Full mess of a foreign pilot

[Hellmut1956]

Hi, early in the 90s I made my vfr pilot license in Germany. As I did work for a US semiconductor company I had been very frequently in the US. So with my brand new pilot license I had my first touch down in Phoenix, AZ, and so I went to an airfield in the north of the town and had a US license based on the german license be issued to me at the local FAA office. My german license then had a limited permit for night flying and so I took the opportunity to ask the FAA officers to detail for me the effect of those limitations in the US system. my limitation was that by night I had to stay in the vicinity of an airport and so I did ask what that meant to the US FAA. They told me that the vicinity of an airport was in the boundaries of a circle of 50 miles around an airfield. So one of the officers asked the other where in the US you would not be in a 50 miles radius around an airfield!
That statement has burned into my memories! So no to the mess I did on al later visit to the US were i booked a Cutlass for 3 weeks. As I was not familiar with the radio communication in the US and had nearly no personal experience flying as a pilot in command in the US I took lessons during 10 days from a flying teacher in San Jose, CA. He did a very good job and so he did confirm to me I was ready to go out on my own! Next day I went to the San Jose airport and did flight planning to fly from there to Half Moon Bay airfield. I left doing a take-off north bound, followed 101 to Stanford, turned left to get to the ocean shore and was happy to see the airfield and its runway straight ahead. So I did report on the proper radio frequency as taught and reported my progress as I flew into final. Being short of the runway I saw a plane leaving the runway into the grass strip next to it. I was landing against the direction of the runway in use! Immediately I was aware of the mess I was doing and looked to find out if another place was on final. I was too close to touch down to stop my landing and there was no immediate threat in sight so I did my landing, taxied against the whole ground traffic to the gas station and stopped there. You cannot imagine how embarrassed I was and I had no excuse. Angry pilots came to my plane and asked if I had a license at all. Other comments I will not write down here, but I felt terrible and I asked myself how I could have come into this mess! So after regaining my mental stability I took of and flow to the San Jose airport and called the flying teacher.
What had been the cause of this? In Germany, even on the smallest general aviation fields it is usually like in the use on controlled airfields. You have strictly defining approach charts and there are no unattended airfields! So for landing in the San Francisco Intl. Airport, or as I later did frequently, landing on the Phoenix Sky Harbour airport was no problem to me, but flying into an unattended airfield was totally new for me! So I took 2 more days of instruction just to exercise continuously the operation at unattended airfields.

This experience has left a permanent mark in my brain and I have developed my own habits as to how to fly to unattended airfields in the US. I think that foreign pilots, specially if they are from Germany have to be instructed how to use unattended airfields. So I want to share with you a video recording of a flight from the Emilia Reed airfield in the south of San Jose, CA, to the North Las Vegas airfield and back. To Las vegas with bright sky, back on a rainy day. Pilot in command was the co owner of the plane sitting next to me! For none flying enthusiasts the video might be boring but for me it is what I enjoy seeing to remember good old days.

https://youtu.be/0xcrbUhOkYs

 

[Capt. Geoffrey Thorpe]

I was landing against the direction of the runway in use! Immediately I was aware of the mess I was doing and looked to find out if another place was on final. I was too close to touch down to stop my landing and there was no immediate threat in sight so I did my landing, taxied against the whole ground traffic to the gas station and stopped there. You cannot imagine how embarrassed I was and I had no excuse. Angry pilots came to my plane and asked if I had a license at all. Other comments I will not write down here, but I felt terrible and I asked myself how I could have come into this mess!

That sort of thing only happens a few times a day at many airports. At least you were at the right airport. And, I assume you announced the direction you were actually landing - instead of announcing you were landing on 18 when you were on final for 36.

What had been the cause of this? In Germany, even on the smallest general aviation fields it is usually like in the use on controlled airfields. You have strictly defining approach charts and there are no unattended airfields!

So, it was new to you.

 

[MAKG1]

He wasn't at the right airport. There is no grass strip at Half Moon Bay. That is, unless traffic was on the runway and scattered into the fields as he landed, a bit more serious than just landing with a tailwind on a 6000 foot runway.

