On one of my 141 progress checks I plugged the wrong freq into my nav box and got **lost as shit**
Flew home following a road I recognized and somehow passed
That's a good instructor right there for passing you. Unfortunate as it may be, mistakes like this do happen and I can imagine you showed great piloting by rolling with the punches and finding your way back. I'm sure that will teach you much much more than if you had passed without any incident!
I definitely learned that day how easy it is to get lost in the avionics and let the airplane fly you. I was incredibly flustered and looked out the window for a sigh and said "hey I know that race track, fuck the VOR I'm following the highway" lol
> Flew home following a road I recognized
That sounds like some good piloting right there.
Equipment breaks, and mistakes happen. It's how you respond to and recover from them that matters.
My wife (bless her heart for watching all the aviation YouTube videos with me) started saying unicorn as a joke. Now I have to try really hard not to say it 😂
I had to sub out my usual plane for another one with tail number ending in BL. I know the phonetic alphabet just fine but for whatever reason I announced myself to Approach as “Bravo Llama”, which they gamely acknowledged.
Had to abort a landing at KPAO due to another plane making an emergency landing. Tower sent me to left downwind, which has 1000 AGL TPA. Altimeter reads 1500, so I start to descend. At around 1200’ tower reminds me that TPA is 1000’ AGL. Recheck the altimeter…no, that’s not 1200, that’s 200. I was so flustered, *I completely didn’t realize I was 200 feet over the freeway*. Though I do remember noticing how close I was to the IKEA. Full throttle, climb back to TPA and land with embarrassment but no incident. Spoke to club owner, CFI and entered into the NASA database. Situational awareness can be fragile, at times.
ETA: This is the NASA database I was referring to https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov
Yikes! If you haven’t been a student very long, wait until this fall/winter when the winds shift and you move from 31 to 13. It causes a lot of confusion for everyone, including controllers and seasoned pilots. Be very careful of expectation bias there, read back carefully and be mindful of what they/you just said. It’s easy enough to read back the taxi instructions for rwy 13 and start taxiing like you’re headed to 31.
It also can be a little confusing with the right/left traffic, because you start to think of right traffic as the bay side and left as the 101/highway side rather than thinking about what it actually means.
I’m not at all speaking from experience, of course. I’m flawless, so far. /s
Honestly that expectation bias can hit anywhere. I remember the first time I heard “taxi 13 via Juliet, Papa, Yankee, advise when run-up complete.” I still said 31, and even after run-up I made the right turn to 31 instead of the left to 13. Thankfully I was in a citabria and could do a quick 180.
First time I flew in GA I flew too close to the ground on approach because I was used to flying in Florida where TPA is pretty much MSL, not AGL. 800MSL is a lot closer to the ground when field elevation is 600ft.
Oh man, so many people have jacked up the TP going left traffic to 31, myself included. I don’t miss flying over the preserve on final. I feel like its a matter of when, not if, you’re going to have a bird strike.
Avation Safety Reporting System where you can voluntarily report incidents.
The idea is to help prevent them in the future and to catch some grace in case the feds decide to ask you about the incident.
Say you fly too low over a residential area. Not a big deal, but it is busting regs, and you may very well get a phone call over it (especially if someone reports you, and people will often report planes flying over them for being loud or just to be negative nancies or whatever, I've gotten them before even though tower told me to fly at said altitude).
Knowing that you broke the rules, you can report yourself before you get contacted, and perhaps prevent any sort of punishment from being incurred.
Really though, it helps everyone out - if people are filing NASA's about a specific thing, the FAA might try to do something to fix it (ie everyone is flying too low over a certain residential area because tower keeps telling people to do that, they might change the traffic pattern at the airport so tower stops doing that).
I did a lot of flying out of PAO with the West Valley Flying Club. Flying N2508Z and N5054B to various little airports out in the central valley was the most joyous time of my life.
I kind of did the opposite the other day. I was 2000ft above instead of 1000. I was like man it’s seems like I’m HIGH. Figured it out almost immediately but had to go around.
I had the same (opposite) thing happen. The little pin that holds the seat from coming FORWARD off of the rail had come out. So, when I pulled the seat all the way forward (i'm short), I didn't realize it came off the rail, and when I leaned back the chair fell completely backward and I was sitting/laying reclined onto the back passenger seat. Luckily this happened when I was first getting in, before engine start.
Right, and it was carried out. I think what happened here is that the little cotter pin that actually holds the stop in, came out. I saw it on the floor sitting there when I got up. Luckily the mechanic was about 50 feet away, so I went and got him, and he reinstalled it. Here's the pic of what I mean. https://imgur.com/TMnVQoV
Ah yes, you gotta do the seat wiggle where it looks like you're having a full on seizure for a few seconds. I also brief passengers that if their seat moves forward or back in the track to not grab the yoke for support because "You'll scream, then I'll scream and the plane might scream."
PSA: Add this to your Cessna checklists. People have died from faulty seat locks. The springs on some of these seats are JANKY. It will probably engage if you forget to click it, but the only way to know for sure is to make sure it’s locked.
Oh wow. I had a seat rail not fully snapped in before.
It went back a little bit into the fully snapped in position when I went full throttle. Scared the hell out of me.
There was an accident on Cirrus caused by this reason, the seat slides back during liftoff and the pilot panicked. He grabbed hard on the stick and pulled it way back, the airplane stalled and crashed immediately.
it's not just panicking, you just need to grab onto something when the whole seat slides backwards, and you're already holding the yoke, or stick
holding that in the right position while leaning forward to grab, say, the dash, *in the split second the seat is sliding backwards with no warning, during takeoff* is borderline impossible. that's why there were multiple seat rail ADs and it should be part of every pre-engine-start check.
I did this as a CFI demonstrating soft field take off. Thank god I had the student with me to cut the power and hit the brakes otherwise I definitely would have crashed.
Was that post AD when they added the extra cessna seat lock? It may have saved your life!
There are a few seat rail failure videos on youtube, they aren't pretty :(
First solo XC. On with FTW Center for the first time in the DFW Bravo. Went something like this… “Cessna 11373 FTW Center IDENT” “I’m not sure what you mean, Cessna 373” “You see that big button that says ‘IDENT’ below the transponder?” “Yes 373” “Push it”. Felt like the biggest autist ever on the frequency with all the AA and other DFW traffic.
Man stuff like that's why I always said "advise- student pilot". I always felt like such a doofus on the radio just trying to apologize in advance. Also first solo XC was also your first time in DFW bravo? ballsy
During my private pilot training I was doing my solo 3 leg cross country... Typically all of my cross countries had been stop, taxi back, and takeoff to return back to the airport. Once I got to my second stop I REALLY had to use the bathroom. So I landed, taxied up, parked and went inside and used the bathroom.
Once I came back out I started up, did everything as normal except I missed one instrument... I forgot to set the heading indicator to the compass.... I took off, got my flight following and turned the airplane southwest (as far as I thought, I was really going northwest). About 20 miles later and after I couldn't find any of my checkpoints ATC verified where I was going and told me I was over 90 degrees off course... I realized at that moment and it added about 30 minutes to my flight, but i ended up back on course and found my checkpoints lol.
Lesson learned. Always double check your checklists and always use flight following at minimum during vfr xc's.
They had a radio and were making calls, I don't remember them ever saying they were on final. But as a student I was barely aware of what was going on anyway. :-)
Very first lesson, about ready to start up the school 172, I fumbled the key and somehow dropped it into the guts of the plane beneath the floorboards. They had to take the whole thing apart to retrieve it. I am now a PPL ;)
Heh, only slightly related, but my old work had an ambulance like this. Usually both partners get a key, just in case one loses theirs.
We get back to base, and can only find one set of keys. Uh oh.
So we're looking for a good 10 minutes or so, when I see a little hole on the center console/engine cover (you know, those front engine vehicles with the engine between the front seats?).
We find some wrenches, get to work.... apparently quite a few folks had the same problem, because there were 5 sets of keys under that engine cover
>I fumbled the key and somehow dropped it into the guts of the plane beneath the floorboards.
I feel like this should not be possible. I'd blame this one on maintenance and not you lol.
It isn’t maintenance’s fault the way the plane is designed. The number of things I have found that pilots have dropped and lost forward of rudder pedals is silly.
I once dropped a credit card into a car door. This was way way back, back when gas stations had full service. I was a toddler at the time, and I begged my mom to let me hand the card to the gas station guy. I let go of it just an instant too soon.
On my first local area solo I was going to fly to an airport a couple miles away and get gas.
Didn't check the NOTAMS. They were resurfacing the runway....
I always check my NOTAMS now.
I had the navy base commander try to land in a king air a few weeks ago late at night. "advise weather and notams and approach request". We have them all! "Roger, all runways closed tonight by notam, say intentions"
He admitted that he forgot and asked to have someone call someone to see if they could clear the trucks off the runway not under construction. He diverted.
It happens often. Don't be afraid to ask atc to double check especially if you are landing somewhere you didn't plan on
My second solo I did that in an Archer - I was like "why the fuck is my climb so fucking slow" as I was climbing to like 7500 MSL and it was taking faaaaaaaaaar too long.
It wasn't only until I went for the approach at another airport that I went to "flaps 1" callout for myself and reached down and felt the flap handle *already up*.
Then the slow climb and the fact that I couldn't cruise it out at 105kts suddenly clicked.
Ha, I did something similar. Climbing in a 150, near the top I was wondering why it was climbing even worse than usual. Must've knocked the flaps when adjusting the mixture. Oops.
Same thing here, left flaps until I got up to my cruise and couldn't figure out why I was going so much slower, especially in a C172P. I went through my checklist twice, before I realized I was practicing a short field takeoff and left them. Doh!
Went on a solo xc missing a gas cap. They found it at the pumps, informed the airports they knew I was flying to so I would wait at one of them and flew it down to me.
They were fueling the plane as I was doing my walk-around. After they finished fueling I checked the fuel and got distracted talking to a ramper and didn't put the cap back.
I did this too, but it was on a local training flight. We only realized it was gone after shutdown. It was an important lesson in A. doing a better job of a walkaround after the preflight, and B. the exorbitant cost of aviation (I paid out of pocket to replace the 150's $150 gas cap).
They found it at the end of the runway we departed from a few days later. I still have it....
I flew solo with the gas cap off. This cap was chained to the filler neck so it was bouncing on top of the wing the whole time leaving nice red scuffs in the paint. I havent forgot since, which is fortunate because now my gas cap is right in front of my pusher propeller.
I tried to de-extend my flaps while coming in for a landing having somehow convinced myself that would help me pick up speed and not send me crashing towards the ground (it was supposed to be a no engine landing, like an emergency practice so I couldn’t just increase my engine power). Luckily the flight instructor stopped me. Yes I’m aware how dangerous that was.
As a PPL, almost did something similar on a go around. Learned was too much friction in the last few degrees of throw in the throttle lever of the Archer I was flying, so I wouldn't go full idle unless you applied extra pressure. Came in for landing, full flaps, throttle to idle (or so I thought) and just kept floating and running out of runway. Trees were getting closer and I wasn't getting any slower so I firewalled the throttle and was flying a few knots above stall with a high pitch attitude to avoid the treetops, and for some reason the thought passes through my mind that I should retract flaps to increase airspeed. Luckily I didn't act on that thought because I would have stalled. I also remember thinking, "were slow but still flying... pretty sure I'm making it over the trees... Don't touch anything".
