a careful run up and test circuit at the airfield I had diverted to we returned home to tell the tale.

The lesson: if you can top up the tanks the day before you leave, then do so. Otherwise, wait at least 30 minutes after filling them in the morning before you test the fuel drains, especially if the previous night was a cool one and the aircraft lives outside.

[Contacttower]

I was once practising a PFL in South Africa in a C152, I got rather low and didn't really notice that the field that I'd picked had quite a significant upslope. I was set up perfect to come in when I realised that I had nowhere to go...slammed open the throttle, pitched for Vx and prayed!

As I neared the crest of the hill the ground seemed to rise towards me before dropping away again. There were also powerlines at the end of the field which I cleared by less than 100ft. That certainly got my heart racing and a few very bewildered looking farmers looked up at me from tending their crops...they must have thought I was crazy.

Once safely at altitude I realised that in my panic I'd left the carb heat on...:ugh:

I sheepishly headed back to the airfield and hoped that no one had called to complain....which thankfully no one had.

[laurens23]

"good luck I'll be in the tower if you need me". With those words I set out on my first overland navigation, and second solo flight. I was quite nervous because I had expected my instructor to go with me on the flight.

But figuring that if he thought I was ready for it, I must be ready. So there I went, alone. everything seem to go really well. After around 75 min or so I was back at the field thinking I did pretty good on my own.

Later I realised i made a couple really stuppid mistakes

I checked the GPS recording I made of the flight and found out that the bridge over a river that I had used as navigation checkpoint was a totally different bridge than the one I used during the flight.... I was around 10NM off without knowing it :ugh:

I used ground wind to calculate wind corrections at 2500ft :ugh:

I did not check my heading indicator against the compass during the flight.:ugh:

[AdamFrisch]

Complete and catastrophic engine failure in Hughes 300C helicopter I was training in back in the early 90's. We'd just passed out over a large body of water when it quit. Thankfully I had instructor with me and he turned around immediately and aimed for the little island we'd just passed. He made a flawless autorotation to a field about 100 yards from the shore....

Took off in 172 with 3 people up and noticed after awhile that climb was very anaemic and speed was declining in climbing turn - throttle friction had come loose and throttle had vibrated out.

2 cylinders and valves chewed to pieces on left engine and engine ran very rough. Thankfully I was in twin and could continue to my destination airport which was close.

Left carb heat on by mistake taking off at Big Bear - field elevation 6752ft on a hot day. Climb was not very impressive...

Electrical failure on short final at night - twice! Finally found culprit in loose connector to breaker.

Gear down light micro switch had been misaligned and repaired. Then on night trip with friend, it doesn't come on again. I can see the mains are locked and in place, but the front wheel can not be seen at night in the spinners. I have a hunch it's the microswitch again and land. It holds - phew. Then next day as I fly it to mechanic and as we tow it in, the front wheel collapses on the tug..! Turns out there was a structural problem in the FW attachment and it could have collapsed at any time on landing...

Scud running in very bad weather on numerous occasions... Not so smart, but your tolerance levels go up when you fly a lot in it and you insidiously accept worse after a while. Be warned.

[Arclite01]

Flying a glider fresh out of maintenance including a repair & repaint.

General handling, spinning check = no recovery !! a 20 turn flattish spin from 5000' feet. Undid the straps to jump out (was wearing a chute luckily), lent forward and - instant recovery................ !

Came back to land PDQ and checked the W&B - found out I was flying out of limits as a result of the respray and and repair near the tailplane that had taken the CG out of limits. The glider had been released from maintenance without being replacarded with new W&B limits..................

Nowadays I check the W&B if I'm unsure of the aeroplane..............

Live and Learn................

Arc

[Vino Collapso]

Back in the early 80's I used to fly a TB10 to/from a farm strip near RAF Marham, Norfolk.

The plan always was that the owner flew it down to our engineering facility for some work to be done. He would pick me up and fly home, he would get out and I would then take the aircraft back down for its work. We did this series of trips numerous times over a few years.

On this occasion when he flew it down for work it was decided that it could not be used to take him home due to maintenance 'issues'. So I borrowed one of the clubs TB9's and flew him home in that. Job done, chuck him out with a cheery wave, see you in a few days, turn the machine around and off we go!

Now it was one of those strips that wasn't over endowed with length and you used to land towards the farmhouse and take off away from it unless it was really blowing a gale. So there could sometimes be a few knots of tailwind. The TB10 (180hp V/P prop) when lightly loaded was actually quite good at short field. The TB9 (160 hp fixed prop) was another matter!

Halfway down the take off run I had one of those 'momentary thoughts' along the line of 'what the hell are you doing this in a TB9 for?'. Remembering that the TB9 could be hauled off early and into ground effect where it would happily sit for many many many many metres I decided not to haul back and gingerly eased it off.

Cut a long story short (too late you say) I cleared the trees at the end with the stall warning bell merrily ringing away so I am here to tell the story.

Morale of the story? I always gave the strip due respect because of its topography, so much so that I forgot the other half of the equation which was to use a suitable machine! Particularly when it comes in two varieties of the same aircraft in which you fly numerous hours in both and usually at light weights.

[McTall]

Ill pass on a friends experience as had it not been for him it could well have happened to me.
After hiring a PA28 for an early flight to the south of england for a meeting later in the morning, initial run up, takeoff and climb went fine. Weather was clear, but cold. About 10 mins into the cruise the engine began to run very rough so a swift divert and lnding was carried out. Upon inspection and consult of an experienced pilot on the ground it was found to be icing in the fuel. When carrying out the contents check the tanks were on tabs but iced over. This then melted in flight when the sun warmed the wings, settled and entered the engine.

Moral of the story? Always try to move the wings on fuel contents check to check for any ice on the surface of the fuel-particularly on cold mornings!!

[Piper.Classique]

McTall, the freezing point of 100LL is -58 celsius. HOW cold was it outside?

[piperarcher]

McTall

For clarification are you saying that the wing was iced over, your friend removed the fuel cap and had a look at the fuel content, some ice fell into the tank, the ice later melted into water, and the water caused the rough running?

Your moral doesnt quite read properly. Are you saying clean the ice off of the wings first, and then do things like check the fuel contents?

PiperArcher

[DeepestSouth]

Not long after being let loose in single-seat gliders, a cold and blustery winter's day at Bicester. I'm making a pretty good approach to land, standard approach speed when at about 50 feet the bottom drops out of the world and I make a very hard landing followed by a very short landing run. By the time I've closed the spoliers, unclipped the straps, opened the canopy and thought 'Oh deary me - windshear!' (or something like that!) the CFI (A*** G****) was ready to greet me with 'You - dual - now!'. I'll never do that again, I thought, and the need to add airspeed was reinforced.

