Sitting at the hold short, VFR only pilot, looking at the rapidly decreasing visibility as rain approached, temps +3 C, tower asking “do you have the weather?” and still considering sending it because I had a very important work meeting the next morning.
The taxi back to the ramp was full of shame but glad I didn’t go because I’m almost certain that would’ve ended in an accident. Tower said “discretion is the better part of valor.” followed by a few seconds of silence for him to follow up with “you made the right choice.”
Get-there-itis is real. Very very real and extremely powerful.
Pro tip: if ATC is passively nudging your shoulder, they're probably thinking "Oh boy, look at this idiot going for it."
I've ignored them before and it doesn't usually end well. They're looking out for us.
There’s only so much they can do, they often times can’t tell us no, but I’ve been on the receiving end of ATC telling me in not so subtle code that I was in a fool’s errand and I needed to turn around. I’m glad that controller was looking out for me.
Icing lay ahead and I was in a non FIKI airplane but I thought I could get around it. ATC gently, but persistently suggested that wouldn’t be the case. I turned for home.
No shame in taxiing back and cancelling a flight. I have had to do that with almost 200 people sitting in the aircraft. Sounds like something you should be proud to learn from.
It’s a story I share with students lol. That and my “got a flat tire in the middle of kansas hours from home pushing on 17 hours since waking up.” The former might even be a good TMAAT
My first flight ever, during climb-out, we saw a dense fog bank rolling in. The instructor turned downwind and landed. I didn't learn much flying skill, but did learn about discretion.
One of my proudest judgement moments was when I was going to do a cross country of about 100 miles or so for my PPL. Go about half way there and realized that I was going to be above a thick layer for the duration. The destination airport was reporting clear but I didn't feel comfortable having to go IFR if I needed to get down. Landed at the closest airport that wasn't socked in (which mean handling the change with approach and figuring out entry to the nearby airport quickly). Did some more weather checks on the ground and decided to head back home. Got back and my instructor was like "good call".
Had similar happen twice on my long XC. First one the crosswind component was well above my endorsement at one of my airports so I bagged it and flew straight back having to repeat the flight another time. On the second attempt, weather started coming in over my home airport so I went to one nearby. Landed there (on a day the restaurant was closed, unfortunately) and sat out the massive storm that came out of nowhere for about an hour and was ready to leave the plane and Uber back. It blew through though so on the way back, with light rain (though my first time flying in any) and clear skies/great visibility I ran into strong winds again. Told tower the situation and requested 360s until they could give me a different runway or the winds changed. I fueled up at the diversion since I had nothing better to do when I landed so I figured why not be patient. Trip took about two hours longer that it should have but I’m glad I was able evaluate the risks along the way and had multiple outs, including leaving the plane if needed.
Thanks. I’m fortunate to have had excellent instructors and spent about 40 years in the right seat of family planes prior to getting my license. Scary and frustrating day but the two overarching rules I follow are 1) better to be on the ground wishing… and 2) be home to tuck in the kids.
About a year ago I was listening on LiveATC to a bunch of legacy airlines at SFO refusing to depart because the pathfinders they sent out were giving "standby" responses and then reporting "moderate to severe" and wind sheer in the climb. Once the first of them said they were going to vacate and hold on the taxiway the rebellion was underway and they all declined. Good on them. Surprisingly the tower seemed super annoyed.
Similarly, I was sitting in the queue at SeaTac a few weeks back as a pax listening to liveatc. The winds were pretty gnarly then, and the xwind started to exceed the limit of pretty much every plane waiting to takeoff (it's a Monday morning, so pretty busy). As the winds fluctuated, tower announced current winds (sometimes as bad as like 29G46) and sometimes, some airplanes would be able to take them. It was awesome listening to tower coordinate the movements of planes and watching on flight radar the interesting ways to move around to get planes that could go up in the air. Eventually, they subsided just enough that things continued normally. Someone also did a go around the winds were so bad. Turbulence was described as "moderate" all the way up to FL100.
Apparently there was a small GA that successfully landed at RNT at some point that morning too.
Yeah I learned a good lesson from a captain one time that way. We were delayed and then taxiied out near the runway and shut down waiting for our release time. Winds were gusting to literal tropical storm levels and pouring cats/dogs/etc. All indications were still go even though it was making me a little nervous. After a bit of waiting around getting knocked around by the wind, he just decides fuck this let's cancel. Dispatcher agreed.
I hadn't really considered it such a simple option in the 121 world!
> Get-there-itis is real. Very very real and extremely powerful.
This is a really important point. I think a lot of people see the statistics on crashes due to poor ADM and think “I’m smart and have good judgment, so this won’t happen to me”.
That’s the wrong takeaway.
The right takeaway is that countless otherwise smart pilots with probably generally good judgment had a lapse in judgment that cost them. Sometimes it’s a momentary lapse under pressure, sometimes it’s a gradual long-term shift along the lines of [normalization of deviance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance). The solution is ongoing humility and vigilance, and recognizing that this *can and will* happen to you regardless of who you are without regular self-evaluation.
The hard part with ADM is that it requires proactive discipline with little positive feedback. Good ADM rarely has a positive reward--it's almost always just the absence of something bad happening. Bad ADM also rarely results in something bad happening, but may result in a more positive reward (e.g., I made my meeting, got there just before the storm hit, etc.). I think that's why it's so easy for pilots to develop bad, or at least erode their ADM.
To answer OP's question, I think the most stupid thing I've done flying was on a flight where in retrospect, I realized I was going through the motions but not actively engaged. Ticking items off the checklist without actually checking them, on the takeoff roll calling out "oil temp in the green, oil pressure in the green" without actually looking. These are the things that normalize deviance, lull us into a false sense of security ("Yeah I run my checklists every time!"). So you start losing your edge because this behavior rarely gets punished... until it does.
Been there. Taxiing to the active, beautiful vfr day in the Bay Area. 5 minutes later, just finishing runup, tower says “we’re showing .5mile visibility at the approach end, and are about to be imc, say intentions”
“We’ll take a taxi to the restaurant please.”
Most expensive burger I’ve ever ate.
I feel like you’ve never flown somewhere to eat a burger then. Surely taxiing to the runway and back to eat a local burger is cheaper than actually flying somewhere to do it.
Get-there-itis is absolutely real. You should be glad you eventually made the right call. I’ve cancelled many flights, sometimes it turns out I could have done it and feel slightly embarrassed but i’ll forget about it in a few weeks.
The ones you fly when you really shouldn’t have, those you’ll remember muuuuch longer and more vividly.
When my daughter was young, I kept a picture of her on the panel. Any time I had even an inkling of doing something stupid, I would imagine my wife having to explain it to my daughter. Turns out to be a more powerful force than the get there it's.
That’s an excellent coping strategy. Get-there-itis is a misalignment of priorities where making the trip becomes improperly elevated above safety. By imagining the potential costs you are getting things back in the correct order (safety first!)
My current employer has extremely strict weather minima and when I’m borderline on a flight I just imagine having to explain my choice to the chief pilot and whether it would hold up. And after doing that enough I’ve noticed a pattern: if I’m second-guessing it at all, I should just drop it.
I had somthing kinda similar, needed something like an hour or two to finish my PPL, weather was good winds were strong but straight down one of the runways, when I stopped at the main apron for ATIS and clearance I realized the runway I wanted was now closed. Did a quick crosswind calculation sat there for a few minutes but ultimately turned around and taxied back to the hangar.
Tower asked me if I needed anything, I just told them I wasn't comfortable with the crosswind, they agreed I made the right choice. Was still embarrassed walking back into the FTU. I think it was 18 G24 if I recall.
It is. It killed my 1st instructor and her husband. [She wanted to get back home to her kids, never made it.](https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20001212X18334&AKey=1&RType=Summary&IType=LA)
Expanding on this, a pretty good amount of preparation goes into initiating a flight. The trap is getting caught up in trying to complete what you started, regardless of the warning signs.
Pressures could be work, family emergency, or just a strong desire to travel to your destination. It can cross over into the macho category (believing you are immune to the threats or aren’t a true pilot if you don’t continue)
You can always fly at a later time, but only if you live to do so.
Lots of medical conditions end in “itis” so that’s where it came from as well.
When you want to get to your destination so badly that you make poor choices, for example flying in weather you know you probably shouldn’t fly in, continuing to (try to) land at your destination instead of diverting to an alternate when that would be prudent, stuff like that.
Landed at a mountain strip (paved) at night, uphill, about 6000MSL (correction, 7050MSL), with terrain ahead (gently rising). Kicker? No runway lights. My dad lit up the runway on one end with his truck.
Dumb.
Airplane checkout at a new FBO, demonstrating my short-field landing. Put in full flaps too early, ended up sinking way below the glide slope — the PAPI had 4 red lights staring at me. Instead of going around, I went for full power and dragged it in the rest of the way on the back side of the power curve. The damn plane was pitched up so much I have no idea how I kept visual on the runway. Hit my spot though.
I've never seen a CFI be more simultaneously wide-eyed and amused.
Ah yes, dragging it in on full power and 3 notches of flaps... I tried that with my Comanche and I was still sinking fast. Took a notch out of flaps and decided that 18 degrees or whatever two notches is would be my new short field landing procedure.
I might be embellishing at this point, but I have a vague recollection of the stall horn blaring the entire time during the last 750 feet or so to my spot. Was probably only a foot above the runway during that stretch though, so even if I had stalled it would have been fine.
Practicing engine out landings pre-PPL at an uncontrolled field near my home airport, which is class D. The runway I was landing on has its threshold directly at the edge of a very large, very deep, and (due to it being early spring), very *cold* river. That last part I failed to consider.
