Your biggest ever mistake

Hopefully in the spirit of ILAFFT I wrote this up at the time for our local newsletter.

Some years ago returning from France in my little single seater I had landed at Le Touquet to refuel and file the flight plan to cross the channel.

Le Touquet is probably about the same size as my, then, home field of Inverness but rather more relaxed. I got the short runway in the trees with a 25kt wind blowing, fortunately pretty much down the slot. With a glance at the bright, late afternoon sky I hustled into the terminal to arrange fuel and to see if I could get across the channel that evening. A quick plog to Headcorn and the flight plan creaked through the fax. 30 minutes later I taxied out and lifted clear of the trees into that stiff breeze, but it was a lovely evening even so.

Approaching Boulogne I began to meet cloud. Not scattered or broken cloud, this was solid stuff. Deciding that I could not accept the solidity of that undercast, I turned to duck under the edge but below 1000ft forward viz seemed to be not very much at all. I looked out over the channel and with really no discernible horizon had little difficulty in believing I might die out there, and turned again for Le Touquet.

Coming out from under there was a small succession of aircraft heading into what I’d just left and doubt began to creep in. Maybe I was being feeble about this, so round I went again, back under the cloud sheet and I watched these little aeroplanes curve out from the coast towards England and just wink out of existence in the murk. Well, maybe these guys were instrument equipped, instrument qualified and current, but I sure as hell wasn’t any of those.

Le Touquet were fine about it and because I’d weather diverted there was no charge and I was allowed to picket on the grass and to pitch my tent alongside. “Happens all the time” I was told then was shown how to get in and out of the airport after they shut down for the night! That evening, disappointed that I’d not managed to cross the channel but satisfied my decision had been good, I enjoyed an excellent 3 course dinner with an aperitif, a beer and a coffee in the rather fine restaurant adjacent to the airport overlooking the grass where the plane was parked.

Early morning was quite dull but by the time the airport had opened the sky was bright and clear. The met office provided metars and winds aloft and while it wasn’t going to be terrific weather in the channel it did at least look doable.

Just before 0900Z I lifted again and set out north. At L45 over the channel the cloud sheet, again at Boulogne, was thickening and extending itself westward but when I left Lille mid channel Headcorn were reporting a cloudbase of 1800ft. The further I went the fewer became the holes in the clouds until I decided that it was time to try to get underneath and spiralled down to what might be a slot or might just be a shadow. With every rotation I could swear that slot was smaller and by the time I was on top of it there wasn’t very much left at all, then down through it I saw a boat on the water. A visual reference! I popped the brakes and steepened the spiral and when levelled out the hole was gone. With the gyrations the compass card swam slowly round in its bowl while my very basic GPS struggled to figure out where I was headed. There was no sign of land. There was no sign of anything other than the white caps and the channel below.

Speed is cash in hand but height is money in the bank. The bank was about empty by now so I was off, in what direction I knew not, across the water like a scalded cat while the rudimentary navigation aids sorted themselves out. Selecting Lydd as the ‘GoTo’ I bent round towards the north west.

A couple of boats ghosted out of the haze as I bore on wishing that the seven miles to run was behind me. Then a building loomed. It could only be the nuclear power station at Dungeness. A call to Lydd, first alternate on the flight plan, to divert in and then there was the beach and the tower right in the gunsight. As I called downwind the tower gave the wind “…so you’re ready for it. It’s 25 knots.” I was in no mood to dither. I badly wanted to be on the ground, to ease my grip on the seat cushion.

When parked a Long Eze pilot tidying up his cockpit after his earlier arrival commented “Nice landing. Tricky conditions too.”

Many aircraft dropped into Lydd that day and their pilots, relieved to be down, without exception gave thanks to messrs Magellan and Garmin. Not all had found a hole to descend through and one had crossed the channel in a Champ at 500ft!

(ps. I seemed to have posted this in the wrong place. Not really my biggest ever mistake, should have started a new thread. Perhaps Peter might care to move it.)

I have only 130 hours but I have a couple of mistakes.

One was during my night rating training. I was solo on short final with full flaps out and cleared to land when TWR instructed me to go around and turn left to holding due to airliner landing behind me. I gave it full throttle (weak C150) and pitched up but forgot to raise the flaps. I caught my mistake just in time before the stall horn kicked in. It would not have been a big deal at high altitude but on short final I almost shat myself.

Another one was runway incursion. I understood that I was clear to taxi and line up but I was not, I should have stopped at the holding point. The TWR caught my mistake immediately and I stopped right after the holding point but I felt like a complete idiot. After I landed I called the TWR and explained my understanding of the clearance. They did appreciate it.

I had to think long and hard about any mistake I have ever made…. and I finally found one. Fortunately the statute of limitation has long expired.