Roll forward a couple of years, now with my PPL and another cold, blustery day, cross country and approaching to land at Dundee. Going well and getting ready to flare when ... sudden and uncommanded descent to a rather harder landing than planned. No CFI (or any other) comment this time as no-one was watching (I think!). The term 'idiot' followed by 'lucky' seemed appropriate. Even though the first incident was still fresh in my brain, as was the PPL training about windshear, I'd failed to connect it to the situation I was in. On reflection, I hink it was because I was focussing hard on my first landing at a new and exciting airfield, still inexperinced, and simply was not thinking!

And the title? The RAF air safety publication 'Air Clues' used to have fascinating, anonymous articles called'I Learn't About flying from That!. Gold dust!

[FullWings]

I did most of my power flying training out of a very large, busy airport with a mix of singles, twins, helicopters and airliners.

Due to the amount of circuit traffic congesting the R/T, many readbacks ended up as just acknowledgements, usually with just the last two letters of the callsign, e.g. "G-FB, number seven, call downwind and turning base"..."FB".

I got sent off on my first solo after only a few lessons, as I was already an experienced glider pilot, so it was just the engine that was new to me. I did as briefed: took off, flew a standard circuit (rather large due the sheer volume of traffic and ATC having to juggle various types of aircraft onto finals), then eventually got to line up with the runway and was cleared to land, which I read back.

Apparently, when I was on short finals at 300', the tower asked me to go-around as an aircraft wanted to cross the runway to the other side of the airport. I replied with the end of my callsign "FB", or whatever it was, but by then had fixated on the runway as I was "Cleared To Land", plus pretty much all of my previous flying experience was in aircraft where a go-around was NOT an option available most of the time.

I vividly remember flaring, cutting the power, just about to touch down then to my horror seeing a twin-turboprop come onto the the runway a couple of hundred metres away and turn towards me. I still have a picture in my mind's eye of the two prop discs.

By that time, everyone who could see what was happening and was near a radio had started transmitting, so it turned into unintelligible noise.

I made an instant decision (possibly influenced by the go-around instruction that I hadn't read back earlier trickling back into my consciousness) that I might not be able to stop before colliding with the other aircraft, so gave my machine full power and yanked it back into the air. The turboprop pilot saw me at about the same time and went for the nearest exit while I zoomed overhead. I don't know what the miss distance was but I have no desire to get any closer to another aircraft head-on.

I flew a rather wobbly second circuit to an uneventful landing and shut down on the pan. The first person to meet me was the deputy CFI, who instead of delivering a massive bollocking, asked if I'd like to sit down and have a cup of tea! Afterwards, he said that I had gone completely white with eyes like saucers, so there was nothing he could have said to make it any worse.

There was a 3-way discussion between the CFI, ATC and the turboprop pilot and they agreed that we all had learnt from the incident: ATC knew that I was on a 1st solo yet had prioritised a ground movement over my landing, I didn't read back the instruction properly but that lack of readback was missed, plus the other pilot didn't check the approach was clear before lining up.

The ATC recordings got lost in mysterious circumstances shortly afterwards and everyone started doing proper readbacks. I was still so hyped-up that I had to leave my car at the airfield and get a lift home with someone else. Since then I have always put a lot of effort into proper R/T...

[Pilot.Lyons]

On my second solo trip i tuned in the ndb and i knew i was more than 10nm away so it would give false readings.. Bumbling along talking to ema..... On way back to tatenhill...( I moved to the midlands only a year prior so landmarks etc were not my strongest point at this point) all of a sudden i saw rugeley power plant... Tatenhill is to the right i knew so i know where i am.. On the home front! This solo lark is easy! :)

Ndb point slightly out, but it would be for a bit...compass not changed on route.... But i was heading for the power plant.. I knew where i was. Calcs were out but didnt matter!

Then.... In my ear came g-tal...can you tell me where you think you are?!!!!

Oh ****! I knew i messed up... I was heading for the wrong power plant and on route to cross over ema airport to get there!

Controller came back with standby while i moved a ryan air jet for ya! Sure enough i looked out window and there was one ... Although a fair distance it looked big (and beautiful)!

After getting vectors back to where i needed to be and after thanking the kind man at ema profusely i told my cfi who just said....."you made it then?!"

I hung my head in shame.....

Lessons learned;

Know where you are at all times dont "think"
Trust your calculations
Trust the range of the NDB
Check compass!
Student prefix does give me some forgiveness!
Always talk to someone if you can
Dont be a cocky little ****e who thinks he is invincible and "nah it dont matter"!

Many more lessons learned after that.... But im glad i did them all.... Makes me a better person now

[mary meagher]

Story (1). Ann Arbor Michigan, having just arrived from New Jersey - 3 hours in a rented spam can, without a headset...this was mistake number one, actually, because I could barely understand the gabble from the overhead speaker over the engine noise. And I was a bit fatigued. Landed at Ann Arbor, which is a controlled airport, taxied back and on the taxiway realised I would have to cross the active runway to get to the apron. So I did.

On getting to the fuel pumps I was informed that ATC wanted me on the phone....and did they give me a rollicking because I had crossed the active without permission, and an aircraft was on approach. I said "Well, I had a jolly good look and saw him and had plenty of time to cross before he got there....."
Somehow this didn't go down very well.....so I had to meet ATC in person and apologise and explain how difficult it was to hear instructions without a headset, long trip, didn't realise, sorry sorry sorry....so was let off further punishment. Moral. It's still a good idea to have a jolly good look!

Story (2) At my gliding club I had qualified to take up friends and family. Which of course any PPL is allowed to do, but not necesarily solo glider pilots.
I had persuaded nearly 100 friends and family to fly with me by the time the following incident took place.

Lounging around at the launchpoint, two Japanese businessmen turned up with yellow tickets, which meant that they had PAID for a trial lesson. No instructors were present, so the duty pilot said "Oh, Mary's OK, she can fly them." So I did, and both flights went very well, 30 minutes each in a K13 from aerotow. And feeling full of pride and joy I waltzed into the lunchroom and announced to the congregation "I flew two yellow tickets this morning!"

The CFI was present, and said sternly, "Mary, you are NOT qualified to fly trial lessons!"
"Well," I answered cheekily, "Your girlfriend has been flying trial lessons and she's not qualified......"

There was a very very long silence. Evidently the girlfriend had been having private instruction, and certainly she had the necessary skills.....

I went home and thought about it all through a sleepless night. If I was going to survive in the gliding club, I would have to make things right with the CFI.

So next morning, I went into his office and gave the following carefully worded apology. "Alan, I'm sorry I was rude!" (notice I didn't say I was wrong, because I STILL don't think I was wrong!)

"Well, Mary," answered the CFI, "As you are so keen, I have arranged a special Basic Instructor course for you this weekend with Alex Jones." Talk about diplomacy!
Which only shows how very well qualified he was to be CFI. I flew with Captain Jones, and demonstrated the moves and showed I knew how to yell loud enough to get the "student" to LET GO of the controls (any experienced mother knows how to yell at her kids.) And so began my long and illustrious career as a gliding instructor!

End of story 2. Moral, it is unwise to critisize the CFI's girlfriend.