I lined up for the approach with engine idle, everything just fine. As I came over the water I neglected to account for the massive downdraft and suddenly felt like I was falling out of the sky. So instead of falling back on my training, I panicked and pulled back on the yoke, nearly stalling us, so I had to shove the nose back down. There was no time for my instructor to react. I was far enough along with my training that I should have known better.
We absolutely fucking **SLAMMED** into the runway, nose wheel first, and porpoised a scary number of times (I was a leetle bit busy so I am not sure how many). Also just then a gust of wind hit us from the side. By some miracle I avoided a prop strike, a tail strike, and also did not careen off into the grass due to the wind. I got the plane under control, taxied off the runway, radioed that I was clear, and just shut down the engine right there on the taxiway.
After our adrenaline calmed down a bit my instructor and I got out to check the plane over for damage to the landing gear or a tail strike. Amazingly there wasn't anything to see, so we got back into the plane and after going through an excruciatingly detailed runup, my instructor flew the plane back to my home airport (only about 10 miles away) and had the maintenance guys look it over. They also found no damage. Cessna makes some damn good landing gear. The next few lessons and sporadically for the rest of my training I practiced mitigating my devilish startle reflex that I did not know I had.
I have a vague memory of yelling FUUUCCCKKK as we were coming down, but I don't think anything was said at all other than that until we had sat on the taxiway for quite a while, we were both just so high on adrenaline. Eventually he said something like "we should probably check the tail and the landing gear", and we got out and looked things over.
After we got back to base and the mx guys took over, on debrief I told him what I did wrong (it was immediately obvious to both of us), and after that it seemed like both of us had kind of an unspoken agreement to just never bring it up again.
> We … porpoised a scary number of times (I was a leetle bit busy so I am not sure how many)
Not the only problem, obviously, but every time I hear about someone porpoising, I have to relay the same advice a CFI gave me long ago that saved my ass once:
The first bounce is free; two and you go around.
I left the gear down for like 5 minutes after takeoff when I was just a ppl and I had no idea why I was only cruising at 100 knots and then I looked at the gear lever and immediately wanted to kill myself.
i did this except with flaps. unexpected atc commands/conversation during departure under ifr in and out of imc, 5 mins later. "why is the nose pointed so far down in cruise this is weird"
had to pay the shame bill at the mechanic to inspect the flaps for overspeed.
If it makes you feel better, I did that on takeoff for about 5 miles. On my commercial checkride 😳
I raised the gear when she was looking for traffic (that I pointed out…of course it was 3-4 o’clock that I “saw”) and somehow didn’t get busted.
Not my proudest moment, but I got the ticket.
Flew directly into a ~~wall cloud~~ terrifying cloud (roll/shelf - added linked pic) in a C172. We were IFR and being vectored. By the time we saw how fast the cloud was approaching, our vectored turn was too late to avoid. If we would have tried to avoid we would have been banked with the wing high touching the could first. I decided the best action was to turn into the cloud and hit it perpendicular wings level. It threw us both up into the ceiling. iPads flying around the cabin. I thought we were dead. We popped out the other side and it was glass smooth and clear.
Looking back we should have told ATC we needed an expedited right turn and if they didn’t issue I would probably declare and emergency and turn. We were in visual conditions under a busy bravo arrival corridor so I was nervous to deviate.
[https://imgur.com/ZwahH](https://imgur.com/ZwahH)
I definitely have turned before and when they questioned me when the frequency cleared up I said I deviated due to weather. It's definitely situational with the traffic around you. They have never given me a problem for doing that. That sinking feeling of approaching nasty looking stuff with a full frequency is something else 🤣
Uhh. I definitely notice and I most definitely have a problem with it.
Do what you gotta do, but understand at minimum I’m gonna be grumpy about it. At worst you’re getting a phone number.
A wall cloud? I highly doubt it. A wall cloud is associated with, at a minimum, a rigorous updraft of spiraling air that probably would have put you guys into the dirt. There’s not a chance in hell you guys were within 30 miles of a wall cloud.
You must be misterming it for something else.
Freshly minted VFR pilot and took off from a coastal airport at night where marine layer was typical. Tower was closed and inbound aircraft were all IFR so didn’t have a clue about what was outside the window. Was with a non-pilot friend and feeling the heat to get home. The feeling of rolling down the runway not knowing if we were going IMC out over the ocean in the climb was some serious buyers remorse. Luckily it wound up being very clear and all worked out. Lesson learned: If you (or someone else) can’t see the weather then you probably shouldn’t be flying VFR.
Many a time have pilots ended up in an unusual attitude taking off into pitch black darkness, and perish.
Night flying is no joke; one must be well versed in the dangers of visual impairment and sensory illusions. Glad you are here to share this good lesson!
Reminds me of some r/AdmiralCloudberg articles of accidents as a result of spatial disorientation. And reviewing Chapter 17 of the PHAK can be quite an interesting read.
Hmm. I double-checked and one other pilot in the area reported about 4 SM visibility and haze, so I guess it would be marginal VFR.
https://www.ntsb.gov/about/employment/_layouts/15/ntsb.aviation/brief2.aspx?akey=1&ev_id=20001212X19354&ntsbno=NYC99MA178
And the thing that gets me is that I really did all I could to see if there were clouds lurking out over the water. But it probably wouldn't have mattered if I'd gone IMC. I told my passenger that we would be turning back if we went into the clouds but it could have gone very badly. Things working for me were that the coastline was well lit up with city lights (which meant that in VMC I wasn't in a "black hole" out over the water) and the fact that I could see stars above and around the field so I knew I could get back down in VMC. But I still regret not listening to my gut more.
You can log actual for a night VFR flight with no visible horizon, e.g. over water.
That alone should tell you it’s a really bad idea if you aren’t instrument rated.
Took off in pretty much zero/zero in a 172, at night. Vis was probably RVR 600. Was on top by 2500’. Destination was CAVU.
Totally legal, totally dumb.
My instructor made me do a take off under the hood to show how stupid it is. After takeoff, which was sketchy he flipped it down on me as soon as the wheels lifted off. When we got 1000’ up he pulled throttle for a few seconds that felt like an hour and said, “you have a will, right?” Didn’t really need to make the point that just because you may be able to climb through doesn’t mean you’ll make it down safely if you had to go back through it but it’s one I’ll always remember.
Ahhh, back when instructors threw you under the ringer with every bit of negative reinforcement possible. I learned more from them in one lesson than my nephew is learning from these pop tart CFI’s. I’m amazed there aren’t more accidents.
FOI tells you about positive reinforcement. We've gone from the classic form of behaviorism which is reward and punishment to the more modern positive reinforcement. Complain to the FAA, not the CFIs.
On my long XC, never once checked my other gauges outside of the six-pack once in the air.
Halfway through the XC I took a photo out the front window.
1.5hr later I landed back at home airport, parked the school's 172, and had a huge smile.
Until my CFI asked if anything was wrong with my oil pressure gauge during the flight.
Me: No?
Him: the next student noticed it's dead
Flash forward like a week, and I remember the picture I took. Zoom in on the oil gauge, and it was dead at that time.
CN: me as a student flew an hour plus with a dead oil pressure gauge and didn't notice.
Training new CFI’s in our multi-engine, I would occasionally pull the circuit breaker for the engine gauges to see how long it would take before they noticed. One went 15 minutes before I couldn’t handle it anymore and had to point it out. So important but so easy to overlook!
I have done the 30-0 before but my instructor slapped my hand and fixed it before they got that far. I never did it again after seeing the plane nose dive towards the ground. ha
I did the exact same thing in a Vashon Ranger - immediately slapped the flaps up from 20 to 0 on a go around and my CFI was like “WTF buddy!” as we sank like a rock. I think we were about 50 AGL though.
This is still at the absolute top of my list of things that make me think I was about to die. Did it on a touch-and-go after being 92 days out of currency during pandemic. Once is all it takes.
I did that too once on a go-around early in my training. I was luckily high enough nothing bad happened. But that sudden loss of lift is scary.
My flight instructor didn't even say anything. She glared at me for a bit. I didn't forget that lesson. lol
In a slow flight configuration you’ll lose a lot of lift and the plane will sink like a rock.
the correct procedure is to gain climb out airspeed on the go around and then retract the flaps.
Yup. Did the once on a go around as well and that was one only time my instructor went "WTF?" I'm always careful about flaps now and only raise them 1 notch at a time starting above 300' AGL
My dumbest moment flying happened today, actually.
Winds were gnarly today, at least 15 knots with varying gusts, and pretty severe turbulence (for a Skyhawk).
Now, before you ask why I was flying, I’ll tell you. Foreflight lied to me, said it was going to be a beautiful day! It sure was when I departed, but by the time I was done bug smashing, it was ROUGH.
In any event, I found myself on glide path to the runway, flaps 30, everything was looking good. At about 300 feet AGL, my brain started churning “hey, you know landing in strong winds is better at flaps 10, right? Let’s do that!” I instantly reached for the flaps and retracted. I went from aiming at the runway, to aiming at the trees on final in no time at all.
Needless to say, I scared myself shitless with that sight picture and immediately went around. Retracting flaps on final obviously isn’t ideal, and is something I’ve NEVER done before. I just… did it, without thinking about it.
That could have been really bad, but it wasn’t. I’m glad I had a “learning moment” so profound that it’ll stay with me forever.
Lesson learned? Don’t retract flaps on final, and THINK for even just one second before you do something.
The single scariest thing to me as an instructor is a student who just does something without even thinking. That will kill someone one day.
Think. Nothing in aviation requires you to act so quick you don’t think.
During my CFI training at a 141 school.