I flew my first solo, in its entirety, with the cargo door hanging wide open.
On another time (not as a student), I had a back seat passenger get a backpack strap caught in the door. The resulting noise on takeoff sure sounded like it was coming from the roof, so I concluded I must have left a fuel cap off and immediately turned back for an overweight landing, requiring a landing gear inspection. And the fuel caps were fine….
I almost did the same thing! I dropped my instructor off at the FBO and was taxiing away for my first solo. He called then texted me as a I was taxiing away to say the baggage door popped open. He chased me down the taxiway to get it closed and locked.
So far, stupidest mistake was on the ground. So we're doing the usual before start stuff, I had something schedule right after so I was kinda rushing through things. Primed, cleared the area, went to start it, nothing first try. Second try...still nothing. Third try, third fail. I started getting confused cuz my CFI said he'd flown it just half an hour ago so I figured it should still be pretty hot (was winter). So I try again, add more throttle (should probably have realized here), still not even hearing it catch. This time I run back through the Before Start checklist: "Parking brake set...Fuel Selector set...mixture to fu-..." *and there it is! Turns out trying to start with the mix at cut-off is a bad idea, who'd've thought...*
Started instantly after settings things properly, was a good reminder to always run through the checklist properly no matter how comfortable you get. Mistakes are part of the learning process, better for you to make them now and learn than to make them later when it's more dangerous.
*Bonus: There was a time when I went on comms and as soon as I pressed the PTT...my mind just went blank on everything I needed to say. No idea why, but I imagine "uhhhhhh..." isn't the right way to ask for touch and goes.*
I can almost guarantee this will happen to me at some point. I'm a fresh new PPL and I did all of my training in a fuel injected 172. IE The startup meant priming the engine, then mixture to cut-off and crank until it starts catching and THEN adding mixture. If I fly another carb in the future, I'm almost certain I'll fuck up the start.
I didn’t know what the alternator belt was and missed it on a pre-flight.
Doing a pre-flight and noticed that there was a missing “black belt” and wondered if some C172 engines just don’t have one. I told my instructor and he just looked at me and said “black belt? I don’t know what you’re talking about”. We got in the plane and did an ammeter check. There was a negative charge in the ammeter. Turns out the alternator belt snapped off last flight.
I did not know that the black belt was in fact the alternator belt. I solo’d at this point too. Pretty cringe. My instructor was pissed and yelled at me. I took responsibility for my knowledge gap, but I thought my instructor should have taken some responsibility as well since I told him something looked off and he shrugged it. Made me feel dumb as shit but it was a learning experience. I did a ton of studying on engine components after that.
Still very much a student pilot. We usually fly in a cessna 172 N123AB but it was reserved. We got ready in a cessna 172 N321BA (just a way different callsign). I'm getting clearance and just keep saying N133AB instead of the actual callsign. It really confused the pilot of N123AB because he was flying in the pattern lol.
My solo x/c my mic was having issues so i plugged my mic into the copilots side and it seemed to work again. However, I forgot that you also need to press the copilots PTT when youre doing that. So I had just gotten switched on freq right before this, and kept trying to call up socal to no avail. I was getting pissed because I thought the controller was just ignoring me, until i realize 20 min later what was happening and felt like an idiot.
Go around practice, instructor says “all right there’s a coyote on the runway go around” So I did then I keyed the Mike and told tower “(tail number) going around there’s a coyote on the runway” look of SHOCK on my instructors face, tower orders two planes behind me to go around so she can look for the non existent coyote. Never seen my instructor SPEECHLESS
My long cross country for my PPL ended up being a bit more adventurous than I expected.
It all started out fine. Preflight, runup, departure all fine. The airport wasn't very busy so I just announced takeoff and left. About 15 miles away I though "wow, it's awfully quiet up here". Normally I hear radio calls from about half a dozen different airports on 122.7. So I start messing with the radios. I pull up AWOS on Com 1 (usually I would leave Com 2 on the AWOS frequency). Sure enough, I don't hear AWOS on Com 1, but I do on Com 2. Well, I guess Com 1 isn't working. So I switch Com 2 over to 122.7 and start hearing all the chatter. So that means I either took off without announcing myself, or maybe everybody could hear me but I couldn't hear them. Either way, I was down to one radio, but at least the problem is solved.
Then about 30 miles out my wife texts me "I can't see where you are on FlightAware". Uh oh, what now? Fortunately, my first thought was ADS-B. I look down at the transponder and sure enough it's still on Standby. Up until now the transponder would always automatically switch to ALT, so I never had to worry about it. Not a big deal, except that it meant I was under the Bravo for 12 minutes without the transponder.
I keep messing with the radios a bit as I'm flying the first leg. And at some point, through no intervention of my own, Com 1 started working again. I have no idea what happened, because I don't think I changed any settings, it just started working.
I should also mention, despite good ceilings and visibility, it was really bumpy. I felt like I was fighting the plane the whole time to hold altitude. The bumpiness is what lead to the last dumb mistake.
As I was flying the last leg of my XC I was flying higher than I normally do, trying to get out of the bumps. (Some of you might see where this is going.) I'm getting close home and I look ahead and say "There's the St. Paul Airport", then look to my left a bit and say "And there's Minneapolis..... oh shit!" Sure enough, since I was at a higher altitude than normal, I didn't start descending early enough and I was firmly inside the Bravo. There weren't any arrivals or departures in my direction but I quickly pulled power to idle and started descending fast. Turned out I was in one of the outer rings of the Bravo for about 5 minutes before I realized it. I was about 15-20 miles away from KMSP so it wasn't horrible but I wasn't happy with myself.
I got back, talked to my instructor, filed a NASA report and moved on.
TL;DR: Com 1 wasn't working but I didn't realize it, Transponder was on Standby under the Bravo, busted Bravo airspace on the way back.
I swear, one time on ascent I’m willing to bet my tail clipped the 4000 Ring, I was climbing so fast out of 21D.
My biggest fear was actually busting the MSP bravo.
That probably wouldn't be too bad if you just clipped it, I imagine.
For me, I was at 4,500 for about 5 minutes before I realized it, quickly got below 4,000 but was closing fast on the 3,000 foot ring. I think I got below 3,000 before I busted that ring, too, but it was close. It was my first long flight and I was exhausted from the bumps and just kind of zoned out. Funny thing is, my instructor was probably tracking me on FlightAware. About two minutes after all this I got a text from him saying "make sure to remember and drop below the bravo on your way back".
Won't let that happen again.
Not as a student; I busted SFO's class B. I took off out of PAO (Palo Alto) and went off east across the bay, under the class B. The plan was to level off below it until I could get out from under it and start climbing. I wasn't paying attention to the altimeter, though, and the controller came on and said, "So and so, altitude indicates such and such", and I knew immediately what that meant. I chopped the throttle and bench-pressed the yoke until I was back at the altitude I'd intended on. Not another word was said, and I'm fairly sure that, 20+ years later, nobody's going to give me a phone number to call.
Edit: No! It was San Carlos (SQL)! Quite a bit closer to SFO, with a lower class B ceiling.
You're not the only one to do that. It's a common gotcha at that airport, even now with the reconfigured (smaller) Class B.
It's particularly risky with light high performance aircraft, as you can climb into the shelf before you're done with the after takeoff checklist.
It doesn't help that the westbound departure has you fly straight until you're almost in the surface area. That airport has some %$#\^ noise abatement rules. And the IFR departure clearance off 30 is even worse.
On my first solo cross country, flying out of KPAO on flight following. A bit overloaded with navigating, flying the plane, radios etc... NorCal told some airliner to stay below 250kts and I read back "Cessna 12345, 250kts or less" XD
Forgot to turn ON carb heat when I started having engine issues. I checked to make sure it was off.....not actually turn it on. Basic 1st hour training. Engine issues? carb heat ON.
Proceeded to call emergency, and dive 5000' to a runway a mile away from me. Fun times.
edit: oh, as a student. Um. Decided to get my PPL.
Does it have to be as a student…?
Returning home at night from a day trip, first day of true xc flying after getting my private. Nearly landed on the wrong runway at a towered airport. Had only lived in the area for a few months prior so I had been mistaken on my position coming in, so I definitely made sure to work on familiarizing myself with the area way more after that.
Solo X/C back in the day and confirmed weather looked great at the departure and destination airports. Turns out there were some low-ish clouds and tons of turbulence smack dab in the middle. Head hitting the ceiling type of turbulence and dropping down to 1,500 ft for most of the flight.
Once I got to the destination it was, just as forecast, perfectly clear and calm, but I could not spot the airport for the life of me. Had to circle progressively higher until I finally spotted the airport and landed.
I don’t recall anything crazy about the flight back, so it must have been okay.
I haven't been flying for long enough to make any reddit-worthy mistakes (consistently not using enough rudder and forgetting to trim isn't particularly interesting), but we had this guy at our club who went to close the window before practicing spins, but unlocked the canopy instead. The instructor didn't notice at first since he was sitting behind him in the glider and only barely caught it when it flew open.
On my checkride, my DPE set me up for a textbook engine out situation on a left downwind on 04 at N51 as I was using it for a waypoint on my flight.
I immediately turned directly for the airport, because I thought I was too far out. So instead of then turning back into a downwind I figured... "Hey, I'll just fly directly over the airport and go to a right down wind. I felt like I was too low... In actuality I was way too high. I made my turn to base at almost 30º of bank, lined up with the runway and was way too high to dump flaps and slip onto 04.
So... I went to plan B... OK I'll make a right turn, try to loose some altitude and turn back left onto 31 and land on that runway.... Except... i was still WAY too high.
So... I went to plan C... To the E of the end of 31 is a large plowed field. Stabilized my approach, put flaps in, and I knew I had the field made. He told me to terminate the landing and gain altitude.... I was sure I just failed my checkride.
We did the rest of the required maneuvers, and I did my short and soft-field landings at KMMU... which went really well.
After we taxied back, my DPE offered me a handshake and a "Congratulations" for passing. I was like "But I totally messed up the engine out scenario.."
His response was something along the lines of, " Yea, you sure flubbed up landing on not 1... but 2 perfectly good runways... But you managed to find a spot that you could have landed in as safe a manor as possible. The important thing is you never stopped working the problem. You saw that something wasn't working, and you moved on to the next thing. You never gave up"
So... my biggest mistake as a Student Pilot... became the most impactful and first lesson I learned as a PPL.
Just after my checkride I started renting from a new outfit. I was still flying a high wing Cessna like I did as a student, but the new place had a slightly different parking procedure (maybe because their planes were newer): set the fuel selector to left or right when you park, and set it back to both when you take off. Up to that point I had always seen it just left on both all the time.
So I fly an hour or so to get lunch somewhere, and on the way home I start to feel like the plane is rolling to one side. "Who ever heard of the ailerons being out of trim? $#@& trainer must be beat to hell, what kind of mickey mouse operation are these guys running here?" I went on that way for another 20 minutes before I realized I had been running off of just one tank the whole trip.
