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Lessons Learned / your most scary flight

This happened to a friend of a friend Easter a few years ago. Old Piper Warrior, three people, 3/4 fuel, airport elev. 2300 feet, rwy 600m with power lines right at the end. Some snow and sleet on the rwy. Recipe for disaster. The student flew the departure, stall warning going, could not get it out of ground effect half way down. FI took controls and lured it off gently just clearing the lines. Scared me my friend shitless. A recent FI should have known better. A new found respect for hot/high and heavy old airplane.

Last Edited by NorFlyer at 24 Nov 08:24
Norway, where a gallon of avgas is ch...
ENEG

I completely lost vision once during aerobatics. I was conscious, but just could not see. All was black. Luckily I was flying with instructor. I screamed “I can’t see! I can’t see!”, he took over and after some time vision came back. The manoeuvres we did weren’t that bad. I think it was a problem with holding my breath for too long. Never happened again.

LPFR, Poland

I merged two sort-of similar threads…

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

My most “interesting” events were the two described here. I wouldn’t call them scary because I was very busy with what was going on.

But a perhaps more significant one was in Sep 2013, returning from Pula LDPL to Shoreham EGKA. The flight was uneventful but due to ~70kt headwind it became apparent that a fuel stop would be needed. We were at FL170 and above a lot of convective wx, and Justine got scared about the prospect of descent through it. In the end (I had sat wx data) LFAT was CAVOK and we refuelled there. EGKA could have been made anyway with about 15 USG… She never did a long flight again with me after that… This is a lesson for anyone who flies with their OH (usually wife/GF) because it takes only one scare and they will potentially never fly with you again. That then curtails your choice of passengers. Most men are too busy juggling manic jobs and other stuff in their lives (and the retired guys often cannot afford even a hotel room) and most women you can’t fly with for rather obvious reasons Justine will still fly but only in virtually CAVOK conditions and 2hrs max.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

and Justine got scared about the prospect of descent through it

You just just pinch her o2 line, I am sure you’d get much less resistance very quickly :)

Learning to fly in British Columbia ensured my PPL had lots of learning experiences. Having to get DF steers to Victoria at night because I got caught in snow showers in a C150 helped me learn about taking a conservative view on TAFs, especially at night.

Those first hundred hours PPL VFR up in the BC/Washington/Oregon area produced a few weather encounters where you quickly learned not to push your luck. With MEAs in the teens, and lots of icing, orographic lift, getting your instrument ticket meant a whole new set of potentially unforgiving weather mis judgments. You then had to let down to an NDB/DME approach in the valleys. Made you a believer in VFR if operating piston general aviation.

Oxford (EGTK), United Kingdom

Petakas your C150 story made me remember this one (didnt read the story at the time)

This did happen to F-GDIK – our club plane which I flew the day before on my 150NM first solo NAV – I was the last pilot to fly the plane before the event. I have the following hours on the plane.
FGDIK Edit
C152 first flight 07/09/2011 last flight 08/11/2012 43 flights 43:18 hours 254 landings



Plane got completely taken apart before being singed off for service again without finding the problem – The same instructor that landed on the motorway landed the plane with complete engine failure in a field close to LFHN) before it got take out of circulation completely- cause was never determined.

LFHN - Bellegarde - Vouvray France

Plane got completely taken apart before being singed off for service again without finding the problem – The same instructor that landed on the motorway landed the plane with complete engine failure in a field close to LFHN) before it got take out of circulation completely- cause was never determined.

Presumably the issue must have been caused by the fuel system, so why not replace all of that? Empty and inspect the fuel tanks, remove and inspect all fuel lines, replace the carb, etc.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Got my first 7700 today. Pan-pan and not mayday. Was routing North weald EGSX → Lyon bron LFLY on a DA40NG. Approaching NEPNA, loss of power, warning double ECU failure. Apparent prop overspeed looking at instruments. Low-ish powers didn’t create problem, but nevertheless southend was just on my left, so called a pan pan and told them I’d go an land (and did basically a glide approach once was near there)
Everyone very professional, and firetrucks waiting near the runway. Waiting for diagnostics but it’s likely to be a governor problem.

Peter wrote:

This is a lesson for anyone who flies with their OH (usually wife/GF) because it takes only one scare and they will potentially never fly with you again

It’s not a problem if your OH has an FAA single/multiengine land + instrument rating…

Andreas IOM
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