Your Dumbest Benign Moment

Tom H said:
I learned the hard way of the rule of the “sterile cockpit.”

As a newly minted pilot many years ago, I took a non-pilot friend for the $100 hamburger to Block Island one winter day. Typical weather for the day was stiff wind from the north, and as we did our downwind to runway 28, I was preparing for a challenging crosswind landing. I began to think out loud “more to the left, more to the right, raise the nose, lower the nose, blah blah blah.” When I turned final, on a quasi-stabilized approach, I really thought I was going to have to do a go around. So out of my lips came “I don’t think we’re going to make it.” But then I got the approach stabilized made a nice landing.

As we rolled out, I looked at my friend who had two huge eyes and an open mouth. I said “So what’s with you?“. He repeated my words to which I responded, “Oh that’s not what I meant.“ But he said, “BUT that’s what you SAID!“

So, while I still run my checklists out loud, I keep my thoughts to myself and my mouth shut when flying the plane.
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A friend of mine, when he was a regional copilot, made the cabin announcement for landing. Shortly thereafter, tower asked them to stop prior to the cross runway, and “let me know if you’re not going to make it.”
The captain, noticing that the copilot’s mic switch was still on “cabin” instructed him to “tell tower we won’t make it.”
My friend dutifully keyed the mic, and said, “Tower, Air Midwest ####, we’re not gonna make it.”
I can imagine the reaction of the 19 people in the back of the airplane when they heard that.:eek:
 
I was pretty young when I got my first King Air captain/chief pilot job. I thought I was pretty hot ****.

I did write a 135 manual from scratch before word processors and printers. And I did find a company to sign up for 40 King Air hrs per month......and found a rich owner to buy the airplane. N773S......"Sell" upside down. This was an earlier time when the GADO people were pilots and helped immensely with the manual. Now, most are not pilots, but accountants........and only provide roadblocks.

The company had 41 stores in the 11 western states and was later bought out by Macy's. Anyway, one time we were flying into Nampa, Idaho. It was raining like hell.......but the approach went well and we landed quite easily.

Then the SHTF. I stupidly cut the corner of the turnoff from the runway to the taxiway. The wheel went off the pavement and got stuck in the mud. Of course, I had the president of the "Bon Marche" aboard and a bunch of women, all dressed very nicely. I had my captain's bars on my pilot shirt and got very wet while running into the FBO.

There were a bunch of farmers (good old boys) in there and they were laughing their heads off about this cocky kid who got the KA 65-A90 stuck out on their field.

Well, they let the people from the store drive out and pick my PAX up. And then they graciously got one of their farm tractors out and pulled me out of the mud.

But they were merciless to me for a considerable time. Note to self: "Don't cut the corners!!"
 
kgruber said:
I was pretty young when I got my first King Air captain/chief pilot job. I thought I was pretty hot ****.

I did write a 135 manual from scratch before word processors and printers. And I did find a company to sign up for 40 King Air hrs per month......and found a rich owner to buy the airplane. N773S......"Sell" upside down. This was an earlier time when the GADO people were pilots and helped immensely with the manual. Now, most are not pilots, but accountants........and only provide roadblocks.

The company had 41 stores in the 11 western states and was later bought out by Macy's. Anyway, one time we were flying into Nampa, Idaho. It was raining like hell.......but the approach went well and we landed quite easily.

Then the SHTF. I stupidly cut the corner of the turnoff from the runway to the taxiway. The wheel went off the pavement and got stuck in the mud. Of course, I had the president of the "Bon Marche" aboard and a bunch of women, all dressed very nicely. I had my captain's bars on my pilot shirt and got very wet while running into the FBO.

There were a bunch of farmers (good old boys) in there and they were laughing their heads off about this cocky kid who got the KA 65-A90 stuck out on their field.

Well, they let the people from the store drive out and pick my PAX up. And then they graciously got one of their farm tractors out and pulled me out of the mud.

But they were merciless to me for a considerable time. Note to self: "Don't cut the corners!!"
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At least it didn’t require a crane, like when I became the Upper Midwest’s Leading Expert in Hydroplaning. ;)
 
Two DG stories.

One, I was flying from family for KGAI near DC to Eastern NC. I was talking to approach due to the Tri TCA (a LONG time ago), but in the VFR corridor. Controller gave me a heading to fly. So I turned to the heading. And then queried me on my heading. Yeap, DG says the right heading. Mag compass agrees. Nope, controller tells me to turn 40 degrees to the right. Hmm. WTF?! Sitting there looking around, I realize I had put my Air Guide (remember those before EFBs) on the glare shield. Take it off and the mag compass swings 40 degrees.