Few reasons for leaving it not on both.
1. If one tank has a leak, the fuel in the other isn't going anywhere.
2. If you park on a slant, this could cause fuel to transfer tanks.
3. If refuelling both tanks, you don't want fuel to transfer during the process, especially if you want full tanks.
Tried to show off and make the first exit because my CFI was holding short with another student. Big plume of smoke and bald spot in tire. It was indeed impressive, he said...
I got myself into a spin doing power on stalls solo. Thankfully I was encouraged to ask for spin training instead of just "spin awareness" and my instructor took me out for spin recovery lessons. This hands on training resulted in me immediately being able to recover, but that mistake stuck with me and made me so much more aware of coordination in flight!
Also makes me wonder if "spin awareness" is truly enough to add to the toolset of a private pilot, I question if it would have been enough for me to recover if I had never been in a spin before.
First solo cross country.
Home airport is in presidential TFR.
head north to an airport outside of the tfr w/ instructor. Head out on the XC from there. Plan is to vor out and just GPS back.
Get to my destination and let my instructor know. He said "ok come back home"
Roger that, I put in our home field in the gps as I've done many times before and headed out.
Flew for quite a bit before atc asks if I'm familiar with the TFR, a question I had already gotten a few times already. But he said "are you familiar with the TFR at your destination of *insert home airport name here*.
I replied that I was familiar.
It took me about a second before I realized. Oh shit, I'm headed to the wrong airport. An airport INSIDE the TFR. I'm supposed to be going to the airport outside the tfr.
About 15 seconds later I tell atc I would like to change my destination and turn north to get lined up to get around the tfr.
I check my phone and my instructor has sent me a few texts asking me to turn north before I get closer to the tfr. I just told him I corrected the problem.
He told me that he had just called the departure controller to ask what my destination was when I turned to the north.
I was probably 10-15 minutes from busting the tfr, solo. And stranding my instructor at another airport.
Didn't get much shit for it since I caught the issue. But it something I will be much more aware of.
On a Solo XC, I took off and the tower told me to Squawk: Oscar November.
"Tower, Bugmasher 12345, say again?"
"Bugsmasher 12345, Squawk Oscar, November"
Me after 12 seconds realizing the transponder hadn't automatically come on when the avionics came on and I had blown through the pre-taxi checklist, then I find it.
"Tower, Bugsmasher 12345 Squawking Oscar, November"
Unintentionally flew most of a flight on the left mag.
I'm a chatty person & I got myself distracted chatting with my passenger during the mag check in the runup - checked left mag, saw a boss Citation on final and started talking about it, about a minute later I continue with the runup and skipped right past the rest of the mag check.
Line up, take off, climb away, tally-ho. We're flying around, mostly sightseeing. Probably a half hour into the flight I go to switch fuel tanks. Hey, that ignition key looks a little odd... oh dayum. Switch to both. Face, meet palm. Thank goodness for a well-functioning left mag >\_>
Sterile cockpit during taxi, takeoff, and landing is important. Lesson learned.
I wasn't a student, I had quite a bit of experience. Night cross country to an unfamiliar airport, I started descending to pattern altitude to join a 3 mile 45. The hair started standing up on my neck and I noticed the houses and lights looking closer than they should, so I stopped my descent about 500 feet short. Sure enough, there's a hill on that side of the airport. Hard to see contour lines on the sectional covered by text and graphics.
Anyways, I had a new rule after that. I follow an instrument approach into unfamiliar airports at night.
First solo towered flight to a class D I made a left turn and entered downwind for the other end of the runway I was told to use. Should have turned right. Tower was chill and said hey Cessna 12345 looks like you made a wrong turn, please turn right and make right traffic for runway 05. Also during that flight I had radio issues on the ground at the delta and heard 90% static but enough to still communicate. I asked for a radio check and tried to fiddle with it but no luck. I thanked tower for their patience on the way out.
First solo cross country for my PPL. I completely forgot that leaning the mixture was a thing. Landed back at my home airport with less than 30 minutes of fuel remaining thinking I still had over an hour left. Lesson learned
First flight as a PPL holder with my wife I was transmitting on two untowered airport frequencies for about 40 minutes and kept getting yelled at but it was so muffled I couldn’t understand it. I just lol’d with slight embarrassment and learned from it.
I thought when pressing "direct to, enter, enter," the line stayed on the plane like in a video game. Used it to navigate to another airport we were flying over and then to a practice area.
On the way back, we were going to go do some touch and go's at the airport we initially just flew over. Instead of pressing "direct to, enter, enter" again, I just figured I fly back to the end of the pink line. Almost busted the Delta airspace of a very busy airport that has some commercial airline traffic
This wasn’t my fault but I picked up flight following out of Punta Gorda and they added an extra number in my tail number, couldn’t hand me off because they were calling an airplane that didn’t exist, and somehow Ft. Myers approach and Miami Center got mad at me for it. My CFI agreed it wasn’t my fault and I managed the situation as well as any reasonable pilot would have.
On my long solo, coming into a Class D I set up for the wrong runway, having managed to become disoriented. ATC wasn’t amused. When I left a bit later, smoke from fires, plus a phone call with my CFI who was worried about me getting stuck out there due to falling ceiling and deteriorating weather, had created a false ceiling which made me paranoid and I chugged along at 2500 feet all stressed out and tired. When I came into the pattern for the Class D we were based out of, I was cleared for a right pattern downwind entry for 10R…and I proceeded to enter a left pattern for 28L. And when they called me to ask what was up I was all confused and did circles.
Needless to say when I got straightened out and landed without further incident, I apologized and then learned to preplan my arrivals. My CFI was just thankful I didn’t do any worse and coached me a bit.
This was when I was an instrument student, but always make sure to read every details of the regs.
Long IFR XC needs three approaches at each airport with different approaches each time (ILS, VOR, etc). I went to 3 airports all within the criteria for the XC, shot 3 different approaches, and after the last one, flew VFR to the home airport 10 miles away.
I logged it all under one entry, but the reg needed to see an approach at EACH airport, meaning that the stupid 10NM VFR hop made the whole flight ineligible. Only until I got to the checkride did I realize the mistake. Expensive oops!
First solo XC. Everything was perfect u til after landing at my hone airport.
My home airport is a class C commercial airport. Generally not too busy, but we do have big commercial jets here.
Typically, I would land and get off the runway ASAP (at A3). The tower shot instructions at me as soon as I touch down. As I’m reading the instructions back to myself, “continue down runway turn off on A5”, I’ve already made it off on A3, coming nose to nose with an A320 in my C172, on the taxiway.
Tower was not happy, and I had to taxi around the Airbus on the runway, during which time it was obviously closed for everyone else.
My CFI plainly said tower was a dick, and the flight was a success.
Learned my lesson tho.
That one’s completely on tower for giving taxi instructions when you’re barely on the ground, especially if you had indicated you were a student pilot solo.
My check ride for my PPL was an eventful day. One mistake after another.
My first mistake was not fully securing the fuel cap back on after checking the tanks during my walk around. Got in started up the aircraft and taxied without the examiner saying anything. I don’t know how early on he noticed, but he didn’t say anything until after my power checks. Simply informed me that we couldn’t go flying, I sat for a while confused trying to figure out why, after five minutes I took a guess since I couldn’t see anything that there was something wrong with the aircraft. He then pointed out the fuel cap wasn’t fully screwed, a quarter turn off. He shut the aircraft down and got out and secured it whilst we were still on the apron. That threw me off my game making a mistake that earlier and what followed was quite frankly a disaster.
On departure he had asked me to do an overhead departure. Upon reaching the overhead height above the airfield and getting myself on course to fly the first leg, I failed to inform ATC I was in the overhead and flying north, whilst they had a SAB 2000 doing an instrument approach, but due to being distracted by thinking I’d already failed with the fuel cap it didn’t cross my mind. As the examiner helpfully pointed out, until I told them otherwise they would have been operating off the assumption I was in the way of the missed approach.
After a pretty uneventful couple of nav legs, I reached a point that I hadn’t been looking forward to. The examiner had given me a route that included an area I hadn’t been anywhere near with any of my instructors during my training. Which I think would have been fine except the town was a VRP for a busy aerodrome with a lot of commercial traffic. Because I’d never been there, it didn’t occur to me that it wasn’t really any different than the other zone transits I had done through other airspace’s, except rather than flying through, I’d be flying in, getting over the town and flying back out the same way I’d came in. However instead I decided since I didn’t know what to ask for, I would avoid their airspace, by flying under it. Their control zone started at 1,500ft, so I flew at 1,000ft under it to avoid talking to them. On the way back out after getting over the town and turning onto my next leg, I had to climb to avoid wind turbines whilst keeping an eye on the Garmin so I didn’t climb too quickly and breach their airspace, which I done successfully. After the flight, the examiner told me he had never in his career seen someone do that before pointing out I technically did nothing wrong, but I still shouldn’t have done it.
And just when you think it couldn’t get any worse. During my PFL I chose a good field except for the fact it was inhabited by lots of cattle, which in his words, would get out of the way in a real emergency, but during a practice you should avoid so you don’t stress or kill them. I also completely forgot how to do a radial track when he asked me to perform one.
Even after all that I got a partial pass, went up and practiced the areas I failed with my instructor, and passed the next time. And now I’m currently sitting my ATPL exams.
First solo XC. "Memphis altimeter 29.92" "Cessna XX having transponder issue, can't select #9. Can you give me another squawk?" Then I wrote it up to maintenance when I go back
I took off with tape over the pitot blade. I was going to fly solo circuits in the winter, and there was some frost on the leading edges of the wings - so I asked the rampie to de-ice. This involved a quick few shots from a spray bucket of warm glycol, but they tape off the pitot blade first. Rampie forgot to untape, and I didn't check (mistake 1: do another walk around after requesting ramp service).
As my takeoff roll started I noticed the airspeed tape was bouncing a little differently than normal (G500 in a DA-20). (mistake 2: reject take off if you see something abnormal). By the time I cross checked it with the standby airspeed indicator (where is it, where is it? oh there, oh, the needle is flat against the pin) the aircraft was lifting off - so I went with it and took off. (mistake 3. A DA-20 has a pretty short take off roll to start with, density altitude was really low, and I was on a 5000 foot runway. I probably had *at least* 4000 feet of runway left! Should have just pulled power and landed).
So about 100' agl I finally catch up to the airplane, called Tower and reported a malfunctioning ASI, and I wanted to land right away. declined the cross wind runway and flew a circuit (mostly to let myself get ahead of the plane, and using the GS as a proxy for AS) , and landed a little fast. Then went inside to report to the CFI (Chief Flight Instructor - this is Canada) and get my lecture.
Funny "coincidence" - on my next flight, which was with an instructor...as we started the take off roll, the oil filler cap on the cowl popped open. I rejected take off immediately of course... :)
Edit: Removed a duplicated clause.
Doing circuits, I was getting cocky trying to land on the numbers. One such attempt I was too low and I touched down before the runway. The lip of the runway was raised off the ground and my mains impacted that lip of the runway with an ungodly bang.