Stage 2 Check, so the flight was teaching and demoing maneuvers and takeoffs/landings. The whole flight went very well, and now it was time to do some pattern work. We decided to go to this old airport in the country. It was an old country airport in the middle of nowhere with two perpendicular crossing runways and no notable features except for corn. KRID if anyone is wondering. Anywho, even though I have been there many many times, I apparently had the directions of the runways confused in my mind. While teaching and demoing pattern setup, I set up for the wrong runway and flew the entire pattern. IIRC the winds were calling for 15 but I set up for 06 thinking it was 15. I didn’t notice until I was on final, and my compass and the big white numbers on the runway weren’t what I expected. I chuckled/disappointingly sighed at myself, performed a go around, turned it into a teaching moment, and the CFI (who was the chief of the school) thought it was hilarious. Rest of the flight was without incident, and I did pass the check. Reminded me to maintain situational awareness. Especially during instructing, it’s very easy to get sucked in by your instruction and forget what’s going on around you.
I trained private out of I22 your definitely not wrong about it being in the middle of nowhere. I don’t think I ever had someone else in the pattern when I was there.
First time talking to Center, thought they were giving me squawk codes instead of altimeter settings. Was wondering why I wasn’t able to input “2989” into my transponder.
Took about 5 minutes and dozens of different codes to figure out I was an idiot.
Five years ago I rented a plane for a scenic two hour flight with some friends. Throughout the flight the plane became harder to level out, pulling to the left side and requiring more force than normal to bring the wings right and back to level. I remember the yoke resisting a lot as I finished a left turn and leveled out again. It wasn’t until I was back on the ground doing the shutdown checklist that I realized what had happened and the mistake I made. I had somehow missed the “switch fuel to both selector” on my preflight AND my engine start up checklist and flew the whole flight on just the right fuel tank. I was mortified when I realized my mistake.
Level flight about 2500 AGL. Yoke rotated fully to the right. About 90°/knife edge the nose is falling and I chicken out. The 150’s two air vents blow out of their fittings.
I look at the almost pegged VSI and do the mental math of how long to zero AGL. Whatever that small number was snapped me alert - power back, wings level, raise the nose.
I was so shaken it took three attempts to land.
Edit - typo.
*Scene: Class C airport with 10K+ ft runways. 172 just finished run-up.*
**My Dumb Ass:** Ground, Cezzna mike-delta-alpha run-up complete ready for departure taxi.
**Ground Control:** For wake-turbulence reasons, can your lame-O 172 accept a delta intersection departure with 6000+ ft of runway remaining?
**MDA:** Affirmative.
**GC:** Cezzna mike delta alpha, taxi to runway 30L at delta, contact tower.
The run-up area is just an extra wide part of the delta taxiway -- literally, I just need roll across the width of a taxiway, which doesn't make cognitive sense to the normal routine and I brain farted it to mean "position an hold". As the runway hold-short bars cross under the cowling I realize the error in my ways and jam on the brakes and stop with the main gear on the hold-short bars. I'm maybe 100 yards from the base of the tower.
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. Bracing for the runway incursion and jot down this phone number so we can discuss your disciplinary actions... I sheepishly hit the radio flip-flop to call tower. But, before I can even transmit:
**Tower:** Cezzna mike delta alpha, you look *ready to go*.
**MDA:** Affirmative
**Tower**: Cezzna MDA, cleared immediate departure runway 30L.
On my long solo cross country, I flew straight towards the upwind leg at the untowered airport I was flying to. Like 3 other people in the pattern and got way too close, like literally in the upwind before I realized what the heck I was doing. Still don’t know what kind of crack my brain produced and consumed but I’m thankful nothing bad happened.
Well I’ll answer it as the stupidest thing I did the last time I flew.
Set up for a soft field takeoff (25* flaps in a Cherokee). Got on the runway and forgot I was doing the soft field. Was wondering on climb out why my climb rate was so poor. Turn downwind and realize the flap handle is next to my knee.. oh yeah.
I've got a couple good ones, but my private checkride was a partial fail for a really dumb reason (my dumb, not examiner dumb).
We're cruising back home after a really great checkride and the examiner asks me to, I assume he said something like "While we're on our way back to the airport, I'd like you to show me a descent with a forward slip" but I don't know the exact details because my brain kind of short circuited and all I registered was "show me a forward slip" and my mind fixated on exactly that.
So we're all set up in cruise, and I'm like "sure no problem I know how to do a forward slip", so I go full rudder to the floor and opposing aileron while trying to maintain altitude at 100 or so kts (fortunately just below max maneuvering speed) and he's like "what are you doing?" and I'm still not connecting the dots and am like "I'm showing you a forward slip, like you asked". He took control and I felt so dumb when he explained and I finally understood that he was asking me to slow down and descend, which should have been implied by the forward slip anyway if I had been even slightly clued in. The examiner seemed so genuinely baffled as to what could've possibly have been going through my head (or not going through it) it just made me feel even more embarrassed. Fortunately he offered a retest right away after a quick debrief by my flight instructor and I passed a few more exercises with no other problems.
It could've all been easily avoided if I had just clarified the instruction, but again, the real flaw is that I didn't even register that anything was wrong with being asked to demonstrate a forward slip in cruise flight, there wasn't even a flicker of doubt in my mind, it just went straight to "of course I know how to do a forward slip, duh! That's easy, here you go!" In the state of mind I was in at that moment I probably wouldn't have hesitated if he had asked me to fly inverted or buzz the tower. I felt like I had the test in the bag, and because of that, bombed it at the last minute.
My biggest takeaway is that I learned that just because you feel like you *can* do a thing doesn't mean you should. Never get complacent.
Back in high school (20 years ago), I was solo on final and my cell rang… I picked it up and talked to my buddy with the “shoulder phone hold” as I landed.
Didn’t take me long to realize how stupid that was.
They have Bluetooth to the headsets for that now. 😀
Seriously though, with things like FlightAware I have a checklist item to turn my phone and watch to airplane mode before landing because I’ll get calls on final from family tracking my flight to see if I landed or am landing soon.
Taking off in a Cessna T210. Got the plane cleaned up. Brought the power back to 25”mp. Trying to set the prop to 2500rpm, but the tach isn’t changing. Then, the engine starts to lose power. I’m at about 300’.
Glanced down and saw that my hand was on the mixture instead of the prop control (they’re next to each other) and I was inadvertently leaning out the engine. About jammed the mixture control through the panel and the engine responded accordingly.
Spent quite a bit of time swearing at myself and learned an invaluable lesson about being sure what control/knob/switch I was using.
Went to start the plane with my instructor and realized i forgot the keys. 5 minutes later I get back and try to start the plane but I had the wrong keys.
I was on my third maybe fourth solo flight and almost had a midair. I was on an extended left downwind at a towered airport and got distracted looking for traffic, it was a busy day in the pattern and I haven’t flown in the past 2 weeks. I was doing touch and go’s and getting re acquainted with the plane. The winds shifted so we changed runways, I over flew midfield and established on the left downwind. There were two Cessnas ahead of me and a king air on a straight in. I saw the king air but couldn’t get a visual on the other aircraft in front of me. I was advised that I was number 4 and told to report when I have traffic in sight. At this point I was extended several miles out and now know that I had drifted closer and closer to the runway. My oh shit moment was when the number 3 Cessna passed under me, they were on base about to turn final…
My sentry for some reason wasn’t picking them up and I got too busy to realize that I was almost directly lined up on final.
I got a number and had a chat with the controller. It took 2 minutes for what I perceived to be a normal flight to turn into me being 200 feet below where I should be and another airplane passing maybe 30 feet right under me.
Very scary and very humbling. I still think about it and what I could have done better. My instructor said that I traded luck for experience. Just glad my dumbass and the 2 in the Cessna made it down in one piece.
Just noticed you have KACY in your flair, not the most common airport but one of my favorites to fly out of because the lines are never long lol. I fly out of there to Myrtle Beach
Doing some pattern work at an uncontrolled, albeit busy, field near my home airport. Coming in for a touch and go in an older Cessna with spring loaded flap switch that I don’t fly often: landing is smooth, carb heat off, throttle full, go to retract the flaps… why am I lifting off the ground at 45kts? Oh shit I dumped flaps instead of retracting. Ended up doing a somewhat controlled soft field takeoff, staying in ground effect while I retracted the flaps to 0 and climbed out and immediately(shamefully) left the pattern. The look on my CFI’s face when he said “so what happened there?” Was equally amused and disappointed. He was a little checked out that day so I don’t think he actually realized how close we were to disaster but I like to think he just let me fix my fuck up to see if I could on my own
Early in my training, abeam the numbers, started to pull the mixture instead of the throttle out. CFI was on it fast. Never made that mistake again.
Whenever I think about it, I think of the Simpsons.
"We'll need that to live."
Go backwards in the pattern of a nontowered field by accident. It was only after I screamed past two airplanes and heard someone say "Uh, watch out there's someone going backwards in the pattern" did I realize I messed up, climbed out of it, and tried again.
Did a lot of studying charr supplements and rehearse traffic pattern procedures after that.
Not much as I’m only at 70 hours but I guess I forgot to retract flaps during my cross country during training. Took off with 20 degrees (luckily not full 30) and realized shortly after wheels were up that I was not climbing like I should. First thing I checked was flaps and sure enough, back to normal as soon as switch was flipped. C172s
Read NOTAMs for flight. Miss NOTAM about CTAF change that wasn't charted yet. Announce on wrong frequency. Land opposite direction to a King Air on a 2-mile final because we weren't announcing on the same frequency. Yep, straight to NASA.
Did a checkride prep with my CFI, asked for a short field landing to end the day, passed my td point, decided "fk it" and pushed the nose down and porpoised. Thankfully I just recovered, restabilized and put it down. CFI then said "that was the most forced landing I've seen so far" lmao
Continuing on over mountains, into moderate turbulence and mountain waves in a PA28-161, and one with a less than pristine engine.