Second was my CFII check ride. It was a place with a quicky CFII add on. The DG in the Cherokee I was flying did not precess much, so I would check every so often, but it was pretty much OK. On the checkride, we did unusual attitudes, then an NDB approach. Nailed the approach. Got to the MAP and the examiner had my take off the hood. WTF?!, I was over a mountain with the two runways pointing to the left and right of me. Examiner asked does this look right. NOPE. He asks, so what happened. I realized immediately and checked the DG. About 30 degrees off. He had reset it while I had my eyes closed doing unusual attitudes. He asked, will you ever do that again (not check the DG before an NDB approach), I said NOPE. He smiled. I passed.
 
I once flew 72 nm to my IR check ride only to find out that I'd left my wallet in my car back at the home drome with my PPL safely inside it. Lucky for me, my instructor had made the trip with me. We hopped right into the P28 and flew back to retrieve the necessary document. I returned for the check ride that afternoon with ALL of the required documents and no CFII. :mad2:

I wish this were an isolated incident. On the trip home from passing my PP check ride, I declared an emergency because I thought that the airplane might be coming apart. Turns out, I had just missed the stray seatbelt that the DPI had left hanging out the passenger door on my pre-flight. Trips to and from check rides are problematic for me. It's a known issue that HR is working on.
 
Student pilot w/ solo privileges. Took off in a Cherokee 160 and head to the practice area. I am going to practice those horrible stalls by myself. Face the beast, if you will. (For those who are wondering, yes the CFI and I had already done them together, so not uncharted territory)

Everything went well to the practice are and then I setup for the stall. Power off stalls to start with. Set up for slow flight. Throttle back, add flaps. Two notches of flaps then "WHAM WHAM WHAM" something is making unhealthy noises outside! Throttle up, decrease flaps, sound goes away. Weird. Try again. Throttle back.... ok. One notch of flaps... ok. Two notches of fla.. "WHAM WHAM WHAM" Throttle up, decrease flaps, head back to base.

The field is uncontrolled and not busy, so no need to declare an emergency. I do the gentlest no flaps landing I had ever done (as smooth as a solo student pilot can make it). I go get the FBO owner and explain what happened. He comes out, pulls the back seat, looks everything over. Nothing. Then, we look outside the door. You guessed it. I had apparently left the pax seatbelt outside the door by accident and that is what was beating the outside of the plane. No real damage done, just a couple of scratches.
 
onwards said:
So... all these threads about dangerous things... I thought I'd open the floor for something else: your dumbest ever moment that was completely benign, put nobody at risk, but made you feel like a complete fool. Cheek burners are what I'm after here.

I'll start: my absolute dumbest ever was on my solo cross-country as a student. I flew in to Haigh (o37), which is kinda hard to spot from the air unless you know exactly where it is, and the numbers for runway 15 are a bit faded, and with the sun shining at the right angle... well, anyway, after a few heart-racing moments looking, I finally saw it, and coming in across the airport to get into the downwind, I announced absent-mindedly that I was "entering downwind to runway four five" (which is what I saw when I glanced over there, what with the sun and all).

The next few seconds were full of laughter exploding in my ears on the radio. My cheeks were burning real hard, I can tell you that. First time I admitted this to anyone, but there is one pilot out there who can say he heard me that day.

And thankfully, I have no clue who they are.
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One thing I’ve done is attempt to use the flaps as speed brakes on landing. Even though I was trained to use 30 degrees of flaps (Cessna 172), and 20 degrees during x-winds, the aircraft could extend to 40. If I was a bit fast on short final, I’d extend to 40 degrees, then retract back to 30 or 20. I was pre-solo, and my CFI quickly reprimanded me once he realized what I was doing. It was a few times before he said anything, as he figured I’d accidentally moved the lever to 40 degrees.
 
DMD3. said:
One thing I’ve done is attempt to use the flaps as speed brakes on landing. Even though I was trained to use 30 degrees of flaps (Cessna 172), and 20 degrees during x-winds, the aircraft could extend to 40. If I was a bit fast on short final, I’d extend to 40 degrees, then retract back to 30 or 20. I was pre-solo, and my CFI quickly reprimanded me once he realized what I was doing. It was a few times before he said anything, as he figured I’d accidentally moved the lever to 40 degrees.
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The POH for the 172 allows the pilot to select the flap setting desired. Personally, I use full flaps for most of my landings, regardless of winds. I generally do not reduce the flap setting once it has been chosen, but that is not necessarily a poor technique.