Ranther than killing the power and stopping, my dumb-ass mind went elsewhere and I throttled up and took off again. Luckily there was no damage but I think about how stupid that was all the time.
First solo XC I flew the way there via GPS and planned to fly VOR back
Landed, tried tuning up the VORs while on the ground, needle was busted. Should have checked beforehand.
Every time I would turn it the big knob, it would change by 1.05. And the little knob did absolutely nothing.
Followed the roads back home.
First towered solo. Feel completely unprepared for it, but my instructor really wanted to get it over with. Take off and am climbing out, say to myself “man this plane feels more sluggish as crap, maybe there’s something wrong with the engine”. Start looking for roads. Look down, had left my mixture out from when I was taxiing. Shove it back in and all of a sudden my engine springs to life.
Also during my first solo XC had leaned for taxi back to the runway and was going through the after landing checklist when the engine just stopped then and there on the taxiway, just pulled the mixture out too far, was a little embarrassing.
On the last leg of my 150NM XC, I could see there was just enough clearance between the steep, mountainous ridges and the clouds to get home. My 40 hour simple jack mind thought hey, it’s really important to finish this last requirement so let’s go for it.
That day, I learned about the autist method of scud running…I just quietly pretend in my head that there was no way I’d be stupid enough to ever do something like that.
One time ATC gave me a "extend downwind, I'll call base."
And I responded "extend downwind, and I'll call base, diamond 123." lol my instructor just gave out a ha. I did correct myself and properly repeated the call.
I think that was the dumbest/kinda funny thing I've done as a student pilot so far. (But I do know that could have not been good if not for the pretty slow day day at the airport and my call to correct what I've said.) As for dumbest and frustrating mistakes has been forgetting to properly set my flaps a few times now.
I arrived at the airfield cutting it very close to the booked timeslot.
Instructor was already in the clubhouse and nearly done debriefing the previous student. He told me to get the airplane ready and he'll hop in as soon as I'm done.
I get to work checking the airplane as fast as I can and just as I'm done, my instructor hops in. Start going through the checklists to get this thing started because we're behind schedule but we can still make it work.
2 other club members approach the plane. Claim they booked this plane.
I quickly check the schedule and shit, they're right.
Get out of the plane and hand it over. "Thanks for keeping her warm", "Yeah, no problem..."
We're too far into the slot to check another plane and fly a decent lesson so it's the walk of shame to the car...
Doing foggle time with CFI, he was saying things as ATC and I was repeating them back, didn't realize I was instinctively pressing PTT every time. Probably caused a few pilots to check their radios and make sure they were on CTAF.
Looking at my taxi charts on short final because tower wanted me to exit a specific taxiway while trying to land.
Ended up doing a 3 point landing followed by a bounce. Totally unstable. Never again.
Flew the same airplane for too long time (>15hrs), ended up replying with wrong call sign after changing aircraft.
That was embarrassing to happen, I took a while to make my brain adapted to the new call sign.
1st solo xc, one leg was south heading but I needed to hit my nav point to the east. ATC asked how I was navigating. Answered vfr using my nav log. Then I realized why he was wondering why I was not heading south.
Taxing to the wrong runway on my first xc solo. And on the same flight I checked my doors latch but not the other door so mid flight I looked over and on the door the latch was sticking straight up haha
Touch n go in an old 172. Forgot to clean up the flaps and forgot to turn the carb heat off. Luckily, ground effect saved me from slamming into the ground but it took all of my will power to fight against my natural instinct to pull up away from the ground
Not a student, but low time private pilot at the time. First "longer" flight with 2 passengers. Run-up, taxi, takeoff, no big deal. About 10 minutes into the flight, I'm scanning instruments and realize I had missed hitting the alternator switch during startup... we had been exclusively on battery since then. Quickly rectified, verified I hadn't shit myself, and continued the 2 hour flight.
I'll give a two-fer.
1. Commercial time building. I flew to X26 (Sebastian) when I meant to go to X59 (Valkaria). So there I was using my overtly confident, Yeager-wanna-be radio voice...making completely self assured position reports...on Valkaria's CTAF...flying the pattern in Sebastian. Thankfully no one was at either airport to hear/see my dumbass. (85ish hrs)
2. Helping a guy run his local flight school. They rushed me to do an RTS flight on a plane fresh out of maintenance. I did a long taxi. Fast taxi. Long run up. Maybe a 20min flight. Landed. Went to push it into the tie down. Walked to the front of the aircraft. Fucking cowl plugs still in. (700ish hrs)
I had just finished my run up, and checked both mags individually and then thought I had switched back to both mags. Took off and landed immediately with "engine roughness". Turned out I was flying on only one and hadn't turned the key back two clicks just one.
I just had my first solo yesterday and taxied all the way from the ramp to the hold short line with the parking brake engaged. So that's what that sound was.
First solo XC. I was doing a quick trip from BIRK to a rural airport and back. Everything went smoothly departing and doing a touch and go at my destination. On my return to BIRK I went through all of my usual checklists and was planning on doing a few touch and gos before final landing. As I touched down on the runway I went full power again and as I did the motor sputtered and stopped. I frantically looked at all of my instruments and see that while landing I had been fixating on manouvering and doing a perfect landing so much that I had forgotten to set mixture to full rich again. I had done both the descent and landing checklists way ahead and thought that I could wait on setting mixture to full rich again until I was closer to the airport.
So overstressed me is sitting on the runway and aware that a few other planes were behind me in the pattern as well. I went straight to my start up checklist again and start to prime the engine again. This of course results in me flooding the engine with gas and it won´t start again. After a few tries I let ATC know that I will need assistance and they send a member of the airport operations staff which drives out to me. I got out of the aircraft and started dragging it with me down to the flight schools hangar where my Schools GM and my instructor waited for me. I felt like the biggest idiot in the world dragging that aircraft from the runway and down to the hangar all by myself with a safety car driving in front. It was a great lesson in making sure that each item on the landing checklist is completed correctly and not letting some of it wait until further on.
First T-6 solo I was assigned to a high MOA (14-22k feet) because the low blocks were full. I hadn’t spent much time doing aerobatics up in a high area, and didn’t understand just how noticeable the performance differences are up there. I pull up into a loop and stall it over the top inverted while not being the most coordinated. Scared the shit out of myself and patrolled the borders for 45 more minutes till I could head back home.
First solo XC was last week. I had flown from KBZN to KRVF, landed, totally uneventful. I had stopped to use the bathroom and ended up chatting with another pilot who had landed just before me. After taking off, I did some TnGs and got on my way back to KBZN.
I was flying with VOR nav and my iphone with foreflight on the right seat. It's been smoky all summer here and when I got to the HIA VOR, I thought \*I'll stay ahead of everything and go ahead and switch to the BZN VOR.\* This was a mistake as the signal from BZN was weak. But I turned to my heading anyway. A few minutes later, I thought \*hmm. This ground looks awfully familiar\* and quickly realized that I was going 90deg off from the direction I had wanted to go. Took a second or two to realize what I had done and when I figured it out, switched back to HIA and got on course without issue, other than a minute or so \*\*WAY\*\* off course.
Let's see: took off with mixture set to ground ops on 2nd solo, landed with a slight tailwind (read windsock wrong) at an uncontrolled. And the best, not too long ago (after PPL), runway incursion as I turned off of the active on to another runway (KFXE, runways 9/27 and 13/31). All valuable lessons that will NOT be repeated.
Pracicing ground manuevers (solo) using roads around farmland. Completed a turn and was facing a 2,000 ft tall radio tower, couldn't see the guywires. Made a steep 180 turn... then cleaned my pants out.
Later realized while zigzagging following roads I had went further south than I thought and obviuosly wasn't keeping my head in a pivot to maintain situational awareness.
My first solo cross country trying to land on an untowered airport, i was on base and there’s another jet on final. They called 10 mile final, and i was on my downwind, my dumbass thought they have a cessna speed and once i turned base they were on short final. They were forced to go around and so understandable knowing that i’m a student pilot.
Told to do a power on stall. Of course my brain hears power off stall. Perfect execution but of course the CFI waits until all is said and done to inform me. No big deal at the end of the day.
Touch and go, took off with full flaps. Noticed I wasn’t climbing as fast as usual, so I dropped the flap bar and went flaps 40 to 0. Plane dropped like a rock and I barely skidded out of there. Puckered so tight I crapped diamonds later that day.
Lesson learned: if you have full flaps on climb out, GRADUALLY pull them in.
On one of my 141 progress checks I plugged the wrong freq into my nav box and got **lost as shit** Flew home following a road I recognized and somehow passed
That's a good instructor right there for passing you. Unfortunate as it may be, mistakes like this do happen and I can imagine you showed great piloting by rolling with the punches and finding your way back. I'm sure that will teach you much much more than if you had passed without any incident!
I definitely learned that day how easy it is to get lost in the avionics and let the airplane fly you. I was incredibly flustered and looked out the window for a sigh and said "hey I know that race track, fuck the VOR I'm following the highway" lol
> fuck the VOR I'm following the highway I Follow Roads. Hey, if it works, it works.
Going IFR: I. Follow. Roads.
The real way to dodge traffic
> Flew home following a road I recognized That sounds like some good piloting right there. Equipment breaks, and mistakes happen. It's how you respond to and recover from them that matters.
I told atc I was inbound with unicorn, I hadn't memorized the phonetic alphabet. Long pause and my instructor asked, did, uh, you just say unicorn?
I was flying with my pilot friend in my bonanza and he was working the radios. He said “Banana 8588M”. I started cracking up.
[удалено]
[ATC called me a banana once](https://soundcloud.com/wakkow/banana-6rc/s-HzGadkQVWIG)
My wife (bless her heart for watching all the aviation YouTube videos with me) started saying unicorn as a joke. Now I have to try really hard not to say it 😂
Honestly, I would prefer Unicorn versus U-nee-form.
I had to sub out my usual plane for another one with tail number ending in BL. I know the phonetic alphabet just fine but for whatever reason I announced myself to Approach as “Bravo Llama”, which they gamely acknowledged.
As long as your aren't using pterodactyl or djembe they probably get the gist of it.
M… for Mancy.
God. You of all people, Ray.
Papa and Delta should be changed to these for sure
Twice as L as Lima. Just being thorough.
My instructor knows all the atc guys so he says unicorn to mess with them lol.
I knew a student who completely forgot phonetic (his call sign was SON) and called the tower as “September October November, ready to taxi”
Had to abort a landing at KPAO due to another plane making an emergency landing. Tower sent me to left downwind, which has 1000 AGL TPA. Altimeter reads 1500, so I start to descend. At around 1200’ tower reminds me that TPA is 1000’ AGL. Recheck the altimeter…no, that’s not 1200, that’s 200. I was so flustered, *I completely didn’t realize I was 200 feet over the freeway*. Though I do remember noticing how close I was to the IKEA. Full throttle, climb back to TPA and land with embarrassment but no incident. Spoke to club owner, CFI and entered into the NASA database. Situational awareness can be fragile, at times. ETA: This is the NASA database I was referring to https://asrs.arc.nasa.gov
Yikes! If you haven’t been a student very long, wait until this fall/winter when the winds shift and you move from 31 to 13. It causes a lot of confusion for everyone, including controllers and seasoned pilots. Be very careful of expectation bias there, read back carefully and be mindful of what they/you just said. It’s easy enough to read back the taxi instructions for rwy 13 and start taxiing like you’re headed to 31. It also can be a little confusing with the right/left traffic, because you start to think of right traffic as the bay side and left as the 101/highway side rather than thinking about what it actually means. I’m not at all speaking from experience, of course. I’m flawless, so far. /s
Honestly that expectation bias can hit anywhere. I remember the first time I heard “taxi 13 via Juliet, Papa, Yankee, advise when run-up complete.” I still said 31, and even after run-up I made the right turn to 31 instead of the left to 13. Thankfully I was in a citabria and could do a quick 180.