Names have been changed, for good reasons.

[Sillert,V.I.]

IMO the biggest mistake is to believe you can continue to make mistakes indefinitely...

Unfortunately, each survivable mistake reinforces that belief.

[abgd]

1) Confusing 02 and 20
2) Trying to fly round the circuit against traffic, even though I could see an aircraft lining up on the ground
3) Not listening to my inner voice telling me 'Something's not right here'

I have since learned that 02 and 20 is a classic mistake, which doesn't make me feel much better about it.

Perhaps part of my relaxedness came from learning to fly at a controlled airport where it was common to switch directions for one reason or another. Doesn't make me feel less stupid.

~~~

To be human is to continue to make mistakes, therefore to continue to fly is to accept that one will continue to make mistakes.

I would phrase it slightly differently - it's unacceptable not to try to continually improve one's skills, and it's unacceptable to be sloppy. But accepting that your fallibility may kill you is an essential part of being an honest pilot.

[thing]

Confusing 02 and 20

Done that one as well. Ours is 02/20 and I've lined up on the wrong one before. It used to be 03/21 and was a lot better for it.

[Pilot.Lyons]

Taxying across tatenhills grass today slipping everywhere with lots of thrust just to not get stuck.... Then having someone point out the sign put in a doorway stating NOT to use grass just as the owner walks past!

I apologised and said i didn't want to wait for the three planes queuing to land making me late..... Plane was filthy so there was no getting away with it...
I quickly paid and left hoping there was not a sniper on the roof waiting for me to leave

Probably not the best way to impress the people who i rely on just to fly when i can save up the pennies to :(

[Steve6443]

My first recollection that Flight Instructors are fallible came when we took a flight across Dusseldorf Airport's Control Zone. I had passed my ground exams and was ready to start doing solo cross country flights, the FI wanted to see how I would handle "real" ATC - so off we went.

I arrived at November and reported it, was then told to "report 3 miles from the field" - without DME, how could I do that? Either way, I guestimated, reported 3 miles and was asked to make a 360 for separation. Ok, nearly completed my 360, am now approved to cross the field over the threshold of Runway 25 - so I head towards the threshold whereupon my instructor said "no, why are you heading there? You want to exit via Sierra so head straight across the airfield towards the tower". Without thinking, I followed his instructions, not thinking to remind him what ATC had just cleared us for. When ATC then pointed out that "the threshold of 25 is nowhere near the Tower", I apologised, pointed our error to the FI who said nothing...... After that, I decided blind faith was perhaps dangerous, if I had a question, I would question the FI about his "suggestions".....

In my eyes it's good for all student PPLs to get into the habit of raising concerns with their FI instead of thinking "he was flying these sort of machines whilst I was in nappies, he knows what he's doing...."

[Sensible Flyer]

Check flight for my first glider solo. This was at Syserston, a long time ago, we flew left hand circuits from the grass on one side of the hard runway, the Air Cadets flew motor gliders in a right hand circuit from the other side.

Instructor pulled the bung at 500'. No problem. Lower the nose, check the attitude, wait for the speed, wait for the speed. Got the speed, now start an abbreviated circuit.
As I commenced my turn I had a nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right here, something obvious was very wrong. As I hesitantly began rolling into a turn, the voice behind me calmly said "What are you doing?". "Well I'm going to fly a circuit and land back". "Yes", comes the calm reply, "but shouldn't you be turning to the LEFT?!".

Ooops. :ugh:
He let me sort it out and from then on everything went to plan. The whole incident passed off in no more than a second, but it was a huge shock and taught me that you really do have to think about the boring details.

Amazingly, as soon as we got back on the ground he hopped out and sent me off on my own!!

[Pace]

My first recollection that Flight Instructors are fallible

I was doing a flight test in the USA in a Citation and had been warned that the Examiner was a bad tempered so and so who tended to shout and scream at the slightest mistake.

Sure enough that was how he was but it did not phase me and I flew a pretty good test ignoring the occasional explosion.

Having done a number of approaches in different configuration he wanted a clean engine out approach with no flaps.
He then reached over and bugged the full flap VREF.
"What is he doing" I thought and grabbed the chart to get the correct speed for the aircraft clean.
I left the bug where he had placed it and added the 25 extra kts to that figure so flew the bugged speed plus 25 kts.

Sure enough there came the explosion "your 25 kts too fast get back to VREF".

I smiled at him and letting him off the hook praised him for trying to catch me out in a very crafty way!
After spluttering with embarrassment and realizing HIS mistake he mumbled about " Well spotted " and I passed with glowing comments :ok:

Pace

[piperboy84]

On the downwind left traffic for 21 doing touch and goes at KSMO with the CFI, the tower informs us they are switching to use runway 03 and instructs me to do a right 360 to allow spacing for an incoming 152 currently on extended downwind right traffic for 03 they will call me back when ready for me to follow in behind the Cessna. Upon nearing the completion of the 360 the CFI asks why I'm positioned so close to the field? Me being a right smug know-it-all student quoted safety tips I’d heard from other pilots, specifically I tell him the reason is that if the engine quits I can glide to the field. He replied “oh it’s not IF the engine quits, I can guarantee it will, and I can even tell you WHY” puzzled I asked him to elaborate, to which he said “these lycoming O-235's do not run well when jammed up the pilot ass” even more puzzled I asked how that's going to happen and he says the 152 you are about to have a head-on with will put it there, now stay the f**k out of the pattern until your told otherwise.

[GeorgEGNT]

Solo circuits.
Second session.

Landed after a departing jet. Approach was a bit bumpy so concentration levels were very high.

Got down ok and immediately reset the power and took off again. I asked ATC for the circuit direction on upwind leg. I flew one more circuit and landed full stop.

Got into the flying school to be given a message phoned in from ATC. Instructor advised me that I had been cleared to land and not for a touch and go because of spacing issues. Wasn't a bollocking more a reminder to listen to clearances thoroughly and remember clearances might not always be what is expected.

Was actually a very useful experience. Still could have ended badly though.

[flybymike]

Confusing 02 and 20
I always had more trouble with 13 and 31:)

[mad_jock]

Instructor advised me that I had been cleared to land and not for a touch and go because of spacing issues

The instructor should have informed ATC that every landing is a potential go-around and they had no buisness setting up a situation with a solo student where a go-around would have produced issues.

Personally I would have MOR'd the tower if I was the instructor. And included references about Southend.

[Pace]

The other point which does not make sense is a landing to full stop would have blocked the runway for as long as a touch and go would do in climbing out before turning away from the centreline.
As MJ says cleared land is the important clearance which could involve a T&G anyway.
Cleared touch and go is more a pre planned ATC approval usually in multi circuits or a flight test and more to let them know your intentions to not be coming to a full stop although that maybe also be the result of a touch and go.
I see it more of a courtesy clearance

Pace

[mad_jock]