Flying large airplanes years ago, our procedure was to extend full flaps "when landing is assured." I still think that is a good technique.
 
Will an O300 172 climb with 40 degrees of flaps? Why yes it will. provided you grab the seat and lift it up. Student pilot, post solo, in the pattern doing T&Gs. Landed with full flaps, hit "up" on the flap switch, poured the coal to it, and took off. Broke ground way too soon, and was at an unusually nose low attitude. Looked out the window to see barn doors hanging out in the breeze. Cycled the switch to no avail. Too much runway behind me to abort, so I grabbed the seat and gave what assistance I could in gaining altitude. Resigned myself to flying the pattern with full flaps. By some miracle, when I turned crosswind, the flaps started to retract. The rest of the circuit was uneventful. Landed, taxied to the MX shed, told them what happened, and went home.
 
Pulled in towards gas, filled up, got in the plane (with the wife), went to start the engine, and realized I never pushed back from fuel. I'm not in a car, and this isn't a circle K. Had to ask my wife to get out so I can push the plane back. She felt silly too.
 
Preflight complete, jumped in my plane and mounted adsb receiver, got iPad out, put headset on and plugged it in, went through prestart checklist, fired her up, went thru post start checklist. GPS programmed, radios set up. Ok ready to go

Called ground, went through location, direction of flight, ready to taxi, atis….

no response.

called ground again.

no response.

hmmm. Switched to comm 2

no response.

flipped over to tower.

no response.

checked headset.

I had plugged it in to the copilots headset jacks.
 
On my long XC during ppl training flying out of a Bravo, I landed and realized that I was something like 0.1 short on the requirements once on the ramp. Sat there idling for a bit before working up the stones to go to clearance and request one lap in the pattern.

And then I suck at radios. Like three separate dumb things. Well, two separate dumb things and then one thing I got way too worked up over.

1. Was having difficulty with the pilot side PTT button so in my infinite wisdom plugged into the copilot side. Took a good while to figure out I had to use the right side PTT button to communicate. Like I said, I suck at radios.

2. Then there was the fun time of doing pattern laps at a busy, untowered field while not having the correct COM selected for transmissions. I could hear but nobody could hear me. Everybody lived thankfully.

3. Finally, the big knob on the 430 quit working once while trying to fly to a pancake bfast. I had been monitoring the local Delta so let them know I was having radio issues and asked for FF as I made my way back to that aforementioned busy untowered field. Took a hot minute before I realized that I could easily access the freq with the swap button (duh). Remember, I suck with radios! But really, that was the effect of having something break and not being mentally prepared for something like that breaking.

The only thing that was of concern that wasn't my fault was a serious updraft. There were rain showers in the vicinity, but I was in the clear. However, noticed the VSI was nearly pegged and the altimeter was winding upwards. The little 160 hp 172 did not escape until around 15,500 ... although I did not note the exact altitude. I do remember wondering when the plane would just quit flying.
 
Almost failed my PPL check ride 30 years ago. I'm a self learner, and had been studying on the side. Somewhere I had read about timed turns. So when the DPE asked me to do a 180 under the hood, I tried a 1 minute standard rate turn. After I botched the rollout heading several times, he said "ok, I know you can fly, why can't you roll out on the correct heading?" I explained what I was doing, and he laughed and said "no, just use the DG!"
 
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I had (may still have) a habit of pulling the stick when in a turn and looking outside. Last flight on approach to Imperial airport, I was already a bit too low, and on the turn to final again I pulled and almost got into a stall. I looked at the airspeed, it was roughly 65 knots, about 15 lower than my approach speed in the SR20.
 
Nathan Hyland said:
Pulled in towards gas, filled up, got in the plane (with the wife), went to start the engine, and realized I never pushed back from fuel. I'm not in a car, and this isn't a circle K. Had to ask my wife to get out so I can push the plane back. She felt silly too.
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Similar story. Returning from Florida to Atlanta, had to stop for fuel 50 miles short of the destination. Cold and dark night. Pulled up to the pumps, jumped out, refueled, had my buddy hand prop the airplane (battery had lost a cell on the trip), turned the heater on, then we both realized we hadn't pushed the airplane back from the pump. So, shut down, push back in the cold, wind (and shorts + t-shirt), lather rinse repeat, laughing at our stupidity the whole time.
 