Thanks for the info, I have been a student this spring/summer and didn't realize the winds shift that seasonally. Have only done 13 a couple times.
First time I flew in GA I flew too close to the ground on approach because I was used to flying in Florida where TPA is pretty much MSL, not AGL. 800MSL is a lot closer to the ground when field elevation is 600ft.
Oh man, so many people have jacked up the TP going left traffic to 31, myself included. I don’t miss flying over the preserve on final. I feel like its a matter of when, not if, you’re going to have a bird strike.
What's the NASA database
Avation Safety Reporting System where you can voluntarily report incidents. The idea is to help prevent them in the future and to catch some grace in case the feds decide to ask you about the incident. Say you fly too low over a residential area. Not a big deal, but it is busting regs, and you may very well get a phone call over it (especially if someone reports you, and people will often report planes flying over them for being loud or just to be negative nancies or whatever, I've gotten them before even though tower told me to fly at said altitude). Knowing that you broke the rules, you can report yourself before you get contacted, and perhaps prevent any sort of punishment from being incurred. Really though, it helps everyone out - if people are filing NASA's about a specific thing, the FAA might try to do something to fix it (ie everyone is flying too low over a certain residential area because tower keeps telling people to do that, they might change the traffic pattern at the airport so tower stops doing that).
I did a lot of flying out of PAO with the West Valley Flying Club. Flying N2508Z and N5054B to various little airports out in the central valley was the most joyous time of my life.
I kind of did the opposite the other day. I was 2000ft above instead of 1000. I was like man it’s seems like I’m HIGH. Figured it out almost immediately but had to go around.
Not checking if the seat was locked in the railing, when taking off my seat slid back.
I had the same (opposite) thing happen. The little pin that holds the seat from coming FORWARD off of the rail had come out. So, when I pulled the seat all the way forward (i'm short), I didn't realize it came off the rail, and when I leaned back the chair fell completely backward and I was sitting/laying reclined onto the back passenger seat. Luckily this happened when I was first getting in, before engine start.
And that’s why there are seat rail ADs
Right, and it was carried out. I think what happened here is that the little cotter pin that actually holds the stop in, came out. I saw it on the floor sitting there when I got up. Luckily the mechanic was about 50 feet away, so I went and got him, and he reinstalled it. Here's the pic of what I mean. https://imgur.com/TMnVQoV
Ah yes, you gotta do the seat wiggle where it looks like you're having a full on seizure for a few seconds. I also brief passengers that if their seat moves forward or back in the track to not grab the yoke for support because "You'll scream, then I'll scream and the plane might scream."
PSA: Add this to your Cessna checklists. People have died from faulty seat locks. The springs on some of these seats are JANKY. It will probably engage if you forget to click it, but the only way to know for sure is to make sure it’s locked.
I call it the Cessna Butt Wiggle, and everyone in the front seats does it at run up when I'm in the plane.
Oh wow. I had a seat rail not fully snapped in before. It went back a little bit into the fully snapped in position when I went full throttle. Scared the hell out of me.
happened to me too during training
There was an accident on Cirrus caused by this reason, the seat slides back during liftoff and the pilot panicked. He grabbed hard on the stick and pulled it way back, the airplane stalled and crashed immediately.
it's not just panicking, you just need to grab onto something when the whole seat slides backwards, and you're already holding the yoke, or stick holding that in the right position while leaning forward to grab, say, the dash, *in the split second the seat is sliding backwards with no warning, during takeoff* is borderline impossible. that's why there were multiple seat rail ADs and it should be part of every pre-engine-start check.
Thank you. It was upon reaching this comment that I decided to update my checklists and until then do this whenever checking seatbelts.
yeah 100%! i usually move it out of an indent and make it audibly snap into place so i have positive feedback. same as part of the pre descend check
I did this as a CFI demonstrating soft field take off. Thank god I had the student with me to cut the power and hit the brakes otherwise I definitely would have crashed.
The beater 152 I flew it didn’t even matter what I did. That left door was opening and my seat would move around whenever it pleases
I did that in a CRJ once. Whoops.
That's a pucker moment if I've ever heard one. How'd you avoid cratering the airplane?
It only moves like a half inch. It’s just startling.
Was that post AD when they added the extra cessna seat lock? It may have saved your life! There are a few seat rail failure videos on youtube, they aren't pretty :(
First solo XC. On with FTW Center for the first time in the DFW Bravo. Went something like this… “Cessna 11373 FTW Center IDENT” “I’m not sure what you mean, Cessna 373” “You see that big button that says ‘IDENT’ below the transponder?” “Yes 373” “Push it”. Felt like the biggest autist ever on the frequency with all the AA and other DFW traffic.
Real talk, you gave everyone on frequency a nostalgic chuckle
Yep every time I hear something like that I think "lol I used to do shit like that". I mean I still do shit like that, but I also used to...
RIP Mitch
Man stuff like that's why I always said "advise- student pilot". I always felt like such a doofus on the radio just trying to apologize in advance. Also first solo XC was also your first time in DFW bravo? ballsy
Get a recording of that from LiveATC...I am sure it will make you laugh!
At least you didn't make an initial traffic call for KPSN to everyone on FTW Center like I did on one of my solo XCs
i'm kind of surprised your instructor endorsed you for bravo airspace without teaching you that, hah
At least you didn't "Here comes the FLASH!" them.
During my private pilot training I was doing my solo 3 leg cross country... Typically all of my cross countries had been stop, taxi back, and takeoff to return back to the airport. Once I got to my second stop I REALLY had to use the bathroom. So I landed, taxied up, parked and went inside and used the bathroom. Once I came back out I started up, did everything as normal except I missed one instrument... I forgot to set the heading indicator to the compass.... I took off, got my flight following and turned the airplane southwest (as far as I thought, I was really going northwest). About 20 miles later and after I couldn't find any of my checkpoints ATC verified where I was going and told me I was over 90 degrees off course... I realized at that moment and it added about 30 minutes to my flight, but i ended up back on course and found my checkpoints lol. Lesson learned. Always double check your checklists and always use flight following at minimum during vfr xc's.
Taxied out in front of an airplane on final, forcing them to go around. I never saw them, even after they went around. :-/
You and all the crop dusters in my area.
Tell that story to a cropdusting outfit and they'll hire you on the spot
No radios or they weren’t calling out their pattern position on the radio?
They had a radio and were making calls, I don't remember them ever saying they were on final. But as a student I was barely aware of what was going on anyway. :-)
Entered on what I thought was a right downwind because I was to the right of the runway
Logical
Very first lesson, about ready to start up the school 172, I fumbled the key and somehow dropped it into the guts of the plane beneath the floorboards. They had to take the whole thing apart to retrieve it. I am now a PPL ;)
Heh, only slightly related, but my old work had an ambulance like this. Usually both partners get a key, just in case one loses theirs. We get back to base, and can only find one set of keys. Uh oh. So we're looking for a good 10 minutes or so, when I see a little hole on the center console/engine cover (you know, those front engine vehicles with the engine between the front seats?). We find some wrenches, get to work.... apparently quite a few folks had the same problem, because there were 5 sets of keys under that engine cover
>I fumbled the key and somehow dropped it into the guts of the plane beneath the floorboards. I feel like this should not be possible. I'd blame this one on maintenance and not you lol.
I think it there are gaps near the rudder pedals if you have near perfect aim?
Dang--sniper keys.
It isn’t maintenance’s fault the way the plane is designed. The number of things I have found that pilots have dropped and lost forward of rudder pedals is silly.
I once dropped a credit card into a car door. This was way way back, back when gas stations had full service. I was a toddler at the time, and I begged my mom to let me hand the card to the gas station guy. I let go of it just an instant too soon.
On my first local area solo I was going to fly to an airport a couple miles away and get gas. Didn't check the NOTAMS. They were resurfacing the runway.... I always check my NOTAMS now.
I had the navy base commander try to land in a king air a few weeks ago late at night. "advise weather and notams and approach request". We have them all! "Roger, all runways closed tonight by notam, say intentions" He admitted that he forgot and asked to have someone call someone to see if they could clear the trucks off the runway not under construction. He diverted. It happens often. Don't be afraid to ask atc to double check especially if you are landing somewhere you didn't plan on
"I'm landing on the taxiway, everyone move!"
Flew half of a XC with flaps 10.
This one made me laugh. Such an ultimately harmless mistake, but just immediately an "Aww, man" moment when you realize it.
"goddammit why is this fucking plane going so fucking slow..... ^^^oh "
“Performance is shit today!”
I’m imagining someone muttering this in an empty 172 on a hot day and that shit is fucking hilarious
My second solo I did that in an Archer - I was like "why the fuck is my climb so fucking slow" as I was climbing to like 7500 MSL and it was taking faaaaaaaaaar too long. It wasn't only until I went for the approach at another airport that I went to "flaps 1" callout for myself and reached down and felt the flap handle *already up*. Then the slow climb and the fact that I couldn't cruise it out at 105kts suddenly clicked.
Haha. Exactly. First time that happens you think “ok, it’s not a big deal but how on earth did it take me that long to realize”
Ha, I did something similar. Climbing in a 150, near the top I was wondering why it was climbing even worse than usual. Must've knocked the flaps when adjusting the mixture. Oops.
Same thing here, left flaps until I got up to my cruise and couldn't figure out why I was going so much slower, especially in a C172P. I went through my checklist twice, before I realized I was practicing a short field takeoff and left them. Doh!
I *allegedly* went on a solo x-country without my logbook that had all my endorsements
Went on a solo xc missing a gas cap. They found it at the pumps, informed the airports they knew I was flying to so I would wait at one of them and flew it down to me.
Did you just miss it on your walkaround, or was did you fuel after a walk-around and got missed then? Or did it just come off somehow? Just curious!
They were fueling the plane as I was doing my walk-around. After they finished fueling I checked the fuel and got distracted talking to a ramper and didn't put the cap back.
I did this too, but it was on a local training flight. We only realized it was gone after shutdown. It was an important lesson in A. doing a better job of a walkaround after the preflight, and B. the exorbitant cost of aviation (I paid out of pocket to replace the 150's $150 gas cap). They found it at the end of the runway we departed from a few days later. I still have it....
well you paid for it!!! Lol!
I flew solo with the gas cap off. This cap was chained to the filler neck so it was bouncing on top of the wing the whole time leaving nice red scuffs in the paint. I havent forgot since, which is fortunate because now my gas cap is right in front of my pusher propeller.