It will have been for a medium departure Pace they will have given a full stop then cleared the aircraft after the 2 mins.

Its pure bollocks mind because the Light aircraft will be touching and rotating in the first 500meters of the runway and the medium will be rotating in the last 3rd of the runway. The light aircraft will be turning crosswind beofre it gets anywhere near the wash off the medium. That is of course if it was a jet if they were behind a slab wing TP there is no where near the same amount of vortex but they would be near to its rotation point.

[localflighteast]

being denied touch and go clearance is a regular occurance at my home airport , as has been mentioned its due to separation clearance from the previously taking off plane.

As a student with my instructor on board , I'm allowed to tell the tower that I'm waiving the wake turbulence separation. As a solo student I'm not. My options are either to call an overshoot or request a stop and go ( usually with them calling the go)

My instructor insists on making the "waive wake turbulance separation" call as he doesn't want me to get into the habit of doing it. My choices are very clear if I'm on my own , go around or stop.

While theoreticlaly you are right that I should be well out of the way of the vortices, wind conditions can do funny things to them. I've been landing behind a medium ( about one minute behind it) and got stung just appraoching the threshold. I rolled about 20 degrees and nearly impaled myself on the edge of the runway coming up out the lake.

It shook me up enough to consider quitting. Never again will the "caution wake turbulence" become part of the background noise of my landing clearance!

[mad_jock]

You shouldn't be one min behind a medium in a light. Recommended is 4 miles which is 4 mins.

I wouldn't do that in my work machine which is also a medium.

So I am really not suprised you nearly ended up on your back in the grass.

Oh and if someone sticks you behind a 757 make it 5-6 miles they are a dirty bitch when it comes to wake vortex.

[localflighteast]

What class does a Q400 come under? Maybe I'm wrong and its not a medium?
The separation they give us here is 3 minutes behind a takeoff. As far as I'm aware there is no mandated separation between two landing planes, but yeah looking back on it 1 minute was tight.

I have video of the incident , on a big HD screen you can actually see the vortices rolling to the side over the water, remaining strangely parallel ( not dissipating at all).

Didn't help that I was practicing short field approaches and was probably far too shallow on my approach angle. that was my lesson to learn . You really do need to approach ABOVE the path of the heavier plane.

[mad_jock]

Q400 is ICAO medium.

There will be mandated Radar seperation but VFR traffic is self seperating and recommended distances.

Off a Q400 those arn't wake vortex's they are ripples of uglyness rolling away from the aircraft.

[localflighteast]

I actually quite like the Q400s !

However in reliving this experience I've discovered that a CADORS report was actually filed.
I'm a bit pissed to be honest, not that a report was filed but the fact that it states potential source not identified by NAV CANADA

do you think it might have been the plane you landed about 58 seconds in front of me?

[brtlmj]

The following happened in mid - '00s. (Has anyone decided on a proper name for the decade 2000-2009 yet?)

Me: recently soloed glider pilot. English as a second language. Not very familiar with the British accent.
Glider: K-13. Wood, tube and fabric.

I still need a check flight with an instructor to fly solo on any given day. And there we are, me in the front, her in the back, ready for a winch launch.

We take off. I gradually transition to a full climb and fly with the nose pointing 45 degrees up. I am pretty happy with my performance so far.
The variometer is going crazy, the winch wire is singing, and there is the usual wind noise. Over all of this I suddenly hear:

"<Unintelligible> <unintelligible> CONTROL!"

Oh darn. I messed up somehow. She wants to take control. Who am I to object? I take my hand off the stick.

We keep on climbing.

"Left wing low", says she.

Huh?

"Left wing LOW"

Must be my cue to take control. I grab the stick, level the wings and - being at the top of the launch - release.

"Didn't you see that the left wing was low?"
"I did... but you were flying"
"WHAT?"
"You said 'I have control', didn't you?"
"I said 'Don't bend the pole', you were climbing too steeply!"


What did I learn? Three-stage control exchange ("I have control/You have control/I have control") is a great idea. Two-stage is the absolute minimum.

Also, that a training glider will quite happily fly a passable winch launch with no human intervention.

Bart

[flybymike]

(Has anyone decided on a proper name for the decade 2000-2009 yet?)
The noughties...

[Choxolate]

About 5 years back I needed to take my aircraft to another field about 120 nm away for an engineer to check over the controls (the elevator seemed a bit too stiff but still within limits and flyable).

Got to the airfield a little late and the weather at the destination was fine but at the home airfield was just about on limit for wind, with rain sqaulls coming in. So I decided to get a quick departure and on my way out of the crud.

Did all the checks a bit quickly, started, warmed up and taxied to holding point - got clearance and away I went. Bit of a nasty cross wind on take-off so concentrating pretty heavily on keeping in full control and climbing out of the "curl over" from trees down the side of the runway.

At about 100 feet quick check - ASI was reading 0... suddelnly it dawned on me that I had left the pitot cover on. Quick circuit to land but now the cross wind was VERY gusty and above the limit I had ever landed before. So now I am committed to fly to the destination.

Flew all the way on power and attitude and was pleased to find my waypoints at about the expected times so airspeed was right for power / attitude.

Approaching the destination I called them up - expalined that the ASI was not functioning and I may have to do a go-round. Again used power and attitude for the landing and did a reasonable one on the (thankfully) long concrete runway - I need that extra length that day.

A bit emabaraased to have the fire truck tracking me to the parking area.

Now this may not seem too bad for you thousand hours guys, but at the time I was just over a hundred hours and had only done about 10 on type.

My back was SOAKING wet when I climbed out - very, very stressful flight worrying about the landing.

Lesson learnt - do not rush the pre-flight, and double check if you are not 100% CERTAIN. It is defintiely better to be down here wishing you were up there, rather than the other way round... and all because of a little fabric tube left in place.

[mary meagher]

Choxolate, well done on handling your flight sans ASI! But guys reading this, although it is nice to have a functioning ASI, don't panic if you forgot to remove the pitot cover. Fly by attitude, and when high enough, check the stalling speed just to be sure you know the feel of the approaching stall. The attitude should give you feedback enough to approach safely.

If in a glider you can also judge your airspeed by the airflow noise. The approach to the stall will remind you of how it should sound at the correct airspeed.

[mary meagher]

Most of my mistakes have been in flying gliders,( and now I am too old to fly without a safety pilot, if anything gets bent it will be his fault!)

And I am happy to say the only thing I ever damaged was ripping off the undercarriage doors of the glider in a truly horrible field, recently tilled by the farmer and still in a succulent state. Found out why straps should be done up done up tightly before landing.....talk about sudden deceleration!

But to go back to pitot covers; in a glider, as we prefer not to have any sticky out bits to spoil the performance, the useful holes are fairly streamlined, and if you have covered them over with electrician's white tape to keep off the morning dew, it is all too easy to forget about that small detail the next day....
