Another one where I couldn’t decide whether to put it in MPSIMS or the Pit…
It was a bit windy around here yesterday.
Let me clarify… we had winds at 20 mph gusting into the 45-50 mph range. With LOTS of gusting. Me, I decided discretion was the better part of flying so I stayed on the ground.
Well, while I was hanging around the front desk, getting updated navigation charts and checking to see how much money I still have on account and what not, one of our pilot/instructors (I’ll call him Ed - not his real name) comes by and he is clearly having a very bad day. He mutters something about Bravo plane (that’s a single engine four-seat Piper Warrior, one of our standard student trainers) being parked over at Gary airport and needing to make arrangements to bring it back. I wondered out loud what it was doing there. Without repeating the entire somewhat fractured conversation, the gist of the story was that Ed had had a student scheduled for a leson earlier (when it wasn’t quite so bad), they took off with plans to do touch and goes and tower airport operations at Gary.
“You took a student up in THIS? Why the hell did you do a stupid thing like that for?”
Well, OK, I admit my comment was amazingly lacking in tact and diplomacy, but it WAS a stupid thing to do. Not fatally stupid, obviously, and Ed is skilled enough that he was able to land the plane even though over at Gary the winds were gusting up to 52 mph on final. Which starts to look more like a helicoptor landing than an airplane landing. Ed was lucky. Yes, with that sort of wind and a small four-seater you are definitely venturing into the realm of luck.
Ed was having an exceedingly bad day, not only because he had done a Stupid Thing, but everyone at the airport was having the exact same reaction I was. Including the receptionist, who is half his age and has never had even a single flight lesson. I mean, it just sort of spontaneously bursts out of people.
Geez, I’m sorry Ed, but you DID do something stupid. We could dress it up and say you misjudged or made a mistake but yeah, you had a brain fart A really big, loud, smelly brain fart…
No wonder Ed was having a bad day. The only good thing was that it could have been a much worse day. I mean, no one got hurt, and the airplane was undamaged. But it was a stupid mistake, the sort of thing you tolerate with students (who, after all, are students) not from someone who has been a commercial pilot and flight instructor for a couple decades. Yes, we all make mistakes from time to time, we all have brain farts, but Ed, you’re just going to have to suck it up. We’re all very happy you made a safe landing, and had the sense to wake up once you were in the mess and make that landing as soon as you could, but frankly, you know better.
Of course, a lot of his sour mood was him kicking himself. He’s a guy, he’s a pilot, he’s got his pride. Downright humiliating to have to call the home base, admit you ****** up and had to park the airplane, make arrangements to secure the airplane and pay for whatever is required (I’m pretty sure this is coming out of Ed’s pocket, that is the general rule in these situations), be brought back to home base in someone else’s car, called on the carpet by his boss (who, by the way, is not the sort to yell, shout, or swear - he lets you know very clearly in a calm, serious voice just what you did wrong, why it is wrong, and how it is going to be fixed), and told that no, he will not be the one bringing the airplane home when the winds die down enough that the flight can be made safely. And yes, he’ll have to pay for that flight as well, even if he won’t be on the airplane.
You know, I don’t think this guy is a bad pilot - like I said, everyone makes mistakes from time to time - but I would really have preferred he take his medicine and say “yeah, I should not have done that.” instead of trying so hard to defend his decision. You need to be honest with yourself if you’re going to leave the ground. It can be damn hard, but pride has to take a seat behind safety every time.
I’m just really disappointed in him for doing such a thing. Yeah, it does make me think less of him.and question his judgement. Not that he’s unique, no - there’s not a pilot I know who hasn’t done something simillar at some point (myself included). We’re human. We try really, really hard not to let that human error thing create an accident. It’s just that… you have to 'fess up to it. Recognize your error.
Well, I’m hoping that after a couple of days he’ll cool off (he blew out of the airport and headed for home just about as soon as he could - which is probably for the best).
It’s just… I hate it when pilots I have respect for do stuff like this. I hate it when my tact takes a vacation. And I hate the memories of the Gulfstream IV pilot who attempted a take-off at Palwaukee back in '96 in very similar conditions and didn’t make it, cartwheeling his airplane down the runway and killing all aboard. Not only was there a long, black skid mark off runway 34 that stretched a mile and a half, it took them a couple weeks to dig all the airplane bits out of the runway. Charred hunks of aluminum and all that. Scattered engine parts. All pretty icky.
You see, Ed, that’s we’re all blurting out “You IDIOT!”. We’re shocked that you, normally a very responsible human being, did something like that and even more importantly, we LIKE you - we don’t want anything even a little bad to happen to you, much less something Very Bad Indeed. I know how you feel - I’ve been there, wanting the ground to open up and swallow me because I didn’t want to face the judgement of my peers (and, in one case, the judgement of the FAA and the Ilinois Department of Transportation as well). We all make mistakes and we’re blessed that the consequences are so often just feeling ashamed of ourselves. There have been times I’ve had a fellow pilot take me by the arm and say “no, don’t go” and I’ve had to swallow my anger, pride, and desire to defend my decisions and admit, yeah, maybe I should stay on the ground. Unfortunately, Ed didn’t have anyone else around yesterday morning to nudge him to reconsider… which fact alone should have been a tip-off. On a week-end morning folks are flying if conditions allow it at all - if no one else is flying you have to ask yourself “Why?”.
>sigh<
Ed, please don’t make that mistake again, OK?
But do make sure he knows he did a BAD THING. After all friendly ridicule is there for a reason. 
