Your biggest ever mistake

Meeting a mate in the car park having just brimmed the long range tanks on my a/c. ’Let’s go flying!’ After trundling farther down the runway than I ever I had before I finally heaved her off the end with the stall-warner screaming. I asked: ‘how heavy are you?’ the reply: ‘110 kilos!’. I’m 105…. Low powered 4 seater with full long range tanks and two fuller figured gentlemen is not a recipe I recommend. I am now king of w&b calculations.

ATC asked me to report right base (to land). A few minutes later ATC asked me “are you the guy at left base?” I didn’t see the runway. I am pleased to say that since then my medical was renewed and there’s nothing wrong with my sight!

@wingless I am sometimes still wondering how many are actually doing a W&B… I have been checked out on a DA40 + G1000 and with the instructor and myself on board and more than 60% of fuel we were out of the envelope…. I concluded that it is impossible to be in the envelope with 2 POB and reasonable fuel on board unless you pout weight in the trunk….

On W&B/performance, here is mine: renting a new type from a flying school, doing a quick W&B on a fishy online spreadsheet with incorrect model inputs and implementation for that aircraft, the calculation just looked dodgy, compared to the specific aircraft poh numbers, found the error but end up with a marginal take-off, I left the parking break ON as I used a DIY checklist…

Before renting for long trips, have few test flights even if you know that type each specific aircraft is different (could go +/-100kg difference)

jfw wrote:

I have been checked out on a DA40 + G1000 and with the instructor and myself on board and more than 60% of fuel we were out of the envelope…

Back to topic: Flying lower and lower until the ceiling was probably 7-800 ft AGL (over the valleys, not quite as much over the hills), followed by a VFR climb into IMC and diversion to a nearby field with an ILS. That was 2yrs ago, by-the-book case of getthereitis, with a sprinkle of butitsonly10nmleft. Should have 180-ed back to departure airport, which remained CAVOK all along, or either one of the 2 other fields along the way (had not briefed either).

Latest one was a simple VFR flight with a whole lot of nothing along the way but a climb limit right after departure, and was happily climbing from G-air into Hamburg’s TMA. Co-pilot caught it just as we passed the underside, we were probably never more than 200ft in. Complacent, do a departure briefing even if it’s not on the DIY checklist.

Not really my biggest mistake, unless you count not learning from your mistakes: taking off several times with an open door or canopy.

• On an early solo one of the canopy pins hadn’t engaged properly, so a very nervous circuit and landed;
• I then backtracked, lined up, and took off again forgetting to close the canopy…
• Took off from Montélimar (very good rate of climb with the mistral) without latching the canopy, and didn’t realise how breezy the cockpit was until level in the cruise at FL75. Impossible to pull closed in flight. Long slow careful descent.
• I had a door rattle and abandoned the takeoff, taxied back and closed it properly. A couple of weeks later the door was ripped open in flight, which was a very expensive repair and must have really scared the pilot. It turned out afterwards that the door had been ‘adjusted’ in maintenance and other people had had the same problem… which no one had reported.
• Being picked up in a hurry, jumping into a plane with the engine running, but managed to close the canopy in the climb after realising how draughty it was
• Flying a plane after someone else, who said ‘the keys are on the plane.’ I couldn’t find the keys anywhere, but had a spare set. After landing I found them in the canopy lock, where they’d spent an hour on the outside of the aeroplane.

Fernando wrote:

ATC asked me to report right base (to land). A few minutes later ATC asked me “are you the guy at left base?”

Oops. I’ve done that too (at EGNC/Carlisle) when distracted by a radio problem. I even did a complicated little manuevre to enter downwind on the wrong side. I thought ’that’s funny why does he want me to do this?’ as I was doing it, too. It was quite embarrassing!

Capitaine wrote:

taking off several times with an open door or canopy

I suggest you go for an open cockpit (e.g. Eureka, Turb, Pitts…) with a good headset
The risk on open cockpits is perception of engine stopping each time you do a lookout (or engine running while propeller is actually windmilling !)

Ibra wrote:

open cockpit

Haha! You can’t forget it if it isn’t there.

The early pilots used to call enclosed cockpits greenhouses and thought they were unhealthy