 

[eman1200]

lol yeah I didn't think KHAF had a grass strip. watery substance on one side, hills on the other.

 

[bikert]

He wasn't at the right airport. There is no grass strip at Half Moon Bay. That is, unless traffic was on the runway and scattered into the fields as he landed, a bit more serious than just landing with a tailwind on a 6000 foot runway.

That was my understanding from reading his post that a plane on the runway had to leave the runway into the grass. Perhaps he can clarify.

To the OP, thanks for sharing your story. Luckily nothing bad happened and as a pilot once told me when I made a mistake "we all have our learning moments". This was one of yours.

 

[gkainz]

Welcome to Pilots of America (and other places!)!

 

[PaulS]

Being short of the runway I saw a plane leaving the runway into the grass strip next to it.

Lol, by strip he means the apron, they scattered. But he did get more instruction immediately and sounds like he fixed the problem.

 

[Matthew]

What's the German for "Look out below, I'm coming through!"

 

[Sac Arrow]

Well, at least now you know. I think maybe the CFI maybe could have better prepared you for landing at uncontrolled fields.

But the other thing that pops in to my mind is that the airspace system is different here as well, and that region has a lot of complex airspace, which is easy to bust if you aren't aware of it.

 

[Clark1961]

What's the German for "Look out below, I'm coming through!"

Schauen Sie unten heraus, ich komme durch

(shamelessly taken from a webtranslation page - the only German I truly learned was ein grosses bier, bitte)

 

[Hellmut1956]

This is many years ago, close to 3 decades, so what I meant with grass strip was just to say he was opposite direction on the runway and left the runway because of me. Yes, I was reporting my flight continuously so they knew I was coming and probably the wrong way!

Complex airspace was not a problem for me, as in Germany airspace is pretty complex. It was really that I was not familiar about how to behave at an uncontrolled airport! From the on I crossed the airfield I was planning to land at at the proper altitude above traffic pattern altitude, I use to make a 360 to ensure I have completely reviewed the airspace. But that first solo landing in the USA has left a mark in my memory!

Another special experience I had on my first flight from San Jose, CA, to Sky Harbour, AZ. I did mention above that I had little night flight experience and none landing at such a huge airport as Sky Harbour by night! 30 minutes after sunset I had just before entered the 50 miles radius around Sky Harbour. My first mistake was that during my flight planning I did confuse the ILS frequency with the last VOR. So once I got into the proximity of Sky harbour I changed the frequency and the needle jumped to one of the extremes and stayed there! I had a very good teacher for learning radio in Germany and he taught us students a couple of rules:
1. Never confirm to the tower if you are not really capable to confirm.
2. If tower tells you do 360 to a certain side do so.

So I did report my problem and tower took over to guide me. After I while he asked if I had the field in sight and I had to keep denying it until he told me I was on 45 into downwind. Just then I saw the field and was able to confirm. So I did follow the clearences tower gave me and approaching downwind he told me to make 360 to the right til further advice. This was a phraseology our teacher gave us frequently! So I felt confident and at home and could focus on flying a standard turn keeping altitude and speed. remember it was my first solo approach to a large airport by night. The 737 were lined up in a seemingly endless row approaching the runway and as tower had the information that a foreign pilot low time was in the plane he made me do 2 360 until giving me the clearance to roll out into downwind. What a feeling being in a small cutlas on final to the enormous runway of Sky Harbour. That was before they got an extra small runway for general aviation! So, as learned in theory I waited to see where on the runway the 737 landing ahead of me did touch down the front wheel. At that length the wake from the wings stops as no lift take place anymore! So I called to request long landing and immediately got the approval. I do repeat, what an unforgettable experience to be the pilot in command landing on a main runway of a huge international airport and being in such a tiny Cutlass! But as soon as I was close to touch down there was just a black hole below me and I did a 3 point touch down jumping up and down until the plane finally settled on ground!

I did do a second night landing on that same runway a couple of days later coming back from a trip and as i knew from my first landing experience/ nightmare, that I was to touch the runway any moment. It was then a perfect landing were you just feel that the tires are starting to rotate as you touch down. A perfect landing!