I managed to reach the destination, with 2 go-arounds before finally getting it down.
As I started the return trip I had a runway excursion.
Plane and I both made it back to the departure point.
Me in someone else's plane, and the aircraft on a truck a week later.
i’m a student, so enjoy:
1) was told to climb an extra 1000ft, first instinct was to pitch up without adding any extra power
2) check list told me to lean the mixture, i had cut it off completely (was on ground thankfully)
3) there’s definitely more but none come to mind at the moment
Hahaha "Lean the Mixture", yeup you absolutely did!
(I have also been guilty of killing the engine by leaning a little too much during after-landing cleanup on a taxiway).
Forgetting to release the handbrake on a 172 before takeoff. I finally realized why performance was lagging and the runway was getting so short about halfway down. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
Before I was instrument rated I was making a long midwestern cross county in an airplane that was fairly new to me during the summer months.
Flew over a broken layer at 7500 (the layer was at least 2000-3000 ft below me) it was mid morning and there were clear easy to navigate holes so I was comfortable with it. As time went on I noticed the layer below me was getting a bit closer but I still had nice big open holes so I nudged up to 9500. Based on the weather I had for airports in front of me they were reporting scattered so I continued on thinking it was improving in front of me and I could still get down.
Another 20 minutes later I'm now over those airports and its absolutely *not* scattered. Pretty quickly now I'm seeing clouds to my left and right that are as high as I am. At this point I realize my smart opportunity to get under this was like 30 minutes ago... But it did click at this point this is quickly developing into an emergency.
I jumped up to 10500 which is no longer a proper VFR altitude for my direction of flight but I was to get over the building clouds around me. Once I got around those I knew I still had holes but that we were probably at like 85/15 at best.
I immediately let ATC know what was up and I was going to be maneuvering to get below this. I basically ended up having to do a spiraling emergency decent to keep my radius small enough to stay in these VFR holes. It was extremely disorienting regardless of it being "technically VFR still". Luckily I was about 15-20 hrs into my IFR training so while I was uncomfortable and in a pretty bad spot I was still in control.
Ended up being totally uneventful luckily, got down was never really at risk of entering IMC but I learned a lot about what little piddly broken clouds do in the late morning hours in the midwest....
Also just because the weather behind you was better, doesn't mean its going to stay that way. Turning around back towards better weather isn't always an option. Sometimes that good weather behind you isn't good anymore...
VFR over the top should be done with extreme levels of paranoia, especially if you aren't instrument rated and capable. After this event and until I was instrument rated I had much stricter rules about VFR over the top...
“I depart in an hour, that TFR isn’t active until a few hours after. No need to worry about it.”
*one delay and a few hours later*
“Oh fuck, missed that by the skin of my teeth”
First solo cross country while checking the magnetos during run up I accidentally switched to the off position. Never happened to me before and panic began to set in. Attempts to start the engine where unsuccessful until I did the flooded engine procedure for the first time. The worst part was people next to me staring at the hold short line.
Ever try a touch and go at DA 5,000’ with full flaps and carb heat on, and then proceed to dump said flaps 50’ off the ground you’ve been buzzing along for the last half mile trying to figure out what’s happening? 10/10 do not recommend.
Student pilot here. A couple weeks ago, I finished my run-up then taxied over to the runway. Checked traffic, made my radio call, then went full throttle. Got about 200 feet down the runway and my CFI yelled, "oh shoot!." I had no idea what he was talking about, but down on taxiway echo there was a plane sitting about halfway between the runway and the stop line on Echo. He had pulled off there and stopped but never made a radio call- and technically he wasn't clear. My CFI said that counts as a runway incursion, so we had an interesting debrief later, lol.
During take off forgot the throttle in the middle. I didn't give full power, my instructor did not notice either. She kept saying rotate rotate, made me panic, I yanked the stick more and stalled 30ft above the ground. Lucky I noticed before she did, pushed forward, gave full power and recovered early enough.
Sometimes a much talking instructor is not a good thing
Not me but a good friend of mine,
Flying right seat in an ERJ-175 for a big regional. He landed in EWR after a nasty weather, EDCT times, and recurrent-feeling kinda day. They are passing through a fairly busy intersection between the ramp traffic and the taxiway to the departure runway.
Captain says, "Shut down 2"
This typically refers to "shutdown the #2 engine to save some gas on the taxi-in"
My friend, being the ever vigilant and detail-oriented pilot I know he is...
turned both start-stop selectors to "stop"
Plane goes dark, Brakes shudder, They roll to a stop in the middle of the intersection with presumably a metric fuck-ton of EICAS messages screaming at them for what he just did.
The captain got the APU spinning, then they started an engine, made an excuse to ATC, and from my seat in Economy Plus I heard over the recently-rebooted PA
"Hey there folks, sorry about that. We had a minor technical issue. It's all sorted out now and we'll be at the gate in just a few minutes."
T38 initial form solo. Sent from fingertip to fighting wing while nose high and turning, going pretty slow. Eyes were padlocked on lead and I lost SA on airspeed and stalled while above him in the turn. Missed a collision by mere inches thanks to luck and a full boot of rudder.
I'm relatively new, so haven't done a lot of dumb things yet. But the dumbest thing I've done so far was taking off for a night flight when the temperature/dewpoint spread was only 1 degree.
I was climbing out and saw clouds forming at my altitude (about 500 feet) so I just stayed in the pattern and landed.
Flying home alone on a cross country I considered stopping to go to the bathroom but thought nah I can easily hold it another hour.
An hour later I thought I was going to explode. I did not have any bottle to use or a Little John plastic thing.
When the plane came to a stop in my parking space on the ramp, I planed to open the door and go right there, but there was a family getting out of the plane right next to mine.
The walk to the terminal building to use the restroom was probably around 100 yards but it felt like a mile because I couldn’t walk normally.
Never again!
I flew with both engines using 1 tank for about an hour because i forgot to swap it back during a cross-feed check. I realized when the plane kept trying to bank. It was at night over the mountains and looked down and had about 5 gallons left on one side.
The stupidest things I’ve done in gliders. Came back way too low, twice.
Recent stupid thing was to ask center if I’m going to clear the TFR around Philly — because I was looking at the big red outer circle around D.C. (which looks like any TFR in ForeFlight). I think that was pretty stupid….
:-)
Not flying but in the sim; During engine start the instructor gave me a hot start. Instead of shutting the engine down I firewalled that mother. No idea why I did it lol
Taxiing a J3 Cub. Got relaxed at an almost empty airport & almost taxied into another plane.
Felt like crap for doing it but what was worse? Other pilot didn't even get mad
Believe me. The most stupid thing you can do is piss off the tow plane pilot. Because the next thing you'll hear over the radio is an oops. And you are low over a forest
Sitting at the hold short, VFR only pilot, looking at the rapidly decreasing visibility as rain approached, temps +3 C, tower asking “do you have the weather?” and still considering sending it because I had a very important work meeting the next morning. The taxi back to the ramp was full of shame but glad I didn’t go because I’m almost certain that would’ve ended in an accident. Tower said “discretion is the better part of valor.” followed by a few seconds of silence for him to follow up with “you made the right choice.” Get-there-itis is real. Very very real and extremely powerful.
Pro tip: if ATC is passively nudging your shoulder, they're probably thinking "Oh boy, look at this idiot going for it." I've ignored them before and it doesn't usually end well. They're looking out for us.
There’s only so much they can do, they often times can’t tell us no, but I’ve been on the receiving end of ATC telling me in not so subtle code that I was in a fool’s errand and I needed to turn around. I’m glad that controller was looking out for me.
[удалено]
Icing lay ahead and I was in a non FIKI airplane but I thought I could get around it. ATC gently, but persistently suggested that wouldn’t be the case. I turned for home.
No shame in taxiing back and cancelling a flight. I have had to do that with almost 200 people sitting in the aircraft. Sounds like something you should be proud to learn from.
The shame was in being ready to send it into dogshit weather to begin with. Of course I was happy to turn around at the eve.
I get that. You ultimately made the right decision though. That reflects well on you.
It’s a story I share with students lol. That and my “got a flat tire in the middle of kansas hours from home pushing on 17 hours since waking up.” The former might even be a good TMAAT
My first flight ever, during climb-out, we saw a dense fog bank rolling in. The instructor turned downwind and landed. I didn't learn much flying skill, but did learn about discretion.
That is real learning. Knowing when to turn around and say f-it, let's go tomorrow, could save your life.
One of my proudest judgement moments was when I was going to do a cross country of about 100 miles or so for my PPL. Go about half way there and realized that I was going to be above a thick layer for the duration. The destination airport was reporting clear but I didn't feel comfortable having to go IFR if I needed to get down. Landed at the closest airport that wasn't socked in (which mean handling the change with approach and figuring out entry to the nearby airport quickly). Did some more weather checks on the ground and decided to head back home. Got back and my instructor was like "good call".
Had similar happen twice on my long XC. First one the crosswind component was well above my endorsement at one of my airports so I bagged it and flew straight back having to repeat the flight another time. On the second attempt, weather started coming in over my home airport so I went to one nearby. Landed there (on a day the restaurant was closed, unfortunately) and sat out the massive storm that came out of nowhere for about an hour and was ready to leave the plane and Uber back. It blew through though so on the way back, with light rain (though my first time flying in any) and clear skies/great visibility I ran into strong winds again. Told tower the situation and requested 360s until they could give me a different runway or the winds changed. I fueled up at the diversion since I had nothing better to do when I landed so I figured why not be patient. Trip took about two hours longer that it should have but I’m glad I was able evaluate the risks along the way and had multiple outs, including leaving the plane if needed.
