Doper Pilots - Help Me Become an Old Pilot

In My Humble Opinion
1

I really enjoyed Johnny L.A.'s recent thread (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=63431) about the pilots on our board. So I thought that I’d take this opportunity to pick your brains and help me in my goal of becoming a very old pilot.

What are some of the best lessons you’ve learned in your flying careers?

I’m looking for your best advice based upon your experiences in the cockpit. Sort of like the “I Learned About Flying From That” feature they have in the aviation magazines. I earned my Private Pilot’s license in December 2000, so my ticket is firmly in the “License to Learn” category.

To start the ball rolling, here’s my best advice from my experiences so far:

Don’t get caught up in “Get-down-itis”. We hear lots about “get-there-itis” and running into bad weather and so on, but I nearly got bitten one day when I was in a hurry to simply put the bird on the ground.

One day late in my training, my instructor signed me off for a short cross country to a towered airport about 50 miles away. Conditions were good, with a very mild crosswind - maybe 2 knots. Nothing to worry about, and predicted to stay that way.

I got to my destination with no problem, and the return flight was routine until I got back in the neighborhood of my home airport. The crosswind situation had worsened since I had left. It was now variable, around 9 knots gusting to 14. So I got a little jumpy, considering that this was well out of the minimums my instructor had specified for me. Although I had the option of going to another airport, I knew they needed the plane back for another student’s lesson.

So I entered the pattern, having first checked for traffic. Then just as I was coming abeam the runway numbers, I heard another plane call out the same position as me (a VERY ominous feeling - I briefly hoped it was a stowaway in the back seat…). I quickly looked around and was startled to see another plane about 300 feet off my right wingtip!

I advised them of my position, and asked what they intended to do. Without answering, they veered off to the right and disapeared. I announced that I was aborting my approach, thottled up and went around the pattern. This little encounter shook me up, and I kept an eye out for the other plane as I set up another approach (maybe he was coming around to attack me out of the sun?).

I proceeded to fly a terrible pattern. The crosswind blew me away from the runway, and then I almost tried to overcorrect with too much aileron. It’s so tempting to just bank a little further over to get back on final, but it has been drilled into me that this is a VERY BIG NO-NO. So I went around again, and this time flew a better pattern.

The crosswind was significant on final, and I would say I “arrived” rather than landed. Came in too steeply, bounced, and had to brake hard as I was running out of runway. But I got there in one piece.

Later, my instructor told me I should have come in the other way because the wind was slightly favoring the other direction. So actually I had made matters worse for myself by coming in with a slight tailwind.

Between the crosswind, the other plane crowding me in the
pattern, and knowing my airplane was expected back soon, I allowed myself to succumb to “get-down-itis”. I was so desperate to land that I conducted a poor procedure - one that I would normally have aborted. I should have gone around on that last approach instead of forcing the plane onto the runway. There shouldn’t have been any
rush - I had plenty of gas, and could have set up another approach at my leisure. Or even more sensibly, gone to another nearby airport with no crosswind.

Lesson: Take the time to set up a good approach, and go around if it doesn’t look good for ANY reason. Don’t let artificial time constraints rush you into an unsafe operation.

Now let’s hear from the other pilots…

2

“When something starts going wrong with the airplane, try to think of the last thing you did because you probably caused it.”
I was doing some night landings to stay current. On one particular landing I got a little bit behind on things and didn’t put my flaps to 20 degrees until after turning final. This plane had one of those three-position switches that you hold down until the flaps are where you want them, then let go and the switch springs back to neutral. I put the flaps down, let go of the switch and was all lined up to land. And it started to feel like someone had thrown an anchor out of the airplane. It was slowing and descending so I started adding power (You’ve already heard the rule “Fly the airplane”). I landed okay, but when I reached over to raise the flaps, the switch had stuck in the down position. The flaps had gone down to 45 degrees when I thought they were at 20.

3

Speaking of night… Be very cautious about night flying. The accident rate skyrockets for night VFR.

My personal weather limits for night flying are absolutely severe clear. Not a cloud in the sky, and no forecast for any. Well, one night we needed to fly some Christmas presents up to a family in Northern Alberta near slave lake. On this night, there was an overcast, but a pretty high ceiling (around 10,000, if I recall). Anyway, I decided it was safe enough, and off we went. About an hour out, snow started hitting the windscreen. Then without any warning at all we were in cloud (cruising at 6500 ft). I did an immediate 180 for home, but found out it was socked in right to the ground behind us. We were nearing the Swan Hills, with rising terrain. So I turned for the airplane for lower ground, found the Athabasca river, and followed it into Slave Lake for a landing (no GPS back then). We were less than 1000’ AGL in snow when we came in, at close to midnight. Not my idea of fun.

4

Sam Stone, that’s some scary shit. I always have that bad wx fear in the back of my mind.

All I can offer is “Checklist, Checklist, Checklist.” I don’t know how many times starting out that I rushed through something and skipped a step, or been too preoccupied in the air to do it (Can anyone say, Cruise Checklist?). Heck, one time my instructor and I were coming back to NAS Whidbey and we were on a long straight-in and I had just established myself on the glide slope, getting that settled-in, all-is-right-with-the world feeling and my instructor turns, looks at me, and says, “Maybe you’d like to do the Landing Checklist?” Fortunately, the Piper has fixed gear, but I shudder to think if that’d happened to me with retractable gear.
So, do every checklist, and every step, no matter how busy you are!