I did it in Scotland, to the amusement of the tug pilot. "If she cannae fly withooot an ASI she shouldna be solo!"

The second occasion in Oriel, the USSR, flying a Jantar III in a competition, had the stimulation of being towed up by a Wilga, and watching the ASI which of course had the drawback of being in kph, begin registering ZERO! (as we were in flight, that was a lie for a start) and ascending right through the scale to 500 kph,,,,or whatever it was when it bent the peg.... My return to the airfield earned the rebuke from my Russian crew, who expostulated "Too Fast, Too Fast!!!!" and when I pointed to the tapes which he had failed to remove....he shrank into apology mode, excpecting no doubt to be sent to Siberia for the omission of duty to the glider.....

The third occasion (will she ever learn?) was at home club, Shenington, behind the Supercub. My fault this time, definitely, but I decided as the ASI was reading zero again, that it was being economical with the verity, and I took a high tow to perform the recommended stalls, and feeling quite happy with no ASI and the conditions, soared for an hour and a half before returning without any problem.

Try to remember to put RED electrician's tape over the statics next time.....

[groovy_nut]

I can remember once conducting a cross country flight (probably back from an aerobatic competition, I can't quite remember) where I'd deemed it a nice idea to stow a mid-flight emergency snack in my secure, zip-up cockpit bag from which nothing can fall out mid maneuver (I fly a Pitts S1S and do very little other than aerobatic flying). This had been a great idea, except as it happened I never quite felt the urge to eat it, hence in the bag it stayed.

You can probably see where this is going...

On the cross country flight I'd not had the zip up bag zipped up as I'd been using the chart on and off and trying to unzip the bag one handed is a complete pain in the butt. It was a completely uneventful trip. My next flight a few days later was for a training sortie - I think if I remember rightly I was flying the BAeA Intermediate Known sequence or something similar, anyway, off I trundled up to 2500', wing rocked and I was away. I remember I was flying a really nice sequence until I got to something that involved a push to about -3g and all of a sudden I heard something bang, hard.

Feeling somewhat concerned at this point I very rapidly righted the little Pitts and wondered what on earth had come loose. A quick glance revealed that I'd somehow managed to leave the bag unzipped (lesson 1 learned - ALWAYS check the bag is done up), so now I knew that I had a loose article somewhere in the aeroplane. I couldn't see anything anywhere so there was nothing for it but to invert the aeroplane and see what dropped up into the canopy. Of course nothing did - the offending item was obviously stuck under the seat at this point, or worse - down the tail somewhere. So there I was, upside down, feeling like a bit of a lemon, jiggling the aeroplane back and forth until finally, a particularly forceful inverted jiggle released said article...

I was then unceremoniously smacked in the face by a floating Snickers bar.

The main lesson for me really was one of conducting more rigorous checks of the little things before flight. Loose articles can kill or at least leave a bruise ;-)

[Pilot.Lyons]

Haha as mr T would say.... "Get some nuts"!

[AdamFrisch]

I just had a similar experience with pitot system, but this was not because I'd forgotten the cover. I was down having a look at an airplane I might want to buy and we were going to fly it back to where I'd left my own aircraft for repairs. This is a pretty complex twin, but thankfully one of the instructors that checks people out in this type was with me for the whole 4hrs flight. As we pop into clouds on the IFR clearance, I can see that the VSI, Altimeter and speed don't seem to behave normally. We switch to alternate air, and it gets a little better, but still very erratic. Either big jumps, or frozen needles etc and not much in between. Turns out we have some water in the pitot static system and it needs to be drained, but the experienced instructor decides to continue our flight as we were now on top and forecast was good for destination. This is a high speed stalling airplane, so had I been alone and new to the aircraft, it would have been a bit scary.

There is no real way of checking for this on a preflight, so this is another reason one has to be alert and perceptive on the climbout before one gets into cloud. An AOA meter should be standard equipment on all aircraft. Thankfully the FAA have started to realise this and have made it a lot easier to get approval for AOA retrofits. I don't know how it is in EASA land, but I'm assuming they will see the benefits, too.

[F4TCT]

Almost ran one tank dry in a cherokee.

Anyone who ive flown with will back me up in saying im excellent at balancing the tanks to within minutes of each other and was good at compensating for take off at one tank fuller than the other.

Dont know what happened that day, but the math and speeds and flying worked out, just when i got on the ground, there was dregs left in one tank.

Shook me up a bit to be honest.

That leads to the question, people have classic cars, cars far older infact than most aircraft i've flown and yet the fuel guages don't read correctly in the aircraft, yet they do in a car worth far less than the aircraft - WHY

Dan

[willisp]

Door came open in a 152 on my second solo. Interesting.

[Pilot.Lyons]

Door coming open on solo happened to me in a 152 too, but to be honest the doors don't really seem like "doors" more like a cardboard thing with a plastic window and a dodgy latch!

Good way to cool down when heat gets ya! :)

[aviatorEGHH]

Hi,

I'm learning to fly in Robin HR200's, and anyone who has flown/ flies the HR200 will know how small it is inside when you are sat next to a passenger / instructor.

Well, on one of my lessons, It was a relatively chilly day so decided to wear my jacket, and didn't thing about body heat inside a small stuffy cockpit....

During the flight I became very hot, and just couldn't seem to concentrate very well on the job in hand.

When we were returning back to the aerodrome, turning finals, I was boiling hot and just could not concentrate again..... Anyway the approach wasn't good and the landing was the worst I've ever done, I bounced.....
Although...... It was only my 3rd time landing an aircraft!

A lesson learnt - always thing about your clothing, are you going to be too hot or cold?! I'll never forget that one... :p

[Pilot.Lyons]

Aviator::

That happened to me too.

Its hard to get balance right especially when its freezing cold wind whilst checking out aircraft... When you get in, you appreciate the coat/jacket etc

During flight we would get naturally hot anyway.... Also watch when instructor sends you solo.... My instructor seemed to be cold and i was obviously hot.. By downwind the cabin heat had cooked me!
Not the best thing to add to the pressures

[mary meagher]

A few years back one of our eager gliding club members did his five hour endurance flight on our local ridge....in FEBRUARY, in a K8, which is exceedingly draughty. History does not record what he was wearing....

An Ozee suit is de reiguer when standing around on the airfield in this weather....long johns, wooly jumper, ski pants, furry boots, russian hat and of course, your white silk scarf.....

My personal preference in this weather would be flying the tug, which has a heater......

Or flying in Florida....

[thing]

Did my 5 hour one incredibly hot and humid August day in a K8 back in the mists of time. I was wearing a pair of longish shorts, trainers and a polo shirt. I managed to get away around lunchtime and went up.....and up. Finished up doing most of the flight at around 8,000' and came down like a block of ice. It took me a good half hour to get any warmth back.

Thing is what do you do? It was wiltingly hot on the ground wearing just shorts, sitting in the cockpit waiting for launch dressed for 8,000' would have been frankly dangerous. You can hardly take warm clothing with you and put it on in the confines of a glider cockpit, that's a definite non starter.