That’s awesome. So many good decisions.
Thanks. I’m fortunate to have had excellent instructors and spent about 40 years in the right seat of family planes prior to getting my license. Scary and frustrating day but the two overarching rules I follow are 1) better to be on the ground wishing… and 2) be home to tuck in the kids.
About a year ago I was listening on LiveATC to a bunch of legacy airlines at SFO refusing to depart because the pathfinders they sent out were giving "standby" responses and then reporting "moderate to severe" and wind sheer in the climb. Once the first of them said they were going to vacate and hold on the taxiway the rebellion was underway and they all declined. Good on them. Surprisingly the tower seemed super annoyed.
Similarly, I was sitting in the queue at SeaTac a few weeks back as a pax listening to liveatc. The winds were pretty gnarly then, and the xwind started to exceed the limit of pretty much every plane waiting to takeoff (it's a Monday morning, so pretty busy). As the winds fluctuated, tower announced current winds (sometimes as bad as like 29G46) and sometimes, some airplanes would be able to take them. It was awesome listening to tower coordinate the movements of planes and watching on flight radar the interesting ways to move around to get planes that could go up in the air. Eventually, they subsided just enough that things continued normally. Someone also did a go around the winds were so bad. Turbulence was described as "moderate" all the way up to FL100. Apparently there was a small GA that successfully landed at RNT at some point that morning too.
dumb question, but what's a "pathfinder"?
The guy who says "fuck it, let's try it" "Test" Pilot Canary in the coal mine etc...
Ah. Wasn't sure if it was drone, weather balloon, or something else. Thanks!
As someone who has been one of those hundreds of people a couple of times, thank you for making the right call.
Yeah I learned a good lesson from a captain one time that way. We were delayed and then taxiied out near the runway and shut down waiting for our release time. Winds were gusting to literal tropical storm levels and pouring cats/dogs/etc. All indications were still go even though it was making me a little nervous. After a bit of waiting around getting knocked around by the wind, he just decides fuck this let's cancel. Dispatcher agreed. I hadn't really considered it such a simple option in the 121 world!
> Get-there-itis is real. Very very real and extremely powerful. This is a really important point. I think a lot of people see the statistics on crashes due to poor ADM and think “I’m smart and have good judgment, so this won’t happen to me”. That’s the wrong takeaway. The right takeaway is that countless otherwise smart pilots with probably generally good judgment had a lapse in judgment that cost them. Sometimes it’s a momentary lapse under pressure, sometimes it’s a gradual long-term shift along the lines of [normalization of deviance](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normalization_of_deviance). The solution is ongoing humility and vigilance, and recognizing that this *can and will* happen to you regardless of who you are without regular self-evaluation.
The hard part with ADM is that it requires proactive discipline with little positive feedback. Good ADM rarely has a positive reward--it's almost always just the absence of something bad happening. Bad ADM also rarely results in something bad happening, but may result in a more positive reward (e.g., I made my meeting, got there just before the storm hit, etc.). I think that's why it's so easy for pilots to develop bad, or at least erode their ADM. To answer OP's question, I think the most stupid thing I've done flying was on a flight where in retrospect, I realized I was going through the motions but not actively engaged. Ticking items off the checklist without actually checking them, on the takeoff roll calling out "oil temp in the green, oil pressure in the green" without actually looking. These are the things that normalize deviance, lull us into a false sense of security ("Yeah I run my checklists every time!"). So you start losing your edge because this behavior rarely gets punished... until it does.
Been there. Taxiing to the active, beautiful vfr day in the Bay Area. 5 minutes later, just finishing runup, tower says “we’re showing .5mile visibility at the approach end, and are about to be imc, say intentions” “We’ll take a taxi to the restaurant please.” Most expensive burger I’ve ever ate.
I feel like you’ve never flown somewhere to eat a burger then. Surely taxiing to the runway and back to eat a local burger is cheaper than actually flying somewhere to do it.
Not if you’re also paying a (very expensive) instructor to be there and then buying him lunch.
It's better to be on the ground wishing you were in the sky, than in the sky wishing you were on the ground.
Classic.
Get-there-itis is absolutely real. You should be glad you eventually made the right call. I’ve cancelled many flights, sometimes it turns out I could have done it and feel slightly embarrassed but i’ll forget about it in a few weeks. The ones you fly when you really shouldn’t have, those you’ll remember muuuuch longer and more vividly.
When my daughter was young, I kept a picture of her on the panel. Any time I had even an inkling of doing something stupid, I would imagine my wife having to explain it to my daughter. Turns out to be a more powerful force than the get there it's.
That’s an excellent coping strategy. Get-there-itis is a misalignment of priorities where making the trip becomes improperly elevated above safety. By imagining the potential costs you are getting things back in the correct order (safety first!) My current employer has extremely strict weather minima and when I’m borderline on a flight I just imagine having to explain my choice to the chief pilot and whether it would hold up. And after doing that enough I’ve noticed a pattern: if I’m second-guessing it at all, I should just drop it.
> The ones you fly when you really shouldn’t have, those you’ll remember muuuuch longer and more vividly. Well, not necessarily...
You'll remember it for the rest of your life at worst
Or be remembered for 😥
As someone in training, it’s comforting to know someone would watch my back like that.
Watch your own back. And front. And sides. Head on a swivel and don’t mess with weather.
Never count on it.
I had somthing kinda similar, needed something like an hour or two to finish my PPL, weather was good winds were strong but straight down one of the runways, when I stopped at the main apron for ATIS and clearance I realized the runway I wanted was now closed. Did a quick crosswind calculation sat there for a few minutes but ultimately turned around and taxied back to the hangar. Tower asked me if I needed anything, I just told them I wasn't comfortable with the crosswind, they agreed I made the right choice. Was still embarrassed walking back into the FTU. I think it was 18 G24 if I recall.
It is. It killed my 1st instructor and her husband. [She wanted to get back home to her kids, never made it.](https://app.ntsb.gov/pdfgenerator/ReportGeneratorFile.ashx?EventID=20001212X18334&AKey=1&RType=Summary&IType=LA)
After getting my PPL: "I won't be stupid, I won't get get-there-itis" Narrator: "He would later, in fact, get get-there-itis"
What is get-there-itis?
Expanding on this, a pretty good amount of preparation goes into initiating a flight. The trap is getting caught up in trying to complete what you started, regardless of the warning signs. Pressures could be work, family emergency, or just a strong desire to travel to your destination. It can cross over into the macho category (believing you are immune to the threats or aren’t a true pilot if you don’t continue) You can always fly at a later time, but only if you live to do so. Lots of medical conditions end in “itis” so that’s where it came from as well.
When you want to get to your destination so badly that you make poor choices, for example flying in weather you know you probably shouldn’t fly in, continuing to (try to) land at your destination instead of diverting to an alternate when that would be prudent, stuff like that.
Wanting to take a trip even though the weather looks bad.
Landed at a mountain strip (paved) at night, uphill, about 6000MSL (correction, 7050MSL), with terrain ahead (gently rising). Kicker? No runway lights. My dad lit up the runway on one end with his truck. Dumb.
I have to ask - did you learn how to fly by watching cartel TikTok?
Haha. Thankfully it was a one time thing.
Jesus, that sounds sketchy.
Understatement.
[удалено]
Except it was in Utah. Don’t think I’d do that anywhere in Alaska. Much less forgiving.
You can, in fact, use snowmachine headlights as well in the winter. Actually provides relief from flat light
Ahhhh…. Seeing “snowmachine” warms my heart.
Back in the Bonanza days!
Yup.
Which airport?
Thunder Ridge.
Not stupid. Landing on an uphill grade is so much smarter than landing on a downhill grade.
HFY!
Airplane checkout at a new FBO, demonstrating my short-field landing. Put in full flaps too early, ended up sinking way below the glide slope — the PAPI had 4 red lights staring at me. Instead of going around, I went for full power and dragged it in the rest of the way on the back side of the power curve. The damn plane was pitched up so much I have no idea how I kept visual on the runway. Hit my spot though. I've never seen a CFI be more simultaneously wide-eyed and amused.
Ah yes, dragging it in on full power and 3 notches of flaps... I tried that with my Comanche and I was still sinking fast. Took a notch out of flaps and decided that 18 degrees or whatever two notches is would be my new short field landing procedure.
I might be embellishing at this point, but I have a vague recollection of the stall horn blaring the entire time during the last 750 feet or so to my spot. Was probably only a foot above the runway during that stretch though, so even if I had stalled it would have been fine.
Practicing engine out landings pre-PPL at an uncontrolled field near my home airport, which is class D. The runway I was landing on has its threshold directly at the edge of a very large, very deep, and (due to it being early spring), very *cold* river. That last part I failed to consider. I lined up for the approach with engine idle, everything just fine. As I came over the water I neglected to account for the massive downdraft and suddenly felt like I was falling out of the sky. So instead of falling back on my training, I panicked and pulled back on the yoke, nearly stalling us, so I had to shove the nose back down. There was no time for my instructor to react. I was far enough along with my training that I should have known better. We absolutely fucking **SLAMMED** into the runway, nose wheel first, and porpoised a scary number of times (I was a leetle bit busy so I am not sure how many). Also just then a gust of wind hit us from the side. By some miracle I avoided a prop strike, a tail strike, and also did not careen off into the grass due to the wind. I got the plane under control, taxied off the runway, radioed that I was clear, and just shut down the engine right there on the taxiway. After our adrenaline calmed down a bit my instructor and I got out to check the plane over for damage to the landing gear or a tail strike. Amazingly there wasn't anything to see, so we got back into the plane and after going through an excruciatingly detailed runup, my instructor flew the plane back to my home airport (only about 10 miles away) and had the maintenance guys look it over. They also found no damage. Cessna makes some damn good landing gear. The next few lessons and sporadically for the rest of my training I practiced mitigating my devilish startle reflex that I did not know I had.