But back to the above story! After finally moving on the runway after touchdown the structure of the runway lights got lost. I just saw blue light randomly distributed around me! So I looked for the yellow line at the left border of the runway, quite distant to the left of the lights of the runway looking from when this yellow line would turn left to indicate an exit to the runway! Tower already asked me to hurry up, as probably the next 737 was on final! I thought about what cost for fuel it would mean to have the 737 abort is landing operation due to me not having vacated the runway! In Phoenix the runway is very very long and so I did taxy relatively fast. Finally the yellow line turned left, but the space between the yellow line turning left and the next light of the runway was wider than the usual taxy ways I was used to deal with! But finally i vacated the runway, reported runway vacated and the left to the apron frequency after having been authorized to do so! So I taxied to the service station I had booked. What a professional service. But after a none stop 6 hours and 20 minutes flight I had to rush to the restroom! There another pilot asked if I was the pilot that had a hard time to see the airfield? He said don't mind. Sky harbour has the terminal building so well illuminated that opposed to how you identify an airfield by night, the dark spot in the lights of the city, pilots not familiar with the airport are known to run into this problem!

 

[stratobee]

Helmut - the FAA 61.75 license "based upon foreign license" carries the limitations of the issuing country. Therefore, if you did not have a Night Rating in Germany (as it's not part of the PPL there), you cannot fly night in the US on your FAA license at all. If you do have the Night Rating, but no night cross country (which isn't a requirement there), then the FAA rule mandating you can not fly more than 50nm from the airfield is a bit puzzling. He can't chose and pick. It's not like there's an option for a FAA license where you don't need to meet the night cross country req's, so why demand that from you? If you have the night rating then that's all he can go by - you can fly night, nom matter how far.

 

[Hellmut1956]

Hi stratobee. My german license allows to fly by night in the vicinity of an airport if prior to it I have made a couple of night landings and takeoffs, which I did in the area of San Jose with an instructor. The german law further specifies that the vicinity of an airport is defined as the distance from which you can see the traffic in the pattern of an airfield. If you have ever flown in the south west of the USA you know that the traffic in the pattern of an airport like the one of Sky Harbor can be seen from a distance much further away. So I did neither violate the more specific requirements of the german law nor did I violate the laws of the USA. I went even further by asking those agents from the FAA what the restriction written in my german permit that I had to present to those FAA agents and which I have to carry with me while flying in the USA mean.
Night flying by law implies the time 30 minutes after sunset to 30 minutes before sunrise during this time I have always been in the vicinity of an airport being able to see traffic in the pattern!
I have never flown cross country by night without a safety pilot being present. You might know as a pilot that the personally imposed restriction should always be more stringent than those by law! I have been adding items to my checklists based on experiences I have been making. Here in Germany at my home airfield they make jokes about me because I do always have current maps and data about airfields with me. Something I do consider essential! One experience I have made is, that the more I got experience flying the smaller is the number of pilots I would fly with!
By the way, younger pilots in general aviation that have got the current licenses always have night flying included! That is due to european influenced laws!

 

[RotorDude]

Hi stratobee. My german license allows to fly by night in the vicinity of an airport if prior to it I have made a couple of night landings and takeoffs, which I did in the area of San Jose with an instructor. The german law further specifies that the vicinity of an airport is defined as the distance from which you can see the traffic in the pattern of an airfield. If you have ever flown in the south west of the USA you know that the traffic in the pattern of an airport like the one of Sky Harbor can be seen from a distance much further away. So I did neither violate the more specific requirements of the german law nor did I violate the laws of the USA. I went even further by asking those agents from the FAA what the restriction written in my german permit that I had to present to those FAA agents and which I have to carry with me while flying in the USA mean.
Night flying by law implies the time 30 minutes after sunset to 30 minutes before sunrise during this time I have always been in the vicinity of an airport being able to see traffic in the pattern!
I have never flown cross country by night without a safety pilot being present. You might know as a pilot that the personally imposed restriction should always be more stringent than those by law! I have been adding items to my checklists based on experiences I have been making. Here in Germany at my home airfield they make jokes about me because I do always have current maps and data about airfields with me. Something I do consider essential! One experience I have made is, that the more I got experience flying the smaller is the number of pilots I would fly with!
By the way, younger pilots in general aviation that have got the current licenses always have night flying included! That is due to european influenced laws!