[Pilot.Lyons]

Really i didnt think it could be that dramatic at 8000 if it was roasting at ground level?

Mind you I'm out wearing a sweatshirt in the snow and cant feel it..... Bit of a machine you see ;)

[cumulusrider]

5th day of my first gliding competition and already tired after having flown 15 hrs in the first four days. Task was a 300km. Day was hot and mainly blue with only the occasional whispy cumulus. After about 1/2 hr I tried to have a drink only to find the bottle had slipped out of reach.
Five hours later i was about 6 miles from the finish but getting a bit low for comfort so I decided to fly over the town to find a final thermal to make sure. I didnt find one of course so decided to final glide to the finish. A few minutes later over a large wood i discovered things were getting very marginal. Past the wood all the fields had standing crop. Eventually i arrived ( I wont say landed) in a crop field 2 short of the airfield.
Mistakes
Hydration- take enough water and make sure you drink it before you feel thirsty. Being dehydrated led to me making all the other mistakes.
press-on-itus. Dont let a competition effect good airmanship. i should have found a safe field before I got to the wood.
Watch the wind direction. the 10 knot tail wind I was expecting on that leg had turned into a 6 knot head wind due to a sea breeze.

Result of my foolishness was a bollocking by the CFI, a slightly bent glider and bottom place in the competition.

[mary meagher]

cumulus rider, great story! been there!

Thing, your verification of the fact that temperature declines with height must have been quite a chilling experience!

Let me share with all you good people; if you begin your flight when the weather is hot hot hot on the ground, how to prepare for the possibility of spending your five hour endurance flight at 8,000'?

I learned to dress cool, light shirt, long sleeve, long lightweight trousers, and hanging down within reach behind me, a baby blanket! and if it got horrible cold, simples, just pull the blanket down over your body, parachute and all.
Sandals are never a good idea, by the way. If the glider is primitive and draughty, wear proper trainers and thick socks. If the rest of you is cool, your feet will stay comfortable, and if you climb to cooler heights, still comfortable
under your little blanket.

[thing]

Really i didnt think it could be that dramatic at 8000 if it was roasting at ground level?

Oh it does, believe me. The other thing was that I was under cloudbase most of the time (I know, an eight-nine thousand foot cloudbase in UK, unbelievable) so had no direct sunshine heating the cockpit. Bear in mind that the K8 isn't the most draught proof of a/c so besides the ambient temperature you usually have a wind howling around somewhere. Two hours at that height would be bearable, three maybe pushing it a bit, five is fridge city.

[awqward]

I've got lots of mistakes to share!

Quite a few years ago I rented a 172 out of KFXE to fly to Freeport, Bahamas (MYGF). The plane had just come out of maintenance. The flight was uneventful, but on landing at Freeport and getting out I saw that the whole of the underside of the plane was covered in oil....I checked the dipstick and saw that at least there was still some oil in the sump...I found an A&P who quickly determined that the oil return line from the oil cooler had not been tightened up and a fine mist of oil had been spraying out the whole way over 60nm of water....So a fire and/or seized engine possible. Lesson Learned: never take a single over hostile terrain or water straight after maintenance!

Other lessons include landing at the wrong airstrip in Western Australia (they all look the same: long strips of gravel with nothing else for miles!)... This was pre-GPS...

Also learned about density altitude in California (hot and high) and in Australia (just bloody hot!)....always lean to max power in the Runup....

In Stavanger, Norway I was taxying for the runway and holding at the instructed hold point for what seemed like an eternity....after about 10 minutes a vehicle approached and a guy got out and came over....to tell me to check my radio...had managed somehow to turn the volume down without noticing!

[mary meagher]

Leaving Lubbock, Texas, in a rented Cessna with a nervous passenger and an Instrument Rating, I felt relatively calm at the beginning of our return trip to St. Petersburg, Florida. As I would be flying IFR with flight following, all I had to do was to do what ATC told me to do!

Right. Except that after takeoff, and ascending into smooth IFR, everything went exceptionally quiet. Under Houston enroute control, usually they do communicate with other aircraft from time to time. After a silent five minutes or so, I got nervous, and made a call. "Houston, Cessna 43788". No reply. Tried again, still no joy. SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH THE RADIO!

This is a very stimulating experience for a fairly inexperienced Instrument Rated Pilot. All at once, you are exposed! All that training, what to do in case of radio failure, you are scrabbling around in your brain, trying to remember it. O yes. First of all, FLY THE PLAN! You filed a flight plan, now you are stuck with it and everyone else will have to get out of your way.....

That is, if you can remember what numbers to put in on the transponder.....don't want to do that wrong or they will think you have been hijacked....

Meanwhile, trying not to upset my nervous passenger, I am twiddling various knobs on the radio, without effect, and then I checked whether the headset was plugged in properly.....THAT WAS THE PROBLEM! It had come loose, no telling how far back, how many messages Houston had been trying to send me.
So I radioed Houston. "Houston, Cessna 43788". They came back loud, calm and clear. Pass your message. "Houston, Cessna 43788 was off radio for a while, did I miss anything?"

"No, ma'am, we never missed you at all. Maintain 7,000 feet and continue, have a nice day!"

Not the end of our adventures on that day, but how many ways of getting into trouble can be experienced on a single trip? Lots! Stay calm and fly your plan!

[phiggsbroadband]

Hi, I had a flight to Derby in a Club Cessna 152 that I had not flown before.
On route it needed max throttle to achieve any sort of speed and throttled back it was down to 80 Knots, which I thought could be due to a worn out prop.

Anyway, the approach to landing at Derby was just about Ok, with 60Knots over the fence, then flared to within 3 feet and held off the numbers with no power, still Ok.
However by halfway down the runway with the plane wanting to climb rather than stall, I realised I was running out of runway so decided to let her fly on to the grass at 3/4 way down the runway, and then stepped quite hard on the brakes to slow before the end.

The rest of the days flying was uneventful, but when I asked the engineer if this was a particularly slow 152, that cruised at 75-80 knots, he inspected the ASI and found the tube from the Pitot to the ASI was split.
So my 'Slow Cruise' could have been 100+ knots with that throttle opening, and the landing at Derby was most likely at 80+ knots !

[olivermbs]

Not from me but from a good friend:

Took a friend up for a sight seeing flight in the super dimona, the friend wanted to take some pictures and had a rather large camera. Everything went smoothly until reaching VR, tried pulling back on the stick but it wouldn't budge and the aircraft wouldn't climb. Quickly aborted the takeoff (long runway) and realized the friend's camera was wedged behind the control stick, allowing only minimal deflection of the elevator.

Moral of the story: during the control checks check for COMPLETE freedom of the controls, all the way back, all the way forward, left and right! ;)

A few things I've learnt:

- don't trust an aircraft to be in good shape even if a CFI/highly experienced mil/airline pilot hands it over to you, check the aircraft anyway

- don't waste runway or height

- ask if in doubt


:ok:

[Beagle-eye]

In no particular order :