I once transmitted on guard because I forgot to switch comm radios. Noticed my mistake and switched before I got the chorus of guards and meows.
 
Several years ago, my wife and I flew from our home base in NJ to Naples FL for Christmas with my parents. When unloading the plane on the ramp in Naples, I realized I had left my luggage in the hangar back in NJ. I'm 6'6" so it isn't easy for me to just buy off the rack clothing either... Thankfully my father is my size so I was able to borrow his clothes for the week of Christmas.
 
RudyP said:
Several years ago, my wife and I flew from our home base in NJ to Naples FL for Christmas with my parents. When unloading the plane on the ramp in Naples, I realized I had left my luggage in the hangar back in NJ. I'm 6'6" so it isn't easy for me to just buy off the rack clothing either... Thankfully my father is my size so I was able to borrow his clothes for the week of Christmas.
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Ok, time to close the thread. I don't think anything will top this one... :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
DavidWhite said:
I've done it more than once in a day.
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I can top that! Started up, advanced throttle to taxi… damn, chocks must be on. No worries, another pilot is aboard and can go pull the chocks.

He gets out… no chocks…. Ummmm; just didn’t give it enough power to start moving…. :)
 
RudyP said:
Several years ago, my wife and I flew from our home base in NJ to Naples FL for Christmas with my parents. When unloading the plane on the ramp in Naples, I realized I had left my luggage in the hangar back in NJ. I'm 6'6" so it isn't easy for me to just buy off the rack clothing either... Thankfully my father is my size so I was able to borrow his clothes for the week of Christmas.
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We once departed Dallas, for KLGA, and abeam TXK we noticed we forgot the boss's bag! Called our mechanic and he shipped it counter to counter on AA. We picked it up at KLGA and had it to him in time for his function that night in Manhattan. Glad there was some time built into our schedule!
 
Two benign but incredibly stupid scenarios.

1. In Canada, you need to get a separate "night rating". I just got done with the training towards it, the only thing remaining was five night solo takeoffs and landings before getting the rating. So, one particular dark night, I head out to make those landings. All good, give patterns and I was done. Last thing, taxi back to the ramp. Once I got off the runway, things just were so dark, I had no idea where my turnoff is and I wasn't yet super used to taxiway lights and how to interpret them. I thought I saw my turnoff from Twy A to the ramp, so I turned and suddenly things became super bumpy. I was in the grass/mud. Managed to get out of it with run up power but the plane sure didn't look pretty afterwards.

2. Took off with the keys of the rental car still in my pocket. I didn't realize it until I landed at my destination two hours away. Had to overnight FedEx the keys back to the rental agency.
 
TLDR: I’m clueless to my call signal when tower gives me instructions:

Flying touch and go landings and the pattern gets busy.

ATC: “7DM continue down wind I’ll call your base”
Me: “you’ll call base 7DM”
ATC: Many other instructions for other planes
ATC: “N1234 Ahead is a Cessna 172 on down wind, follow traffic.”
N1234: “Traffic in sight.”
Me: “Tower, 7DM ready to turn base”
ATC: “7DM I’ll call your base.”
ATC: More instructions for others
ATC: “7DM Turn your base now.”
Me: Hmmm. Wonder when he’ll get to me and let me turn base
ATC: “7DM Turn your base”
ATC: “7DM Turn base”
Me: Gosh that 7DM should answer ATC. He is clueless
ATC: “7DM Tower”
N1234: “Tower, may I turn base, I don’t want to follow 7DM anymore.”
ATC: “N1234 Turn Base”
Me: Gosh, I’m going to get into that other airport’s class D if he doesn’t call my base soon…
Me: Wow. This is taking forever.
minutes later:
Me: OH! I’m 7DM. I’m the clueless guy who didn’t respond to the tower. I wonder if he’s going to have me call him to explain. What will I say? I better turn around and go back.
Me: “Tower, 7DM 10 miles south inbound with Alpha.”
ATC: “7DM, report 2 mile left base.”
All airplanes landed safely.
 
When I was a student solo I dropped the mic on final approach 50’ from the runway, scrambling to pick it up to answer the tower. I had not yet had it engraved in my mind to Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. Learned a very good lesson that almost had a very bad outcome.
 
I spent the entire closed traffic lesson saying “Cleared for the auction.” Must have been because of all the farm auctions I went to while growing up on the ranch.
 
Crashnburn said:
I spent the entire closed traffic lesson saying “Cleared for the auction.” Must have been because of all the farm auctions I went to while growing up on the ranch.
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I may just use that going forward.
 
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