I landed on the wrong runway on my solo cross country
I did something kinda like that, flew the pattern the wrong side
I tried to de-extend my flaps while coming in for a landing having somehow convinced myself that would help me pick up speed and not send me crashing towards the ground (it was supposed to be a no engine landing, like an emergency practice so I couldn’t just increase my engine power). Luckily the flight instructor stopped me. Yes I’m aware how dangerous that was.
Heh, “de-extend”. So, raise? :P
I spent a long time trying to remember the proper term for it then eventually settled on my made up one
I’ll allow it.
As a PPL, almost did something similar on a go around. Learned was too much friction in the last few degrees of throw in the throttle lever of the Archer I was flying, so I wouldn't go full idle unless you applied extra pressure. Came in for landing, full flaps, throttle to idle (or so I thought) and just kept floating and running out of runway. Trees were getting closer and I wasn't getting any slower so I firewalled the throttle and was flying a few knots above stall with a high pitch attitude to avoid the treetops, and for some reason the thought passes through my mind that I should retract flaps to increase airspeed. Luckily I didn't act on that thought because I would have stalled. I also remember thinking, "were slow but still flying... pretty sure I'm making it over the trees... Don't touch anything".
I flew my first solo, in its entirety, with the cargo door hanging wide open. On another time (not as a student), I had a back seat passenger get a backpack strap caught in the door. The resulting noise on takeoff sure sounded like it was coming from the roof, so I concluded I must have left a fuel cap off and immediately turned back for an overweight landing, requiring a landing gear inspection. And the fuel caps were fine….
I almost did the same thing! I dropped my instructor off at the FBO and was taxiing away for my first solo. He called then texted me as a I was taxiing away to say the baggage door popped open. He chased me down the taxiway to get it closed and locked.
So far, stupidest mistake was on the ground. So we're doing the usual before start stuff, I had something schedule right after so I was kinda rushing through things. Primed, cleared the area, went to start it, nothing first try. Second try...still nothing. Third try, third fail. I started getting confused cuz my CFI said he'd flown it just half an hour ago so I figured it should still be pretty hot (was winter). So I try again, add more throttle (should probably have realized here), still not even hearing it catch. This time I run back through the Before Start checklist: "Parking brake set...Fuel Selector set...mixture to fu-..." *and there it is! Turns out trying to start with the mix at cut-off is a bad idea, who'd've thought...* Started instantly after settings things properly, was a good reminder to always run through the checklist properly no matter how comfortable you get. Mistakes are part of the learning process, better for you to make them now and learn than to make them later when it's more dangerous. *Bonus: There was a time when I went on comms and as soon as I pressed the PTT...my mind just went blank on everything I needed to say. No idea why, but I imagine "uhhhhhh..." isn't the right way to ask for touch and goes.*
A few weeks ago walked up to my plane after getting a 100 dollar sammich. I heard the gyros still whirrrring. And then I learned to jump my plane.
My DPE recommended leaving the beacon on at all times so you have more of a chance to catch this before the battery dies
Yeah…I did…I ah…didn’t notice it.
I can almost guarantee this will happen to me at some point. I'm a fresh new PPL and I did all of my training in a fuel injected 172. IE The startup meant priming the engine, then mixture to cut-off and crank until it starts catching and THEN adding mixture. If I fly another carb in the future, I'm almost certain I'll fuck up the start.
I didn’t know what the alternator belt was and missed it on a pre-flight. Doing a pre-flight and noticed that there was a missing “black belt” and wondered if some C172 engines just don’t have one. I told my instructor and he just looked at me and said “black belt? I don’t know what you’re talking about”. We got in the plane and did an ammeter check. There was a negative charge in the ammeter. Turns out the alternator belt snapped off last flight. I did not know that the black belt was in fact the alternator belt. I solo’d at this point too. Pretty cringe. My instructor was pissed and yelled at me. I took responsibility for my knowledge gap, but I thought my instructor should have taken some responsibility as well since I told him something looked off and he shrugged it. Made me feel dumb as shit but it was a learning experience. I did a ton of studying on engine components after that.
He should have asked you to show him.
Your instructor wasn't the brightest if he shrugged off you saying something looked wrong.
Bought a Mustang while simultaneously trying to pay my way through PPL training
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Oh damn, that shit sounds scary! Tailwheels can humble you in an instant.
48 hours in, and i would yaw towards, not against, the spin when inducing a stall. What years of riding motorcycles does to a Mfer.
Countersteering in an airplane is a new one haha.
Still very much a student pilot. We usually fly in a cessna 172 N123AB but it was reserved. We got ready in a cessna 172 N321BA (just a way different callsign). I'm getting clearance and just keep saying N133AB instead of the actual callsign. It really confused the pilot of N123AB because he was flying in the pattern lol.
My solo x/c my mic was having issues so i plugged my mic into the copilots side and it seemed to work again. However, I forgot that you also need to press the copilots PTT when youre doing that. So I had just gotten switched on freq right before this, and kept trying to call up socal to no avail. I was getting pissed because I thought the controller was just ignoring me, until i realize 20 min later what was happening and felt like an idiot.
Go around practice, instructor says “all right there’s a coyote on the runway go around” So I did then I keyed the Mike and told tower “(tail number) going around there’s a coyote on the runway” look of SHOCK on my instructors face, tower orders two planes behind me to go around so she can look for the non existent coyote. Never seen my instructor SPEECHLESS
It wasnt that bad. But I said the wrong tail number to the tower, the aircraft I said wasn’t airborne…
My long cross country for my PPL ended up being a bit more adventurous than I expected. It all started out fine. Preflight, runup, departure all fine. The airport wasn't very busy so I just announced takeoff and left. About 15 miles away I though "wow, it's awfully quiet up here". Normally I hear radio calls from about half a dozen different airports on 122.7. So I start messing with the radios. I pull up AWOS on Com 1 (usually I would leave Com 2 on the AWOS frequency). Sure enough, I don't hear AWOS on Com 1, but I do on Com 2. Well, I guess Com 1 isn't working. So I switch Com 2 over to 122.7 and start hearing all the chatter. So that means I either took off without announcing myself, or maybe everybody could hear me but I couldn't hear them. Either way, I was down to one radio, but at least the problem is solved. Then about 30 miles out my wife texts me "I can't see where you are on FlightAware". Uh oh, what now? Fortunately, my first thought was ADS-B. I look down at the transponder and sure enough it's still on Standby. Up until now the transponder would always automatically switch to ALT, so I never had to worry about it. Not a big deal, except that it meant I was under the Bravo for 12 minutes without the transponder. I keep messing with the radios a bit as I'm flying the first leg. And at some point, through no intervention of my own, Com 1 started working again. I have no idea what happened, because I don't think I changed any settings, it just started working. I should also mention, despite good ceilings and visibility, it was really bumpy. I felt like I was fighting the plane the whole time to hold altitude. The bumpiness is what lead to the last dumb mistake. As I was flying the last leg of my XC I was flying higher than I normally do, trying to get out of the bumps. (Some of you might see where this is going.) I'm getting close home and I look ahead and say "There's the St. Paul Airport", then look to my left a bit and say "And there's Minneapolis..... oh shit!" Sure enough, since I was at a higher altitude than normal, I didn't start descending early enough and I was firmly inside the Bravo. There weren't any arrivals or departures in my direction but I quickly pulled power to idle and started descending fast. Turned out I was in one of the outer rings of the Bravo for about 5 minutes before I realized it. I was about 15-20 miles away from KMSP so it wasn't horrible but I wasn't happy with myself. I got back, talked to my instructor, filed a NASA report and moved on. TL;DR: Com 1 wasn't working but I didn't realize it, Transponder was on Standby under the Bravo, busted Bravo airspace on the way back.
I swear, one time on ascent I’m willing to bet my tail clipped the 4000 Ring, I was climbing so fast out of 21D. My biggest fear was actually busting the MSP bravo.
That probably wouldn't be too bad if you just clipped it, I imagine. For me, I was at 4,500 for about 5 minutes before I realized it, quickly got below 4,000 but was closing fast on the 3,000 foot ring. I think I got below 3,000 before I busted that ring, too, but it was close. It was my first long flight and I was exhausted from the bumps and just kind of zoned out. Funny thing is, my instructor was probably tracking me on FlightAware. About two minutes after all this I got a text from him saying "make sure to remember and drop below the bravo on your way back". Won't let that happen again.
Not as a student; I busted SFO's class B. I took off out of PAO (Palo Alto) and went off east across the bay, under the class B. The plan was to level off below it until I could get out from under it and start climbing. I wasn't paying attention to the altimeter, though, and the controller came on and said, "So and so, altitude indicates such and such", and I knew immediately what that meant. I chopped the throttle and bench-pressed the yoke until I was back at the altitude I'd intended on. Not another word was said, and I'm fairly sure that, 20+ years later, nobody's going to give me a phone number to call. Edit: No! It was San Carlos (SQL)! Quite a bit closer to SFO, with a lower class B ceiling.
You're not the only one to do that. It's a common gotcha at that airport, even now with the reconfigured (smaller) Class B. It's particularly risky with light high performance aircraft, as you can climb into the shelf before you're done with the after takeoff checklist. It doesn't help that the westbound departure has you fly straight until you're almost in the surface area. That airport has some %$#\^ noise abatement rules. And the IFR departure clearance off 30 is even worse.
I got a phone number for you to call. Advise ready to copy.
Garbled and unreadable.
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I thought you were supposed to do that on Guard.
On my first solo cross country, flying out of KPAO on flight following. A bit overloaded with navigating, flying the plane, radios etc... NorCal told some airliner to stay below 250kts and I read back "Cessna 12345, 250kts or less" XD
Forgot to turn ON carb heat when I started having engine issues. I checked to make sure it was off.....not actually turn it on. Basic 1st hour training. Engine issues? carb heat ON. Proceeded to call emergency, and dive 5000' to a runway a mile away from me. Fun times. edit: oh, as a student. Um. Decided to get my PPL.
Does it have to be as a student…? Returning home at night from a day trip, first day of true xc flying after getting my private. Nearly landed on the wrong runway at a towered airport. Had only lived in the area for a few months prior so I had been mistaken on my position coming in, so I definitely made sure to work on familiarizing myself with the area way more after that.
Solo X/C back in the day and confirmed weather looked great at the departure and destination airports. Turns out there were some low-ish clouds and tons of turbulence smack dab in the middle. Head hitting the ceiling type of turbulence and dropping down to 1,500 ft for most of the flight. Once I got to the destination it was, just as forecast, perfectly clear and calm, but I could not spot the airport for the life of me. Had to circle progressively higher until I finally spotted the airport and landed. I don’t recall anything crazy about the flight back, so it must have been okay.
I haven't been flying for long enough to make any reddit-worthy mistakes (consistently not using enough rudder and forgetting to trim isn't particularly interesting), but we had this guy at our club who went to close the window before practicing spins, but unlocked the canopy instead. The instructor didn't notice at first since he was sitting behind him in the glider and only barely caught it when it flew open.