If you want to fly at night, you need to read and know the regs, and "Night" (from a pilot's perspective) is defined in 61.57 as "1 hour after sunset and ending 1 hour before sunrise".
Regarding your statement about younger pilots being influenced by European laws makes no sense to me. I got my PPL with night rating decades ago, and at that time virtually everyone that I knew or heard of got their night rating included in the PPL, and am not aware of any change in that, so I am not sure what time period you are alluding to.

 

[Hellmut1956]

Well my dear, Europe is known to be a bunch of countries with each having its own rules. In Germany night is defined as 30 minutes and not one hour and as you correctly stated german limitations apply to my us flight license! But I hope you are not one of those that feel offended if they were wrong! I definitely am not and that is why I shared those experiences here, not anonymously, but giving my full identification as documented in my profile! Further my dear fellow forum member as it comes from your writing, we both have had our licenses issued to us a few decades ago and until relatively recently, before the new standardized license for Europe that limitations applied to german licenses! By the way in Germany due to limitations very few airports are available for night flying for general aviation. So even young pilot licenses do not have enough experience to fly by night and so my recommendation is a recommendation that nobody has to follow! So my dear fellow forum members and others reading this thread I do wish all of you a merry christmas, happy landings and health for 2016!

 

[RotorDude]

Well my dear, Europe is known to be a bunch of countries with each having its own rules. In Germany night is defined as 30 minutes and not one hour and as you correctly stated german limitations apply to my us flight license! But I hope you are not one of those that feel offended if they were wrong! I definitely am not and that is why I shared those experiences here, not anonymously, but giving my full identification as documented in my profile! Further my dear fellow forum member as it comes from your writing, we both have had our licenses issued to us a few decades ago and until relatively recently, before the new standardized license for Europe that limitations applied to german licenses! By the way in Germany due to limitations very few airports are available for night flying for general aviation. So even young pilot licenses do not have enough experience to fly by night and so my recommendation is a recommendation that nobody has to follow! So my dear fellow forum members and others reading this thread I do wish all of you a merry christmas, happy landings and health for 2016!

I must have missed your "full identification" somehow. Can you point me to it?

 

[Hellmut1956]

Why should I?

 

[MAKG1]

I'll tell you what. Next time you're in the San Jose area, PM me, and you can sit right seat for a flight to South County and then Watsonville, making all the radio calls, navigation, runway choice, and go/no-go for landing (and I'll only correct if necessary, as PIC). I'm not an instructor, but that's my home turf and I fly a lot around there.

Visual conditions only for this exercise. I'm instrument rated, but I don't think you'll get the same experience on an instrument approach to an uncontrolled field. It would be "fun" in any case as both fields have one-way approaches and Watsonville's usually opposes VFR traffic.

South County is rather sleepy and that makes it tolerant of errors. Watsonville is busy as heck on a nice weekend.

 

[Palmpilot]

I'll tell you what. Next time you're in the San Jose area, PM me, and you can sit right seat for a flight to South County and then Watsonville, making all the radio calls, navigation, runway choice, and go/no-go for landing (and I'll only correct if necessary, as PIC). I'm not an instructor, but that's my home turf and I fly a lot around there.

Visual conditions only for this exercise. I'm instrument rated, but I don't think you'll get the same experience on an instrument approach to an uncontrolled field. It would be "fun" in any case as both fields have one-way approaches and Watsonville's usually opposes VFR traffic.

South County is rather sleepy and that makes it tolerant of errors. Watsonville is busy as heck on a nice weekend.

Congratulations on getting your instrument rating, by the way! When did you pass the checkride?

 

[Palmpilot]

If you want to fly at night, you need to read and know the regs, and "Night" (from a pilot's perspective) is defined in 61.57 as "1 hour after sunset and ending 1 hour before sunrise".