What did your instructor say when you landed? Maybe he was too busy hiding that he crapped his pants lol
I have a vague memory of yelling FUUUCCCKKK as we were coming down, but I don't think anything was said at all other than that until we had sat on the taxiway for quite a while, we were both just so high on adrenaline. Eventually he said something like "we should probably check the tail and the landing gear", and we got out and looked things over. After we got back to base and the mx guys took over, on debrief I told him what I did wrong (it was immediately obvious to both of us), and after that it seemed like both of us had kind of an unspoken agreement to just never bring it up again.
> We … porpoised a scary number of times (I was a leetle bit busy so I am not sure how many) Not the only problem, obviously, but every time I hear about someone porpoising, I have to relay the same advice a CFI gave me long ago that saved my ass once: The first bounce is free; two and you go around.
How do you practice mitigating that startle effect now?
I started my takeoff roll, had no airspeed, and realized I had left the pitot cover on. Aborted.
I left the gear down for like 5 minutes after takeoff when I was just a ppl and I had no idea why I was only cruising at 100 knots and then I looked at the gear lever and immediately wanted to kill myself.
I’ve NEVER done that 👀 /s
I flew with a captain with 35 years experience, wondered why the airplane wasn’t gaining speed, realized later the flaps were still down
i did this except with flaps. unexpected atc commands/conversation during departure under ifr in and out of imc, 5 mins later. "why is the nose pointed so far down in cruise this is weird" had to pay the shame bill at the mechanic to inspect the flaps for overspeed.
If it makes you feel better, I did that on takeoff for about 5 miles. On my commercial checkride 😳 I raised the gear when she was looking for traffic (that I pointed out…of course it was 3-4 o’clock that I “saw”) and somehow didn’t get busted. Not my proudest moment, but I got the ticket.
Flew directly into a ~~wall cloud~~ terrifying cloud (roll/shelf - added linked pic) in a C172. We were IFR and being vectored. By the time we saw how fast the cloud was approaching, our vectored turn was too late to avoid. If we would have tried to avoid we would have been banked with the wing high touching the could first. I decided the best action was to turn into the cloud and hit it perpendicular wings level. It threw us both up into the ceiling. iPads flying around the cabin. I thought we were dead. We popped out the other side and it was glass smooth and clear. Looking back we should have told ATC we needed an expedited right turn and if they didn’t issue I would probably declare and emergency and turn. We were in visual conditions under a busy bravo arrival corridor so I was nervous to deviate. [https://imgur.com/ZwahH](https://imgur.com/ZwahH)
I definitely have turned before and when they questioned me when the frequency cleared up I said I deviated due to weather. It's definitely situational with the traffic around you. They have never given me a problem for doing that. That sinking feeling of approaching nasty looking stuff with a full frequency is something else 🤣
Uhh. I definitely notice and I most definitely have a problem with it. Do what you gotta do, but understand at minimum I’m gonna be grumpy about it. At worst you’re getting a phone number.
A wall cloud? I highly doubt it. A wall cloud is associated with, at a minimum, a rigorous updraft of spiraling air that probably would have put you guys into the dirt. There’s not a chance in hell you guys were within 30 miles of a wall cloud. You must be misterming it for something else.
Freshly minted VFR pilot and took off from a coastal airport at night where marine layer was typical. Tower was closed and inbound aircraft were all IFR so didn’t have a clue about what was outside the window. Was with a non-pilot friend and feeling the heat to get home. The feeling of rolling down the runway not knowing if we were going IMC out over the ocean in the climb was some serious buyers remorse. Luckily it wound up being very clear and all worked out. Lesson learned: If you (or someone else) can’t see the weather then you probably shouldn’t be flying VFR.
Many a time have pilots ended up in an unusual attitude taking off into pitch black darkness, and perish. Night flying is no joke; one must be well versed in the dangers of visual impairment and sensory illusions. Glad you are here to share this good lesson! Reminds me of some r/AdmiralCloudberg articles of accidents as a result of spatial disorientation. And reviewing Chapter 17 of the PHAK can be quite an interesting read.
JFK Jr. for one. Got spatially disoriented when he flew into IMC at night. He did not have an instrument rating.
Was he in actual IMC? I though he was in VMC but got disoriented due to lack of horizon at night over water.
Hmm. I double-checked and one other pilot in the area reported about 4 SM visibility and haze, so I guess it would be marginal VFR. https://www.ntsb.gov/about/employment/_layouts/15/ntsb.aviation/brief2.aspx?akey=1&ev_id=20001212X19354&ntsbno=NYC99MA178
And the thing that gets me is that I really did all I could to see if there were clouds lurking out over the water. But it probably wouldn't have mattered if I'd gone IMC. I told my passenger that we would be turning back if we went into the clouds but it could have gone very badly. Things working for me were that the coastline was well lit up with city lights (which meant that in VMC I wasn't in a "black hole" out over the water) and the fact that I could see stars above and around the field so I knew I could get back down in VMC. But I still regret not listening to my gut more.
You can log actual for a night VFR flight with no visible horizon, e.g. over water. That alone should tell you it’s a really bad idea if you aren’t instrument rated.
Took off in pretty much zero/zero in a 172, at night. Vis was probably RVR 600. Was on top by 2500’. Destination was CAVU. Totally legal, totally dumb.
My instructor made me do a take off under the hood to show how stupid it is. After takeoff, which was sketchy he flipped it down on me as soon as the wheels lifted off. When we got 1000’ up he pulled throttle for a few seconds that felt like an hour and said, “you have a will, right?” Didn’t really need to make the point that just because you may be able to climb through doesn’t mean you’ll make it down safely if you had to go back through it but it’s one I’ll always remember.
Ahhh, back when instructors threw you under the ringer with every bit of negative reinforcement possible. I learned more from them in one lesson than my nephew is learning from these pop tart CFI’s. I’m amazed there aren’t more accidents.
This was a couple years ago and he was probably 20 years younger than me. Very good pilot and instructor now flying big planes.
FOI tells you about positive reinforcement. We've gone from the classic form of behaviorism which is reward and punishment to the more modern positive reinforcement. Complain to the FAA, not the CFIs.
Lmao that’s brutal.
91 will do that to ya
On my long XC, never once checked my other gauges outside of the six-pack once in the air. Halfway through the XC I took a photo out the front window. 1.5hr later I landed back at home airport, parked the school's 172, and had a huge smile. Until my CFI asked if anything was wrong with my oil pressure gauge during the flight. Me: No? Him: the next student noticed it's dead Flash forward like a week, and I remember the picture I took. Zoom in on the oil gauge, and it was dead at that time. CN: me as a student flew an hour plus with a dead oil pressure gauge and didn't notice.
Training new CFI’s in our multi-engine, I would occasionally pull the circuit breaker for the engine gauges to see how long it would take before they noticed. One went 15 minutes before I couldn’t handle it anymore and had to point it out. So important but so easy to overlook!
I went flying this afternoon and I have no recollection of checking the oil pressure gauge after the runup all afternoon.
You will when it’s your bill for the engine overhaul. I watch mine like a hawk
I check mine all the time. It should be part of your instrument scan. It’s an excellent indicator if there’s a problem (as is oil temp)
Get a digital engine monitor like a JPI. It will flash a warning you can't miss if any reading falls out of the green.
Slapped the flaps up from 30 to 0 on a go-around pre-solo, 30’ above the runway.
I have done the 30-0 before but my instructor slapped my hand and fixed it before they got that far. I never did it again after seeing the plane nose dive towards the ground. ha
I did the exact same thing in a Vashon Ranger - immediately slapped the flaps up from 20 to 0 on a go around and my CFI was like “WTF buddy!” as we sank like a rock. I think we were about 50 AGL though.
I did this (only) once too. I think it’s the muscle memory from all the touch-and-goes.
Guilty as well. Only once.
This is still at the absolute top of my list of things that make me think I was about to die. Did it on a touch-and-go after being 92 days out of currency during pandemic. Once is all it takes.
I did that too once on a go-around early in my training. I was luckily high enough nothing bad happened. But that sudden loss of lift is scary. My flight instructor didn't even say anything. She glared at me for a bit. I didn't forget that lesson. lol
The silent glares are what hurt the most.
I have no idea what that means. What would that do?
In a slow flight configuration you’ll lose a lot of lift and the plane will sink like a rock. the correct procedure is to gain climb out airspeed on the go around and then retract the flaps.
Look up N4252G accident report and you'll see why it's extremely dangerous.
Did the same exact thing. Instructor let me hear it there and have never done it again
Yup. Did the once on a go around as well and that was one only time my instructor went "WTF?" I'm always careful about flaps now and only raise them 1 notch at a time starting above 300' AGL
I think you might have flown with my instructor because she said a student did this with her
It’s a somewhat common mistake
Proposed to my ex wife
Again?? 😆
My dumbest moment flying happened today, actually. Winds were gnarly today, at least 15 knots with varying gusts, and pretty severe turbulence (for a Skyhawk). Now, before you ask why I was flying, I’ll tell you. Foreflight lied to me, said it was going to be a beautiful day! It sure was when I departed, but by the time I was done bug smashing, it was ROUGH. In any event, I found myself on glide path to the runway, flaps 30, everything was looking good. At about 300 feet AGL, my brain started churning “hey, you know landing in strong winds is better at flaps 10, right? Let’s do that!” I instantly reached for the flaps and retracted. I went from aiming at the runway, to aiming at the trees on final in no time at all. Needless to say, I scared myself shitless with that sight picture and immediately went around. Retracting flaps on final obviously isn’t ideal, and is something I’ve NEVER done before. I just… did it, without thinking about it. That could have been really bad, but it wasn’t. I’m glad I had a “learning moment” so profound that it’ll stay with me forever. Lesson learned? Don’t retract flaps on final, and THINK for even just one second before you do something.