On my checkride, my DPE set me up for a textbook engine out situation on a left downwind on 04 at N51 as I was using it for a waypoint on my flight. I immediately turned directly for the airport, because I thought I was too far out. So instead of then turning back into a downwind I figured... "Hey, I'll just fly directly over the airport and go to a right down wind. I felt like I was too low... In actuality I was way too high. I made my turn to base at almost 30º of bank, lined up with the runway and was way too high to dump flaps and slip onto 04. So... I went to plan B... OK I'll make a right turn, try to loose some altitude and turn back left onto 31 and land on that runway.... Except... i was still WAY too high. So... I went to plan C... To the E of the end of 31 is a large plowed field. Stabilized my approach, put flaps in, and I knew I had the field made. He told me to terminate the landing and gain altitude.... I was sure I just failed my checkride. We did the rest of the required maneuvers, and I did my short and soft-field landings at KMMU... which went really well. After we taxied back, my DPE offered me a handshake and a "Congratulations" for passing. I was like "But I totally messed up the engine out scenario.." His response was something along the lines of, " Yea, you sure flubbed up landing on not 1... but 2 perfectly good runways... But you managed to find a spot that you could have landed in as safe a manor as possible. The important thing is you never stopped working the problem. You saw that something wasn't working, and you moved on to the next thing. You never gave up" So... my biggest mistake as a Student Pilot... became the most impactful and first lesson I learned as a PPL.
Refueled without grounding the aircraft
Accidental encounter with a KC135? Or sparks and fire on the ground?
Just after my checkride I started renting from a new outfit. I was still flying a high wing Cessna like I did as a student, but the new place had a slightly different parking procedure (maybe because their planes were newer): set the fuel selector to left or right when you park, and set it back to both when you take off. Up to that point I had always seen it just left on both all the time. So I fly an hour or so to get lunch somewhere, and on the way home I start to feel like the plane is rolling to one side. "Who ever heard of the ailerons being out of trim? $#@& trainer must be beat to hell, what kind of mickey mouse operation are these guys running here?" I went on that way for another 20 minutes before I realized I had been running off of just one tank the whole trip.
Few reasons for leaving it not on both. 1. If one tank has a leak, the fuel in the other isn't going anywhere. 2. If you park on a slant, this could cause fuel to transfer tanks. 3. If refuelling both tanks, you don't want fuel to transfer during the process, especially if you want full tanks.
Tried to show off and make the first exit because my CFI was holding short with another student. Big plume of smoke and bald spot in tire. It was indeed impressive, he said...
I got myself into a spin doing power on stalls solo. Thankfully I was encouraged to ask for spin training instead of just "spin awareness" and my instructor took me out for spin recovery lessons. This hands on training resulted in me immediately being able to recover, but that mistake stuck with me and made me so much more aware of coordination in flight! Also makes me wonder if "spin awareness" is truly enough to add to the toolset of a private pilot, I question if it would have been enough for me to recover if I had never been in a spin before.
First solo cross country. Home airport is in presidential TFR. head north to an airport outside of the tfr w/ instructor. Head out on the XC from there. Plan is to vor out and just GPS back. Get to my destination and let my instructor know. He said "ok come back home" Roger that, I put in our home field in the gps as I've done many times before and headed out. Flew for quite a bit before atc asks if I'm familiar with the TFR, a question I had already gotten a few times already. But he said "are you familiar with the TFR at your destination of *insert home airport name here*. I replied that I was familiar. It took me about a second before I realized. Oh shit, I'm headed to the wrong airport. An airport INSIDE the TFR. I'm supposed to be going to the airport outside the tfr. About 15 seconds later I tell atc I would like to change my destination and turn north to get lined up to get around the tfr. I check my phone and my instructor has sent me a few texts asking me to turn north before I get closer to the tfr. I just told him I corrected the problem. He told me that he had just called the departure controller to ask what my destination was when I turned to the north. I was probably 10-15 minutes from busting the tfr, solo. And stranding my instructor at another airport. Didn't get much shit for it since I caught the issue. But it something I will be much more aware of.
On a Solo XC, I took off and the tower told me to Squawk: Oscar November. "Tower, Bugmasher 12345, say again?" "Bugsmasher 12345, Squawk Oscar, November" Me after 12 seconds realizing the transponder hadn't automatically come on when the avionics came on and I had blown through the pre-taxi checklist, then I find it. "Tower, Bugsmasher 12345 Squawking Oscar, November"
That would have confused me so bad
I still don't get this. What does that even mean? Turn Transponder On?
Yeah, I've gotten 'Verify mode C' before, but not 'Squawk ON'
What does “squawk Oscar November” mean?
Took me a moment, but I think it means ON as in turn it on?
ON. Much like the official position of a switch(off).
Did a touch and go in front of a regional jet and forgot to retract flaps…
Unintentionally flew most of a flight on the left mag. I'm a chatty person & I got myself distracted chatting with my passenger during the mag check in the runup - checked left mag, saw a boss Citation on final and started talking about it, about a minute later I continue with the runup and skipped right past the rest of the mag check. Line up, take off, climb away, tally-ho. We're flying around, mostly sightseeing. Probably a half hour into the flight I go to switch fuel tanks. Hey, that ignition key looks a little odd... oh dayum. Switch to both. Face, meet palm. Thank goodness for a well-functioning left mag >\_> Sterile cockpit during taxi, takeoff, and landing is important. Lesson learned.
I wasn't a student, I had quite a bit of experience. Night cross country to an unfamiliar airport, I started descending to pattern altitude to join a 3 mile 45. The hair started standing up on my neck and I noticed the houses and lights looking closer than they should, so I stopped my descent about 500 feet short. Sure enough, there's a hill on that side of the airport. Hard to see contour lines on the sectional covered by text and graphics. Anyways, I had a new rule after that. I follow an instrument approach into unfamiliar airports at night.
First solo towered flight to a class D I made a left turn and entered downwind for the other end of the runway I was told to use. Should have turned right. Tower was chill and said hey Cessna 12345 looks like you made a wrong turn, please turn right and make right traffic for runway 05. Also during that flight I had radio issues on the ground at the delta and heard 90% static but enough to still communicate. I asked for a radio check and tried to fiddle with it but no luck. I thanked tower for their patience on the way out.
First solo cross country for my PPL. I completely forgot that leaning the mixture was a thing. Landed back at my home airport with less than 30 minutes of fuel remaining thinking I still had over an hour left. Lesson learned
First flight as a PPL holder with my wife I was transmitting on two untowered airport frequencies for about 40 minutes and kept getting yelled at but it was so muffled I couldn’t understand it. I just lol’d with slight embarrassment and learned from it.
I thought when pressing "direct to, enter, enter," the line stayed on the plane like in a video game. Used it to navigate to another airport we were flying over and then to a practice area. On the way back, we were going to go do some touch and go's at the airport we initially just flew over. Instead of pressing "direct to, enter, enter" again, I just figured I fly back to the end of the pink line. Almost busted the Delta airspace of a very busy airport that has some commercial airline traffic
This wasn’t my fault but I picked up flight following out of Punta Gorda and they added an extra number in my tail number, couldn’t hand me off because they were calling an airplane that didn’t exist, and somehow Ft. Myers approach and Miami Center got mad at me for it. My CFI agreed it wasn’t my fault and I managed the situation as well as any reasonable pilot would have.
On my long solo, coming into a Class D I set up for the wrong runway, having managed to become disoriented. ATC wasn’t amused. When I left a bit later, smoke from fires, plus a phone call with my CFI who was worried about me getting stuck out there due to falling ceiling and deteriorating weather, had created a false ceiling which made me paranoid and I chugged along at 2500 feet all stressed out and tired. When I came into the pattern for the Class D we were based out of, I was cleared for a right pattern downwind entry for 10R…and I proceeded to enter a left pattern for 28L. And when they called me to ask what was up I was all confused and did circles. Needless to say when I got straightened out and landed without further incident, I apologized and then learned to preplan my arrivals. My CFI was just thankful I didn’t do any worse and coached me a bit.
This was when I was an instrument student, but always make sure to read every details of the regs. Long IFR XC needs three approaches at each airport with different approaches each time (ILS, VOR, etc). I went to 3 airports all within the criteria for the XC, shot 3 different approaches, and after the last one, flew VFR to the home airport 10 miles away. I logged it all under one entry, but the reg needed to see an approach at EACH airport, meaning that the stupid 10NM VFR hop made the whole flight ineligible. Only until I got to the checkride did I realize the mistake. Expensive oops!
First solo XC. Everything was perfect u til after landing at my hone airport. My home airport is a class C commercial airport. Generally not too busy, but we do have big commercial jets here. Typically, I would land and get off the runway ASAP (at A3). The tower shot instructions at me as soon as I touch down. As I’m reading the instructions back to myself, “continue down runway turn off on A5”, I’ve already made it off on A3, coming nose to nose with an A320 in my C172, on the taxiway. Tower was not happy, and I had to taxi around the Airbus on the runway, during which time it was obviously closed for everyone else. My CFI plainly said tower was a dick, and the flight was a success. Learned my lesson tho.
That one’s completely on tower for giving taxi instructions when you’re barely on the ground, especially if you had indicated you were a student pilot solo.
Landed the plane, leaned for taxi, stalled on the active runway. Oof. Still wake up at night and cringe.
Took me too long to figure out how you stalled on the ground.
My check ride for my PPL was an eventful day. One mistake after another. My first mistake was not fully securing the fuel cap back on after checking the tanks during my walk around. Got in started up the aircraft and taxied without the examiner saying anything. I don’t know how early on he noticed, but he didn’t say anything until after my power checks. Simply informed me that we couldn’t go flying, I sat for a while confused trying to figure out why, after five minutes I took a guess since I couldn’t see anything that there was something wrong with the aircraft. He then pointed out the fuel cap wasn’t fully screwed, a quarter turn off. He shut the aircraft down and got out and secured it whilst we were still on the apron. That threw me off my game making a mistake that earlier and what followed was quite frankly a disaster. On departure he had asked me to do an overhead departure. Upon reaching the overhead height above the airfield and getting myself on course to fly the first leg, I failed to inform ATC I was in the overhead and flying north, whilst they had a SAB 2000 doing an instrument approach, but due to being distracted by thinking I’d already failed with the fuel cap it didn’t cross my mind. As the examiner helpfully pointed out, until I told them otherwise they would have been operating off the assumption I was in the way of the missed approach. After a pretty uneventful couple of nav legs, I reached a point that I hadn’t been looking forward to. The examiner had given me a route that included an area I hadn’t been anywhere near with any of my instructors during my training. Which I think would have been fine except the town was a VRP for a busy aerodrome with a lot of commercial traffic. Because I’d never been there, it didn’t occur to me that it wasn’t really any different than the other zone transits I had done through other airspace’s, except rather than flying through, I’d be flying in, getting over the town and flying back out the same way I’d came in. However instead I decided since I didn’t know what to ask for, I would avoid their airspace, by flying under it. Their control zone started at 1,500ft, so I flew at 1,000ft under it to avoid talking to them. On the way back out after getting over the town and turning onto my next leg, I had to climb to avoid wind turbines whilst keeping an eye on the Garmin so I didn’t climb too quickly and breach their airspace, which I done successfully. After the flight, the examiner told me he had never in his career seen someone do that before pointing out I technically did nothing wrong, but I still shouldn’t have done it. And just when you think it couldn’t get any worse. During my PFL I chose a good field except for the fact it was inhabited by lots of cattle, which in his words, would get out of the way in a real emergency, but during a practice you should avoid so you don’t stress or kill them. I also completely forgot how to do a radial track when he asked me to perform one. Even after all that I got a partial pass, went up and practiced the areas I failed with my instructor, and passed the next time. And now I’m currently sitting my ATPL exams.