Not long after qualifying I took off on a local flight and was advised over the radio of an approaching snow shower. Completed my flight and ran into the snow on finals. I kept going thinking that I would run out of it. I did but I was scarily close to the ground when I regained visual. Started IMC training the following week.

Entered cloud when flying to South Uist. Made a gentle left turn to get me out. When I popped out of cloud I was at an alarmingly steep bank angle. Another few seconds and I would probably have lost control. Always trust your instruments.

Picked a Cessna 150 up from Perth after a 50 hour check. Did all the usual pre-flight checks and all OK. Full throttle down the runway and the thing would not lift off. Took a lot of back pressure to eventually stagger into the air. The trim was set to fully forward and I hadn’t realised. You can’t short cut the pre-flight – especially after it has been in the hanger.

Flew in a hired Cessna in the USA. Forgot to switch on the battery charger switch so had to get it hand cranked to restart. As soon as I landed I knew that there was a problem but I had flown for over an hour and not noticed the red light. Never ignore a red light.

Decided to fly to Glenforsa on Mull. Phoned and was told that the grass strip was in excellent condition and there had been no appreciable rain. We landed and almost lost it when we skidded through the mud. Should have asked when the last rainfall was.

Take off from Prestwick on the long runway with a crosswind. As soon as the nose gear left the ground the thing veered sharply to the left and almost left the runway. Managed to get it under control and taxied back rather sheepishly saying I thought that I had burst a tyre. Gusting cross winds and a light single don’t mix.

Left the aircraft parked for the week-end in Orkney and every nook and cranny was stuffed with grass from birds trying to build nests. Took the cowling off to clear round the engine and lost the two screws which hold it on. Managed to secure it by jamming two chinagraph pencils in the holes. Not very pleased about doing that but I had a commercial flight to catch from Glasgow so it was a desperate measure.

Another pilot had taxied the aircraft into a fence post and damaged the underside of the wing. We had some discussion and phoned the engineer at Glenrothes. He advised us to get the aircraft to him and he would have a look at it. I agreed to fly it there (30 minute flight). All OK until a couple of weeks later the CAA contacted me. The aircraft should have been inspected before the flight. I got into bother about that.

When I think about it, a scary number :uhoh:

[Pilot.Lyons]

Wow some good tales there beagle you seem to have my sort of luck

Birds nests :)

[Pace]

Beagle

Will relate two ! I was right seating another pilot in a Senca twin! We were solid IMC trying to do a cloud brake me eyes down in a map looking for obstructions!
Felt a high G pull on my stomach and looked up to see the AH in the vertical!
Screamed at the pilot who tried to roll us inverted to level the aircraft on instruments. Hit his hands off the controls and rolled it back the correct way also then recovering from a dive all IMC!

Ferrying aircraft back from India a Citation this time and had permission to land at a military base mid Saudi Arabia!
Wind was 45 degrees off the runway 2000 metres in dust and 20kts !
Last fifty feet the palm trees doubled over winds increased to 50 kts!

Touched down and in seconds viz dropped to 100 metres in the roll out!
Sky bright orange and could see sand streaming through the engines.

We had to stop on the runway as vis too bad to taxi in a sandstorm and I did not want to ingest even more sand through the engines than in the roll out.

A guy clothed in white with his face covered came out of the gloom!
We got out of the aircraft to blinding stinging sand so dense you could hardly breath.

Pace

[Pilot.Lyons]

I have been watching "dangerous flights" on discovery or nat geo, cant remember but its brill.

Seems like a perfect job ferrying aircraft about, bet you have loads of tales to tell pace

[Pace]

Pilot Lyons

I would by no means call myself a Ferry Pilot although I have done some jet and piston twin work.
I am too much of a coward to ferry singles over the north atlantic and admire those who struggle around low level over those vast expanses of icy cold water with no deice/anti ice.
It looks bad enough high up above all the weather in a jet so hats off to the guys and gals who do ferry light singles winter and summer.
Nevertheless of the Ferry work I have done you cannot beat it! a real adventure and flights long distance which will stay in your memory for a lifetime.

As for "awkward moments" I have had enough to write a book on but thankfully I am still here older and hopefully wiser :E not sure on the wiser bit?

Pace

[DavidWoodward]

Mary, I had one similar to you. I was in the Manchester LLR heading back to Barton when the intercom stopped working. I realised I had lost comms and decided a fuse must have blown. I kept a good lookout and started to squawk 7600. After a minute or two or messing with various knobs and switches I decided to check the connections on my headset...it had come loose. Back to 7366 and normal ops. Check the simple things first and don't convince yourself that the cause of the problem is definite!

[Pilot.Lyons]

It would definitely not be a job for the light hearted! Or a married man with young children so the latter puts me out.....
(I can dream while all three of my girls moan and argue in the background!)

I think you should write a book, i would buy it for sure, if not only for another place to go while the women battle it out ;)

[Helicopterdriverguy]

I've probably told you all this before but I was coming in to Breightons 29 solo and a Gyrocopter was lining up at this time, I was aware of this fact on radio. Thinking that he would be long gone by the time I would be on finals but not realising his type he was still sat on 29 spinning up his rotors and a go around was ensued.

[Red Line Entry]

Entertaining story from Groovy Nut about floating chocolate bars. However, (and I'm really really just raising this for consideration, not as criticism) if there is a known loose article in the cockpit, then turning the aircraft upside down is perhaps not the best way to proceed? While you still have full control of the aircraft, a better plan might be to recover to land as gently as possibe.

[Pace]

Always remember a hilarious clip of a small dog floating mid air as the pilot pushed over the top :ok:

[thing]

if there is a known loose article in the cockpit, then turning the aircraft upside down is perhaps not the best way to proceed? It was SOP (well it was when I was in the mob) that if you thought you may have a loose article and after ripping the a/c to bits you still couldn't find it, you got the jock to invert the a/c on the next sortie to see if it fell on his bonce.

Obviously this only applied to fighter types...

[John R81]

What I learned: It surprised me how easy it was to allow the adrenalin of an “urgency” situation to distract me from the important things – even though I know “Aviate, Navigate, communicate” an tried to keep it in mind.

Setting: EC120 single turbine unstabalised helicopter on route back to EGKR after 4 hrs flying (with fuel a fuel stop an hour back), slightly tired with 12 miles to run, at 2400ft and 120knt. Heading towards Bough Beech and the Gatwick CTA so thinking about getting the ATIS for EGKR on box 2, and swapping from Farnborough East LARS to Redhill ATC, changing transponder code and getting down below 1500ft. In the middle of all that the Master Caution light / gong and notification of a GEN failure.

Initial reaction – that is important but not urgent as the battery is good for 20 min and EGKR is now 7min at this speed. Decision – ignore until established at 1400ft, north of the railway and talking to EGKR ATC for joining instructions. That done, begin problem solving the GEN warning but keep in mind the critical order of activity – Aviate (an unstabalised helicopter has to be flown constantly), navigate (busting Gatwick CAT is 30 sec away at most above / left of track), communicate. Toggle the GEN switch, no benefit. Press ELEC RESET, no benefit. Decide to leave this problem alone and simply run on battery for the 6 minutes remaining.