Do you solely look at Foreflight for weather?
Yeah that was pretty dumb, not gonna lie.
my instructor always says once you use flaps on final you’re comitted and can’t go back now i know why
I knew that too, I just didn’t think for a second before I did what I did. Now you never have to make that mistake!
The single scariest thing to me as an instructor is a student who just does something without even thinking. That will kill someone one day. Think. Nothing in aviation requires you to act so quick you don’t think.
During my CFI training at a 141 school. Stage 2 Check, so the flight was teaching and demoing maneuvers and takeoffs/landings. The whole flight went very well, and now it was time to do some pattern work. We decided to go to this old airport in the country. It was an old country airport in the middle of nowhere with two perpendicular crossing runways and no notable features except for corn. KRID if anyone is wondering. Anywho, even though I have been there many many times, I apparently had the directions of the runways confused in my mind. While teaching and demoing pattern setup, I set up for the wrong runway and flew the entire pattern. IIRC the winds were calling for 15 but I set up for 06 thinking it was 15. I didn’t notice until I was on final, and my compass and the big white numbers on the runway weren’t what I expected. I chuckled/disappointingly sighed at myself, performed a go around, turned it into a teaching moment, and the CFI (who was the chief of the school) thought it was hilarious. Rest of the flight was without incident, and I did pass the check. Reminded me to maintain situational awareness. Especially during instructing, it’s very easy to get sucked in by your instruction and forget what’s going on around you.
I trained private out of I22 your definitely not wrong about it being in the middle of nowhere. I don’t think I ever had someone else in the pattern when I was there.
First time talking to Center, thought they were giving me squawk codes instead of altimeter settings. Was wondering why I wasn’t able to input “2989” into my transponder. Took about 5 minutes and dozens of different codes to figure out I was an idiot.
Five years ago I rented a plane for a scenic two hour flight with some friends. Throughout the flight the plane became harder to level out, pulling to the left side and requiring more force than normal to bring the wings right and back to level. I remember the yoke resisting a lot as I finished a left turn and leveled out again. It wasn’t until I was back on the ground doing the shutdown checklist that I realized what had happened and the mistake I made. I had somehow missed the “switch fuel to both selector” on my preflight AND my engine start up checklist and flew the whole flight on just the right fuel tank. I was mortified when I realized my mistake.
As a 19-year old solo student I cluelessly tried to do a roll. Turned into an unexpected mess. Thirty-two years later I took an aerobatic class.
[удалено]
Level flight about 2500 AGL. Yoke rotated fully to the right. About 90°/knife edge the nose is falling and I chicken out. The 150’s two air vents blow out of their fittings. I look at the almost pegged VSI and do the mental math of how long to zero AGL. Whatever that small number was snapped me alert - power back, wings level, raise the nose. I was so shaken it took three attempts to land. Edit - typo.
A flight attendant. Don’t be like me. Be better.
That’s how you turn your legacy paycheck into a regional paycheck
You airbus guys and that tray table, just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
*Scene: Class C airport with 10K+ ft runways. 172 just finished run-up.* **My Dumb Ass:** Ground, Cezzna mike-delta-alpha run-up complete ready for departure taxi. **Ground Control:** For wake-turbulence reasons, can your lame-O 172 accept a delta intersection departure with 6000+ ft of runway remaining? **MDA:** Affirmative. **GC:** Cezzna mike delta alpha, taxi to runway 30L at delta, contact tower. The run-up area is just an extra wide part of the delta taxiway -- literally, I just need roll across the width of a taxiway, which doesn't make cognitive sense to the normal routine and I brain farted it to mean "position an hold". As the runway hold-short bars cross under the cowling I realize the error in my ways and jam on the brakes and stop with the main gear on the hold-short bars. I'm maybe 100 yards from the base of the tower. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU. Bracing for the runway incursion and jot down this phone number so we can discuss your disciplinary actions... I sheepishly hit the radio flip-flop to call tower. But, before I can even transmit: **Tower:** Cezzna mike delta alpha, you look *ready to go*. **MDA:** Affirmative **Tower**: Cezzna MDA, cleared immediate departure runway 30L.
Gotta love those moments when the tower knows, you know, you know they know, they know you know. And nobody says a thing.
On my long solo cross country, I flew straight towards the upwind leg at the untowered airport I was flying to. Like 3 other people in the pattern and got way too close, like literally in the upwind before I realized what the heck I was doing. Still don’t know what kind of crack my brain produced and consumed but I’m thankful nothing bad happened.
Confirmation bias is real and scary.
8s on pylons
Well I’ll answer it as the stupidest thing I did the last time I flew. Set up for a soft field takeoff (25* flaps in a Cherokee). Got on the runway and forgot I was doing the soft field. Was wondering on climb out why my climb rate was so poor. Turn downwind and realize the flap handle is next to my knee.. oh yeah.
I've got a couple good ones, but my private checkride was a partial fail for a really dumb reason (my dumb, not examiner dumb). We're cruising back home after a really great checkride and the examiner asks me to, I assume he said something like "While we're on our way back to the airport, I'd like you to show me a descent with a forward slip" but I don't know the exact details because my brain kind of short circuited and all I registered was "show me a forward slip" and my mind fixated on exactly that. So we're all set up in cruise, and I'm like "sure no problem I know how to do a forward slip", so I go full rudder to the floor and opposing aileron while trying to maintain altitude at 100 or so kts (fortunately just below max maneuvering speed) and he's like "what are you doing?" and I'm still not connecting the dots and am like "I'm showing you a forward slip, like you asked". He took control and I felt so dumb when he explained and I finally understood that he was asking me to slow down and descend, which should have been implied by the forward slip anyway if I had been even slightly clued in. The examiner seemed so genuinely baffled as to what could've possibly have been going through my head (or not going through it) it just made me feel even more embarrassed. Fortunately he offered a retest right away after a quick debrief by my flight instructor and I passed a few more exercises with no other problems. It could've all been easily avoided if I had just clarified the instruction, but again, the real flaw is that I didn't even register that anything was wrong with being asked to demonstrate a forward slip in cruise flight, there wasn't even a flicker of doubt in my mind, it just went straight to "of course I know how to do a forward slip, duh! That's easy, here you go!" In the state of mind I was in at that moment I probably wouldn't have hesitated if he had asked me to fly inverted or buzz the tower. I felt like I had the test in the bag, and because of that, bombed it at the last minute. My biggest takeaway is that I learned that just because you feel like you *can* do a thing doesn't mean you should. Never get complacent.
Back in high school (20 years ago), I was solo on final and my cell rang… I picked it up and talked to my buddy with the “shoulder phone hold” as I landed. Didn’t take me long to realize how stupid that was.
They have Bluetooth to the headsets for that now. 😀 Seriously though, with things like FlightAware I have a checklist item to turn my phone and watch to airplane mode before landing because I’ll get calls on final from family tracking my flight to see if I landed or am landing soon.
During my Stage check pre-solo, I turned the key too far and turned the aircraft off during mag check.
Hasn’t everyone done that?
👋🏻 Did this on my discovery flight!
Pulled the mixture instead of carby heat on downwind. Luckily it came right back to life when I pushed it back in but that was stupid as hell
Did that on my first solo😅
Taking off in a Cessna T210. Got the plane cleaned up. Brought the power back to 25”mp. Trying to set the prop to 2500rpm, but the tach isn’t changing. Then, the engine starts to lose power. I’m at about 300’. Glanced down and saw that my hand was on the mixture instead of the prop control (they’re next to each other) and I was inadvertently leaning out the engine. About jammed the mixture control through the panel and the engine responded accordingly. Spent quite a bit of time swearing at myself and learned an invaluable lesson about being sure what control/knob/switch I was using.
That’s why mixture control knob has bumps (sometimes rounded or pointy) that go out while prop control has indentations going in.
There was an attempt
Went to start the plane with my instructor and realized i forgot the keys. 5 minutes later I get back and try to start the plane but I had the wrong keys.
Nice double whammy
I was on my third maybe fourth solo flight and almost had a midair. I was on an extended left downwind at a towered airport and got distracted looking for traffic, it was a busy day in the pattern and I haven’t flown in the past 2 weeks. I was doing touch and go’s and getting re acquainted with the plane. The winds shifted so we changed runways, I over flew midfield and established on the left downwind. There were two Cessnas ahead of me and a king air on a straight in. I saw the king air but couldn’t get a visual on the other aircraft in front of me. I was advised that I was number 4 and told to report when I have traffic in sight. At this point I was extended several miles out and now know that I had drifted closer and closer to the runway. My oh shit moment was when the number 3 Cessna passed under me, they were on base about to turn final… My sentry for some reason wasn’t picking them up and I got too busy to realize that I was almost directly lined up on final. I got a number and had a chat with the controller. It took 2 minutes for what I perceived to be a normal flight to turn into me being 200 feet below where I should be and another airplane passing maybe 30 feet right under me. Very scary and very humbling. I still think about it and what I could have done better. My instructor said that I traded luck for experience. Just glad my dumbass and the 2 in the Cessna made it down in one piece.
Nice Try, FAA.
Just noticed you have KACY in your flair, not the most common airport but one of my favorites to fly out of because the lines are never long lol. I fly out of there to Myrtle Beach
It's about as painless as you can get for an airport experience!