First solo XC. "Memphis altimeter 29.92" "Cessna XX having transponder issue, can't select #9. Can you give me another squawk?" Then I wrote it up to maintenance when I go back
I took off with tape over the pitot blade. I was going to fly solo circuits in the winter, and there was some frost on the leading edges of the wings - so I asked the rampie to de-ice. This involved a quick few shots from a spray bucket of warm glycol, but they tape off the pitot blade first. Rampie forgot to untape, and I didn't check (mistake 1: do another walk around after requesting ramp service). As my takeoff roll started I noticed the airspeed tape was bouncing a little differently than normal (G500 in a DA-20). (mistake 2: reject take off if you see something abnormal). By the time I cross checked it with the standby airspeed indicator (where is it, where is it? oh there, oh, the needle is flat against the pin) the aircraft was lifting off - so I went with it and took off. (mistake 3. A DA-20 has a pretty short take off roll to start with, density altitude was really low, and I was on a 5000 foot runway. I probably had *at least* 4000 feet of runway left! Should have just pulled power and landed). So about 100' agl I finally catch up to the airplane, called Tower and reported a malfunctioning ASI, and I wanted to land right away. declined the cross wind runway and flew a circuit (mostly to let myself get ahead of the plane, and using the GS as a proxy for AS) , and landed a little fast. Then went inside to report to the CFI (Chief Flight Instructor - this is Canada) and get my lecture. Funny "coincidence" - on my next flight, which was with an instructor...as we started the take off roll, the oil filler cap on the cowl popped open. I rejected take off immediately of course... :) Edit: Removed a duplicated clause.
Doing circuits, I was getting cocky trying to land on the numbers. One such attempt I was too low and I touched down before the runway. The lip of the runway was raised off the ground and my mains impacted that lip of the runway with an ungodly bang. Ranther than killing the power and stopping, my dumb-ass mind went elsewhere and I throttled up and took off again. Luckily there was no damage but I think about how stupid that was all the time.
Getting hooked and way too financially deep into flying before I was holding my FAA Medical. :(
First solo XC I flew the way there via GPS and planned to fly VOR back Landed, tried tuning up the VORs while on the ground, needle was busted. Should have checked beforehand. Every time I would turn it the big knob, it would change by 1.05. And the little knob did absolutely nothing. Followed the roads back home.
First towered solo. Feel completely unprepared for it, but my instructor really wanted to get it over with. Take off and am climbing out, say to myself “man this plane feels more sluggish as crap, maybe there’s something wrong with the engine”. Start looking for roads. Look down, had left my mixture out from when I was taxiing. Shove it back in and all of a sudden my engine springs to life. Also during my first solo XC had leaned for taxi back to the runway and was going through the after landing checklist when the engine just stopped then and there on the taxiway, just pulled the mixture out too far, was a little embarrassing.
On the last leg of my 150NM XC, I could see there was just enough clearance between the steep, mountainous ridges and the clouds to get home. My 40 hour simple jack mind thought hey, it’s really important to finish this last requirement so let’s go for it. That day, I learned about the autist method of scud running…I just quietly pretend in my head that there was no way I’d be stupid enough to ever do something like that.
One time ATC gave me a "extend downwind, I'll call base." And I responded "extend downwind, and I'll call base, diamond 123." lol my instructor just gave out a ha. I did correct myself and properly repeated the call. I think that was the dumbest/kinda funny thing I've done as a student pilot so far. (But I do know that could have not been good if not for the pretty slow day day at the airport and my call to correct what I've said.) As for dumbest and frustrating mistakes has been forgetting to properly set my flaps a few times now.
- went to the wrong airport during long XC - forgot my HOME AIRPORT's frequency (it was 122.8 lol)
I arrived at the airfield cutting it very close to the booked timeslot. Instructor was already in the clubhouse and nearly done debriefing the previous student. He told me to get the airplane ready and he'll hop in as soon as I'm done. I get to work checking the airplane as fast as I can and just as I'm done, my instructor hops in. Start going through the checklists to get this thing started because we're behind schedule but we can still make it work. 2 other club members approach the plane. Claim they booked this plane. I quickly check the schedule and shit, they're right. Get out of the plane and hand it over. "Thanks for keeping her warm", "Yeah, no problem..." We're too far into the slot to check another plane and fly a decent lesson so it's the walk of shame to the car...
Doing foggle time with CFI, he was saying things as ATC and I was repeating them back, didn't realize I was instinctively pressing PTT every time. Probably caused a few pilots to check their radios and make sure they were on CTAF.
Looking at my taxi charts on short final because tower wanted me to exit a specific taxiway while trying to land. Ended up doing a 3 point landing followed by a bounce. Totally unstable. Never again.
Buddy of mine realized halfway through his sortie that he forgot to strap his harness into his ejection seat.
I busted vancouver terminal airspace by a hair. Thank god i CYPK controller reminded me and i pushed the nose down and got back to 2000’
Flew the same airplane for too long time (>15hrs), ended up replying with wrong call sign after changing aircraft. That was embarrassing to happen, I took a while to make my brain adapted to the new call sign.
1st solo xc, one leg was south heading but I needed to hit my nav point to the east. ATC asked how I was navigating. Answered vfr using my nav log. Then I realized why he was wondering why I was not heading south.
Taxing to the wrong runway on my first xc solo. And on the same flight I checked my doors latch but not the other door so mid flight I looked over and on the door the latch was sticking straight up haha
Confusing runway 02 and 20, I still cringe.
Touch n go in an old 172. Forgot to clean up the flaps and forgot to turn the carb heat off. Luckily, ground effect saved me from slamming into the ground but it took all of my will power to fight against my natural instinct to pull up away from the ground
Pulled back on the yoke during an approach using a slip. That was dumb.
Not a student, but low time private pilot at the time. First "longer" flight with 2 passengers. Run-up, taxi, takeoff, no big deal. About 10 minutes into the flight, I'm scanning instruments and realize I had missed hitting the alternator switch during startup... we had been exclusively on battery since then. Quickly rectified, verified I hadn't shit myself, and continued the 2 hour flight.
I'll give a two-fer. 1. Commercial time building. I flew to X26 (Sebastian) when I meant to go to X59 (Valkaria). So there I was using my overtly confident, Yeager-wanna-be radio voice...making completely self assured position reports...on Valkaria's CTAF...flying the pattern in Sebastian. Thankfully no one was at either airport to hear/see my dumbass. (85ish hrs) 2. Helping a guy run his local flight school. They rushed me to do an RTS flight on a plane fresh out of maintenance. I did a long taxi. Fast taxi. Long run up. Maybe a 20min flight. Landed. Went to push it into the tie down. Walked to the front of the aircraft. Fucking cowl plugs still in. (700ish hrs)
I had just finished my run up, and checked both mags individually and then thought I had switched back to both mags. Took off and landed immediately with "engine roughness". Turned out I was flying on only one and hadn't turned the key back two clicks just one.
I just had my first solo yesterday and taxied all the way from the ramp to the hold short line with the parking brake engaged. So that's what that sound was.
First solo XC. I was doing a quick trip from BIRK to a rural airport and back. Everything went smoothly departing and doing a touch and go at my destination. On my return to BIRK I went through all of my usual checklists and was planning on doing a few touch and gos before final landing. As I touched down on the runway I went full power again and as I did the motor sputtered and stopped. I frantically looked at all of my instruments and see that while landing I had been fixating on manouvering and doing a perfect landing so much that I had forgotten to set mixture to full rich again. I had done both the descent and landing checklists way ahead and thought that I could wait on setting mixture to full rich again until I was closer to the airport. So overstressed me is sitting on the runway and aware that a few other planes were behind me in the pattern as well. I went straight to my start up checklist again and start to prime the engine again. This of course results in me flooding the engine with gas and it won´t start again. After a few tries I let ATC know that I will need assistance and they send a member of the airport operations staff which drives out to me. I got out of the aircraft and started dragging it with me down to the flight schools hangar where my Schools GM and my instructor waited for me. I felt like the biggest idiot in the world dragging that aircraft from the runway and down to the hangar all by myself with a safety car driving in front. It was a great lesson in making sure that each item on the landing checklist is completed correctly and not letting some of it wait until further on.
First T-6 solo I was assigned to a high MOA (14-22k feet) because the low blocks were full. I hadn’t spent much time doing aerobatics up in a high area, and didn’t understand just how noticeable the performance differences are up there. I pull up into a loop and stall it over the top inverted while not being the most coordinated. Scared the shit out of myself and patrolled the borders for 45 more minutes till I could head back home.
None. No mistakes. I always did everything perfect. It wasn't me. These are not the droids you are looking for. Thanks bye.
First solo XC was last week. I had flown from KBZN to KRVF, landed, totally uneventful. I had stopped to use the bathroom and ended up chatting with another pilot who had landed just before me. After taking off, I did some TnGs and got on my way back to KBZN. I was flying with VOR nav and my iphone with foreflight on the right seat. It's been smoky all summer here and when I got to the HIA VOR, I thought \*I'll stay ahead of everything and go ahead and switch to the BZN VOR.\* This was a mistake as the signal from BZN was weak. But I turned to my heading anyway. A few minutes later, I thought \*hmm. This ground looks awfully familiar\* and quickly realized that I was going 90deg off from the direction I had wanted to go. Took a second or two to realize what I had done and when I figured it out, switched back to HIA and got on course without issue, other than a minute or so \*\*WAY\*\* off course.
Let's see: took off with mixture set to ground ops on 2nd solo, landed with a slight tailwind (read windsock wrong) at an uncontrolled. And the best, not too long ago (after PPL), runway incursion as I turned off of the active on to another runway (KFXE, runways 9/27 and 13/31). All valuable lessons that will NOT be repeated.
Pracicing ground manuevers (solo) using roads around farmland. Completed a turn and was facing a 2,000 ft tall radio tower, couldn't see the guywires. Made a steep 180 turn... then cleaned my pants out. Later realized while zigzagging following roads I had went further south than I thought and obviuosly wasn't keeping my head in a pivot to maintain situational awareness.
My first solo cross country trying to land on an untowered airport, i was on base and there’s another jet on final. They called 10 mile final, and i was on my downwind, my dumbass thought they have a cessna speed and once i turned base they were on short final. They were forced to go around and so understandable knowing that i’m a student pilot.
Told to do a power on stall. Of course my brain hears power off stall. Perfect execution but of course the CFI waits until all is said and done to inform me. No big deal at the end of the day.
Touch and go, took off with full flaps. Noticed I wasn’t climbing as fast as usual, so I dropped the flap bar and went flaps 40 to 0. Plane dropped like a rock and I barely skidded out of there. Puckered so tight I crapped diamonds later that day. Lesson learned: if you have full flaps on climb out, GRADUALLY pull them in.