New Master Caution for Electrical Systems. Scroll through the FLI screens to BATTERY, and find voltage and amps have dropped (setting off the Caution). Scroll to GEN screen and find good voltage but no amps. Interpreting the data, I have lost the GEN but the BAT should have given me 20 min. As it is a NiCad, voltage tends to stay constant as the battery drains until close to exhaustion, when it drops rather quickly to zero. Given that I have a voltage and amps drop on the battery, it might be about to run down and I would have no electrical power. That removes my engine management screens, radio, transponder, AH, DI, etc but leaves NG, NF Airspeed, Alt, VSI and the old-fashioned compass. Time to communicate!

First, check height and location, then PAN call to EGKR; advise electrical problems, possible imminent loss of communication, request direct approach at 1400ft, autorotation profile from the airfield boundary and power recovery (engine permitting). Cleared No1, 1400ft approach and autorotation profile to any surface. Head back inside, 4 miles to run. I begin shutting down non-essential electronic systems (flymap, Box2, Box 3, Radio nav, AC, etc. Call at the VRP (3 miles), and repeat cleared No1 with 1 R22 in the circuit; wind 260/5. I announced intention to auto into area 1. Head back to battery screen, and then fly the aircraft.

2 miles…. 1 mile…. The R22 calls downwind and is told “no.2 to the EC120 declared PAN on final”. I was then completely distracted by his opinion that he could land 26H ahead of me; though he was told “that’s very interesting, and you are still No2 to the EC120 PAN.

Airfield boundary, 1400 ft. Collective down full and flare to 75knt, cyclic up to contain NR, aim right of the crash truck (who has rolled to area 1) and wait for the ground to get close enough to flare. Kill the decent to zero and hold until fwd speed drops below 30 knt then cyclic fwd and collective up…. Engine still working so we come to a hover; cleared airtaxi to hanger “if you are happy”. On landing, found I was quite stressed and sweating.

Looking back – an electrical problem that was (and should have been) a non-event that I could easily have turned into an accident or a CTA bust through being distracted. I was amazed how distracting a “minor” problem can be, botht he electrical failure and the R22 radio traffic. It was a useful lesson to me of the importance of “Aviate,Navigate, Communicate”.

[flyinkiwi]

Mary, I had one similar to you. I was in the Manchester LLR heading back to Barton when the intercom stopped working. I realised I had lost comms and decided a fuse must have blown. I kept a good lookout and started to squawk 7600. After a minute or two or messing with various knobs and switches I decided to check the connections on my headset...it had come loose. Back to 7366 and normal ops. Check the simple things first and don't convince yourself that the cause of the problem is definite!

This reminds me of a trip I had in the right seat of a 172 a while back with a very experienced pilot flying. At this time I was pre solo with about 7 hours in the logbook so I tended to be in awe of the guy flying. Our trip was a short 15 minute flight from a satellite airfield where we had attended a flying competition to home. I remember after he started up and started to speak on the radio noticing that something wasn't quite right (his voice sounded different in my headset than normal), but this guy was vastly more experienced than I was so surely he knew what he was doing.

He made all the calls, we lined up and departed. The airspace was fairly quiet so the fact I never heard any other radio traffic didn't ring any alarm bells. It wasn't until a few minutes later when he tried to tune into the ATIS of our home airfield that we discovered the radios weren't working. We tried tuning in the second radio, checked the breakers and the battery but there was nothing untoward there. Our intercom was functioning perfectly. We were about to squawk 7600 when I realized that the previous pilot had physically turned the radios off. The club SOP in that aircraft was to leave the avionics either on or on standby and power everything down via the avionics master switch (before we get into a flame war over whether this is the right or wrong way to do things, I didn't make the rules up I just follow them). The guy who flew it previously was not a club member.

Two lessons here: Do a thorough preflight because you never know who messed around with the plane before you, and even if you are the greenest student pilot, you might spot something a more experienced pilot may have missed so bring it to their attention. We are only human after all.

[mary meagher]

flyinkiwi - your post has reminded me of two similar problems, because the pilot who flew it last didn't follow the usual procedures in shutdown!

Usually flying the tug Supercub, you NEVER use the brakes, as with a heavy 180 hp engine it just loves to nose over! Early days at Booker, getting qualified as a glider tow pilot on the 180 cub, I forgot to make doubly sure that the parking brake, which is a silly little lever hidden down out of sight- and out of mind - beside the seat, had been released before takeoff. Well, one wheel was free, anyway.....and the big power to weight ratio took care of the takeoff, on the wet grass.....but landing was rather a handful as it had one wheel rolling and the other one frozen stiff.... Custom is that the parking brake is never set. This is actually a good idea when parking at the launchpoint, so the plane can swing nose into wind if it wants to. And parking the Cub in the glliding hangar, you don't ever set the parking brake because people who may not have the foggiest idea of where the handle is or what it looks like, need to push the plane out of the way.

The other incident (wasn't me!) was our CFI tried to fly the motor glider when the last person to use it had turned off the fuel..........................we never let him forget that one!

[Pace]

Mary

It is amazing the crazy things pilots will do !


BBC NEWS | UK | England | Tyne | Concrete block fell from aircraft (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/6643891.stm)

Pace

[mad_jock]

I think that concrete block was a CFI as well.

Of course it wasn't his fault it was the school FI's.

[Pace]

I find it almost unbelievable that the pilot did not sense that the aircraft felt funny taxiing with a block that size and weight dragged behind.

Weird that he did not hear a rumbling noise! Surely he must have noticed something wrong on takeoff with the acceleration, increased noise as the aircraft gained speed and odd handling on takeoff ?

Thank God that projectile did not hit anyone as it fell from the sky!
I hope they took the pilots licence off him for a year for such dangerous, inexcusable antics.

Pace

[mad_jock]

I am not actually to be honest.

In the grandscope of things those bits of string attaching a breeze block are utterly pointless.

It only gives an addition 1 knt of wind difference to not having 3 bricks attached. 3 concrete filled tyres at 50-70kg each gives an additional 4 knts.

And if the concrete is sliding along tarmac there won't be that much friction to be honest.

Basically if you can move it by yourself without requiring a forklift its useless as a tie down.

[tecman]

On the other side of the tie-down coin, a CPL of my acquaintance once had a very early morning winter charter in inland Australia. The C310 was parked on a reasonably bumpy bit of land and it was not unknown to need a bit of power to get rolling any aircraft which were parked there. Anyway, somewhere in the untie routine he got distracted and the pax boarded the 310, still in darkness. He started up, and noticed that the aircraft was reluctant to move, but the 310 was fully loaded and the ground was rough so he applied more power..and more power..and still more power. Eventually the 310 did move (rather quickly, I imagine)...but only after he'd torn the tail tie-down off. He was a careful pilot/instructor, and the lesson I took from his experience was to be extra thorough when your defence is low and, in truth, when your brain is a bit slow.