And Grok, was that you that almost rammed me at the 180, you prick? :smiley: Actually, I had a similar thing happen while doing t&g’s… on short final here comes this guy who must have been in the tightest pattern ever turning from base onto final inside of me (I mean, by the time this guy was wings level he was almost over the freakin’ threshold!). As I wave off (and this guy lands, of course) a guy waiting to take off at the hold short says “That guy’s sure in a hurry.” Not a single peep on CTAF from this shmuck before, during, or after!

5

No stories of life-and-death. No “OMYGOD!” moments. Just a couple of training incidents.

My fixed-wing instructor wasn’t happy with my short-field landsing, so he decided to “show me”. We came in with full flaps (40º on dad’s 1970 C-172) and touched down. We took off for another circuit. I’m watching intently since I want to get it right when it’s my turn, and I could detact some concern in the instructor’s face. After we were airborne again I asked him, “Is there a reason why we took off with full flaps?” He said that his inadvertant object lesson was to show that no matter how many hours you have, you can still screw up. Or put another way: “Fly the airplane.”

My long cross-country was from Fox Field in Lancaster, CA to Henderson Air Harbor just south of Las Vegas. The two-hour flight was uneventful and I entered the pattern for Henderson. I was on downwind at about 80mph (yes, the ASI was in mph) and I happened to look behind me. A retractable was entering the downwind leg on a 45º angle at a rather high speed. And he was pretty darn close. His gear was still up. I had no idea if he knew I was there. (I had been giving position reports – “Cessna 573, downwind for landing”, etc.) Maybe he was off-frequency, or maybe he knew I was around but just didn’t see me. Maybe he didn’t have a radio. No way of knowing. I decided I’d let him have the pattern, even though I was ahead of him. A diving turn to the right got me out of the way and I returned for another try. Never did see the guy in the retract again.

6

Darn - I missed that. In fact, I’m kind of new here (depsite being a long time SD fan). Is it still around and how to I find it?

I’m not an old pilot, but I seem to have acquired an inordinate amoung of experience prior to getting my PPL. And while I’ve learned a lot from them I’m not sure if they qualify as “best” lessons.

I started out in ultralights, which is a little different. During my training in those my instructor and I almost got run over by a Piper Cherokee doing around 140 kts. I know how fast he was going because as we dodged over his plane I could look down between my kness and read his panel. We were on final at the time this asshole decided to buzz the field. To this day, I pay attention to the sides on landing as well as straight ahead and always do my clearing turns.

While transitioning to an airplane with flaps (my ultralight experience being without flaps) I was doing a go around from a full-flap landing and after lift-off inadvertantly yanked out all flaps at once. There we were, me and my CFI, pitched for best climb and at full power and still sinking. I said “What can I do? What can I do?” the CFI said “You’ve already done everything you can do - we’re either going to hit or we’re not”. Fortunately, we did start going up before we ran out of down, which was a good thing. I recommend you not try this yourself, it’s not the most fun thing to do in the world.

On my first solo cross country in GA I landed at a little rural place, got out, got the logbook signed, got back in the airplane… and it wouldn’t start. At all. Not even the T&B gryo winding up. THAT was educational! After several hours the problem was fixed and I got to fly it home, but for awhile there the owner of the place was getting ready to put me up for the night and drive me to work in the next morning. (Really nice people)

On the second GA solo cross country on my way back the afternoon thermals popped up and I didn’t fly home so much as bounce up and down 500-800 feet at a time in the general direction of my destination. Landing was a challenge.

One very pleasent morning with a high scattered ceiling and visibility 7-10 miles I went up to practice my various turns (S and point) and got ambushed by a fog bank rolling off Lake Michigan. I wound up parking in a hayfield in rural Illinois. Well, I didn’t get hurt, the plane didn’t get hurt, and you really should have seen the expression on the face of the guy on the back porch of the farm house having his morning cup of coffee when an airplane lands in his field. Anyhow, if you ever wondered what it’s like to land a small plane in a farm field - drive a pickup across a cornfield at 70 mph. That’s what it’s like. My recommendation is to avoid clouds and wandering fog banks, it’s more stress than you really want to deal with.

On the third GA solo cross country I flew into Class C (amusing in a C150 - ATC always asks me if there’s any possible way to get the airspeed up to the triple digits) without untoward events, went on to my next destination, then ran into rising winds (15 gusting up into the low 20s) which were, of course, perpendicular to all the other runways I intended to land on for the rest of the day. Um, yes, landing back at the home base was a challenge. Actually, the instructor said try it one time and if I couldn’t get a good approach the first time divert to another airport. Got it right the first time, one of my better landings in fact - must have been the motivation factor.

Anyhow - recently went for my GA checkride. My examiner got busted on an FAA ramp check. It was not the most pleasent way to spend the day. Not quite as bad an inadvertant IFR and off-field landing combo but definitely very high on the stress and bother meter. I have my written and oral out of the way now but an incomplete on the flight test and still no PPL. Bummer. I’m taking the weekend off from flying, will spend a couple weeks getting psyched up to finish and brushing up again, then finish the damn test and get my piece of paper.

I suspect my experience isn’t quite typical, and some days it really does feel like I’m trying to row a boat up Niagra Falls.

7

I actually did find out who it was several weeks later. I was relating my story to a group of pilots at a gathering, and my friend Tom says, “Was that you?!”

Tom keeps his plane at another airport nearby. He said he was on his way somewhere, but decided to cruise near our pattern to see if a friend of his was there. He says he saw me, and thought maybe I was his buddy. When I came back on the CATF sounding alarmed he figured he would just bug out. He apologized for scaring me, and said he should have made more radio calls.

For my part, I was more alarmed by the fact that he just disapeared without saying anything. I had no idea where that plane was going or if it was coming back.