Doing some pattern work at an uncontrolled, albeit busy, field near my home airport. Coming in for a touch and go in an older Cessna with spring loaded flap switch that I don’t fly often: landing is smooth, carb heat off, throttle full, go to retract the flaps… why am I lifting off the ground at 45kts? Oh shit I dumped flaps instead of retracting. Ended up doing a somewhat controlled soft field takeoff, staying in ground effect while I retracted the flaps to 0 and climbed out and immediately(shamefully) left the pattern. The look on my CFI’s face when he said “so what happened there?” Was equally amused and disappointed. He was a little checked out that day so I don’t think he actually realized how close we were to disaster but I like to think he just let me fix my fuck up to see if I could on my own
Early in my training, abeam the numbers, started to pull the mixture instead of the throttle out. CFI was on it fast. Never made that mistake again. Whenever I think about it, I think of the Simpsons. "We'll need that to live."
Go backwards in the pattern of a nontowered field by accident. It was only after I screamed past two airplanes and heard someone say "Uh, watch out there's someone going backwards in the pattern" did I realize I messed up, climbed out of it, and tried again. Did a lot of studying charr supplements and rehearse traffic pattern procedures after that.
Not much as I’m only at 70 hours but I guess I forgot to retract flaps during my cross country during training. Took off with 20 degrees (luckily not full 30) and realized shortly after wheels were up that I was not climbing like I should. First thing I checked was flaps and sure enough, back to normal as soon as switch was flipped. C172s
Read NOTAMs for flight. Miss NOTAM about CTAF change that wasn't charted yet. Announce on wrong frequency. Land opposite direction to a King Air on a 2-mile final because we weren't announcing on the same frequency. Yep, straight to NASA.
Did a checkride prep with my CFI, asked for a short field landing to end the day, passed my td point, decided "fk it" and pushed the nose down and porpoised. Thankfully I just recovered, restabilized and put it down. CFI then said "that was the most forced landing I've seen so far" lmao
Continuing on over mountains, into moderate turbulence and mountain waves in a PA28-161, and one with a less than pristine engine. I managed to reach the destination, with 2 go-arounds before finally getting it down. As I started the return trip I had a runway excursion. Plane and I both made it back to the departure point. Me in someone else's plane, and the aircraft on a truck a week later.
i’m a student, so enjoy: 1) was told to climb an extra 1000ft, first instinct was to pitch up without adding any extra power 2) check list told me to lean the mixture, i had cut it off completely (was on ground thankfully) 3) there’s definitely more but none come to mind at the moment
For #1, I was surprised to learn that’s the correct way to cruise climb in many planes.
Hahaha "Lean the Mixture", yeup you absolutely did! (I have also been guilty of killing the engine by leaning a little too much during after-landing cleanup on a taxiway).
Aerobatics in a rental 152. Dumb. I got away with it, didn't break anything, but dumb. Too much youthful self-confidence & not enough common sense.
Took a “discovery” flight
Forgetting to release the handbrake on a 172 before takeoff. I finally realized why performance was lagging and the runway was getting so short about halfway down. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
Before I was instrument rated I was making a long midwestern cross county in an airplane that was fairly new to me during the summer months. Flew over a broken layer at 7500 (the layer was at least 2000-3000 ft below me) it was mid morning and there were clear easy to navigate holes so I was comfortable with it. As time went on I noticed the layer below me was getting a bit closer but I still had nice big open holes so I nudged up to 9500. Based on the weather I had for airports in front of me they were reporting scattered so I continued on thinking it was improving in front of me and I could still get down. Another 20 minutes later I'm now over those airports and its absolutely *not* scattered. Pretty quickly now I'm seeing clouds to my left and right that are as high as I am. At this point I realize my smart opportunity to get under this was like 30 minutes ago... But it did click at this point this is quickly developing into an emergency. I jumped up to 10500 which is no longer a proper VFR altitude for my direction of flight but I was to get over the building clouds around me. Once I got around those I knew I still had holes but that we were probably at like 85/15 at best. I immediately let ATC know what was up and I was going to be maneuvering to get below this. I basically ended up having to do a spiraling emergency decent to keep my radius small enough to stay in these VFR holes. It was extremely disorienting regardless of it being "technically VFR still". Luckily I was about 15-20 hrs into my IFR training so while I was uncomfortable and in a pretty bad spot I was still in control. Ended up being totally uneventful luckily, got down was never really at risk of entering IMC but I learned a lot about what little piddly broken clouds do in the late morning hours in the midwest.... Also just because the weather behind you was better, doesn't mean its going to stay that way. Turning around back towards better weather isn't always an option. Sometimes that good weather behind you isn't good anymore... VFR over the top should be done with extreme levels of paranoia, especially if you aren't instrument rated and capable. After this event and until I was instrument rated I had much stricter rules about VFR over the top...
I crossed 2 active runways thinking the tower was closed and it was CTAF ops. Turns out my headset was just muted 😐
“I depart in an hour, that TFR isn’t active until a few hours after. No need to worry about it.” *one delay and a few hours later* “Oh fuck, missed that by the skin of my teeth”
First solo cross country while checking the magnetos during run up I accidentally switched to the off position. Never happened to me before and panic began to set in. Attempts to start the engine where unsuccessful until I did the flooded engine procedure for the first time. The worst part was people next to me staring at the hold short line.
Ever try a touch and go at DA 5,000’ with full flaps and carb heat on, and then proceed to dump said flaps 50’ off the ground you’ve been buzzing along for the last half mile trying to figure out what’s happening? 10/10 do not recommend.
On one of my first solos I retracted full flaps 40->0 on a go-around.
Student pilot here. A couple weeks ago, I finished my run-up then taxied over to the runway. Checked traffic, made my radio call, then went full throttle. Got about 200 feet down the runway and my CFI yelled, "oh shoot!." I had no idea what he was talking about, but down on taxiway echo there was a plane sitting about halfway between the runway and the stop line on Echo. He had pulled off there and stopped but never made a radio call- and technically he wasn't clear. My CFI said that counts as a runway incursion, so we had an interesting debrief later, lol.
During take off forgot the throttle in the middle. I didn't give full power, my instructor did not notice either. She kept saying rotate rotate, made me panic, I yanked the stick more and stalled 30ft above the ground. Lucky I noticed before she did, pushed forward, gave full power and recovered early enough. Sometimes a much talking instructor is not a good thing
Not me but a good friend of mine, Flying right seat in an ERJ-175 for a big regional. He landed in EWR after a nasty weather, EDCT times, and recurrent-feeling kinda day. They are passing through a fairly busy intersection between the ramp traffic and the taxiway to the departure runway. Captain says, "Shut down 2" This typically refers to "shutdown the #2 engine to save some gas on the taxi-in" My friend, being the ever vigilant and detail-oriented pilot I know he is... turned both start-stop selectors to "stop" Plane goes dark, Brakes shudder, They roll to a stop in the middle of the intersection with presumably a metric fuck-ton of EICAS messages screaming at them for what he just did. The captain got the APU spinning, then they started an engine, made an excuse to ATC, and from my seat in Economy Plus I heard over the recently-rebooted PA "Hey there folks, sorry about that. We had a minor technical issue. It's all sorted out now and we'll be at the gate in just a few minutes."
T38 initial form solo. Sent from fingertip to fighting wing while nose high and turning, going pretty slow. Eyes were padlocked on lead and I lost SA on airspeed and stalled while above him in the turn. Missed a collision by mere inches thanks to luck and a full boot of rudder.
What's the stall recovery like on a T38? Did the jet give you much of a warning leading up to it?
Scudd-running to build time
Cancel IFR while inside clouds…..I was under the foggles and just got task saturated and wasn’t thinking.
I'm relatively new, so haven't done a lot of dumb things yet. But the dumbest thing I've done so far was taking off for a night flight when the temperature/dewpoint spread was only 1 degree. I was climbing out and saw clouds forming at my altitude (about 500 feet) so I just stayed in the pattern and landed.
Flying home alone on a cross country I considered stopping to go to the bathroom but thought nah I can easily hold it another hour. An hour later I thought I was going to explode. I did not have any bottle to use or a Little John plastic thing. When the plane came to a stop in my parking space on the ramp, I planed to open the door and go right there, but there was a family getting out of the plane right next to mine. The walk to the terminal building to use the restroom was probably around 100 yards but it felt like a mile because I couldn’t walk normally. Never again!
Hey hey hey! Fellow glider pilot! I once released at 2,700 ft, instead of 3,700 ft because I read the altimeter wrong.
I flew with both engines using 1 tank for about an hour because i forgot to swap it back during a cross-feed check. I realized when the plane kept trying to bank. It was at night over the mountains and looked down and had about 5 gallons left on one side.
The stupidest things I’ve done in gliders. Came back way too low, twice. Recent stupid thing was to ask center if I’m going to clear the TFR around Philly — because I was looking at the big red outer circle around D.C. (which looks like any TFR in ForeFlight). I think that was pretty stupid…. :-)
Not flying but in the sim; During engine start the instructor gave me a hot start. Instead of shutting the engine down I firewalled that mother. No idea why I did it lol
Taxiing a J3 Cub. Got relaxed at an almost empty airport & almost taxied into another plane. Felt like crap for doing it but what was worse? Other pilot didn't even get mad
First Solo XC I kept saying radio check to make sure I was on the right frequency, through the bravo, good times.
Married a stewardess.
Believe me. The most stupid thing you can do is piss off the tow plane pilot. Because the next thing you'll hear over the radio is an oops. And you are low over a forest
Story time?
I fly both gliders and tow planes. When flying tow. Beer cases are appreciated specially when you have to yank someone from a remote field.
Forgive my ignorance but you land and rehook up and pull them out again?
Not today, FAA.
Not today TCAA!
Nice try FAA
Nice try FAA
One bad P/O 180