On my long solo x-c one of my landings was at ENSN Skien-Geiteryggen in Norway, which was, and still is, an AFIS field. I landed, did what ever I needed to do, then prepared to take off. The AFIS may have told me I could depart in any direction, so I chose one, and at some point between holding lining up, he told me there was an aircraft on downwind for the opposite runway.

I elected to start the takeoff roll, and climbed when I saw the other aircraft descend towards me during my initial climb, so I made a right turn out and that was the end.

Upon arrival, a little shaken and still wondering what had gone wrong, I called the head instructor to discuss the matter with him, half way expecting a sermon, or at list a clear explanation of what I had done wrong. He was surprisingly cool about it and just told me it was a learning experience.

Since this was 20 years ago I do not recall the details of the chain of events like whether I had heard the radio calls from the other aircraft, exactly at what point I was told there was another plane on downwind for the reciprocal etc. I believe I was told about the other aircraft after I had already lined up but cannot be sure.

What I am sure about is that I should not have started my takeoff roll with traffic for the reciprocal. I was very comfortable with controlled fields but this was my first time at an AFIS field. I suppose I expected the man in the tower to be more directive wrt what I should do, whereas he did exactly what he was supposed to do, i.e. inform me of other traffic, leaving the decisions to me, although letting me pick the runway for departure was maybe a little unconventional.

I still don’t know if this was a mistake or not…

I flew to Frankfurt EDDF VFR as a low-time (200 hrs) pilot at a time where such a thing was still possible.

When on short final to 07R (but before getting my landing clearance), a C-130 started to cross the runway in front of me. Without asking first, I announced to TWR that an aircraft was entering the runway and that I would do a 360 to the right, which I did. There was no comment from the tower and after completing the 360, the C-130 had vacated the runway and I got my landing clearance.

Today, 600 hours later, I would probably have kept my cool and continued the approach but been prepared for a go-around.

Aviathor wrote:

although letting me pick the runway for departure was maybe a little unconventional.

That’s the rule in Scandinavia at least. AFIS will suggest a runway, but it’s your choice.

Yes, but they would use the standard “runway in use nn”

Even at towered airports I will occasionnally ask for a different runway accepting to land with a crosswind or (slight) tailwind if it makes my life easier (shorten taxi time or avoid circling)

Your biggest ever mistake??
My first big mistake was to forget to turn on the fuel at Shoreham, on my qualifying cross-country, in a non-radio swing-start Jackeroo. The engine stopped before I got to my pre-take-off checks, and the apron guy had to walk a long way to restart me. G-ANZT 16.20 on 15/8/1964. The instructors at Thruxton didn’t find out.

I’m a pretty low time, freshly minted PPL holder. I passed my skills test at the end of March and have been flying an Aquila A210 from Stade (Near Hamburg) since the end of June. I have around 75 hours.

Yesterday I took my first non-pilot passenger for a flight with me. We flew from EDHS to EDWG for the afternoon before heading to EDHE for fuel then back to EDHS. I cruised around 3000ft most of the way back from EDWG but in my preparations for the approach into EDHE totally forgot about EDDH’s class C airspace which is 2500-FL100. Only by looking at the navigation display did I notice a thick magenta line rapidly approaching. I managed to descend in time (according to the GPS) but had I not have noticed any sooner I’d be looking at a pretty serious airspace bust (my first). I was monitoring Bremen Information at the time and was about to switch over to Uetersen Info. A couple of questions:

If I had flown into the airspace by 500ft, what would be the consequences? A fine? Have my licence revoked? How quickly and by what method would I know that I was in trouble?
Should I have been monitoring EDDH Tower and/or 121.5 too? Assuming I was being watched, would I have heard a call advising me to descend? (I was not in contact with Bremen FIS, only monitoring).

Lessons learned:

Contact a FIS whenever flying a cross country, A to B flight
Don’t let passengers be a cause for distraction.
Pick a cruising altitude less likely to conflict with airspace somewhere further down the route.

I have found that since flying the Aquila with a G500 cockpit I have become far more complacent with navigation (which is exactly why I didn’t want to fly something with a glass cockpit!). On the other hand, if it wasn’t for the G500 I probably would’ve busted that airspace.

Any feedback for a low time newbie would be appreciated.

NinerEchoPapa wrote:

If I had flown into the airspace by 500ft, what would be the consequences? A fine? Have my licence revoked? How quickly and by what method would I know that I was in trouble?
Should I have been monitoring EDDH Tower and/or 121.5 too? Assuming I was being watched, would I have heard a call advising me to descend? (I was not in contact with Bremen FIS, only monitoring).

Unless you did something stupid like turn off your transponder when you realised, I suspect a stern talking to for a genuine mistake. Prob depends on how much chaos you cause and how quickly you realise and call them on VHF and descend out of their airspace. They may have tried to call you on Bremen.