That's the rule for carrying passengers at night. For other purposes, 14 CFR 1.1 defines "night" as " the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the Air Almanac, converted to local time."

If you don't happen to have an Air Almanac handy, civil twilight times can be found on the Web.

Example

 

[RotorDude]

That's the rule for carrying passengers at night. For other purposes, 14 CFR 1.1 defines "night" as " the time between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, as published in the Air Almanac, converted to local time."

If you don't happen to have an Air Almanac handy, civil twilight times can be found on the Web.

Example

That was my shorthand for "from the pilot's perspective".
From my understanding, that's the "night" you need to worry about (and log) as a pilot trying to remain "night current", i.e. proficient from the FAA's POV.
I doubt anyone ever logs any other "night".

 

[RotorDude]

Why should I?

Because you made a point of your "giving my full identification as documented in my profile", unlike my profile which is anonymous. If you can't give it to us (fully understandable), I'd expect a retraction.

 

[MAKG1]

Congratulations on getting your instrument rating, by the way! When did you pass the checkride?

Late October. Thanks for your help! Next step is the G1000 IFR ground school and abbreviated Form 5.

 

[NoHeat]

Thanks Hellmut for your interesting stories. I'm glad you shared them.

 

[Hellmut1956]

Sadly my health does not allow me to fly myself anymore. 2 strokes, a couple of times my heart stopped beating due to medicine taken for high blood pressure making it so slow beating the a couple of times it stopped completely. The result I am now cyborg! I do have a pacemaker that prevents from having it stop beating. It's so bad that if I leave home I have to stay where I go and how long I will be away.
When the internet bubble blow up around 2000 I lost my job as a director in one of the largest US telecommunication supply vendors and have since then worked as many do in the technology branches selling consulting services. So I am sadly not travelling anymore to the US since then.
As to my profile, I have registered myself into this forum and done the activation process that confirms that I am actually the one who registered. That is all I make public. And friendly forum members like the one you know who I mean do have to live with the fact that the forum knows and has confirmed who I am!
@17. The closest I have been to your state coming from the west has been Colorado Springs, where to the east you can see the flat planes and to the west I flew into the highest general aviation airport in the USA. I got even the "diploma" confirming this!

 

[RotorDude]

Sadly my health does not allow me to fly myself anymore. 2 strokes, a couple of times my heart stopped beating due to medicine taken for high blood pressure making it so slow beating the a couple of times it stopped completely. The result I am now cyborg! I do have a pacemaker that prevents from having it stop beating. It's so bad that if I leave home I have to stay where I go and how long I will be away.
When the internet bubble blow up around 2000 I lost my job as a director in one of the largest US telecommunication supply vendors and have since then worked as many do in the technology branches selling consulting services. So I am sadly not travelling anymore to the US since then.
As to my profile, I have registered myself into this forum and done the activation process that confirms that I am actually the one who registered. That is all I make public. And friendly forum members like the one you know who I mean do have to live with the fact that the forum knows and has confirmed who I am!
@17. The closest I have been to your state coming from the west has been Colorado Springs, where to the east you can see the flat planes and to the west I flew into the highest general aviation airport in the USA. I got even the "diploma" confirming this!

Hi Hellmut, sorry to hear about your medical situation. At least it's nice to be able to remember and contemplate your flying adventures -- that's more than most people can do. And I am sorry to have given you a hard time about your identification, but I was only responding to your comment about me being anonymous while you were completely identified. I think in today's age with identify theft etc. it's prudent to keep one's details offline wherever possible, so I certainly don't blame you one bit in remaining anonymous, like myself.
You should certainly feel free to share your flying adventures here, even if you are now earthbound and stuck in Europe.
Anyway, have a happy holiday season and a merry Christmas!

 

[Hellmut1956]

I also want to wish everyone a good christmas season and health and harmony for 2016.

 

[coloradobluesky]

What a pilot needs to know is that there is such a thing as "civil twilight". As for deciding if it is night or not, almost everyone uses the "window method". Look out the window, if it's dark out, it's night!