The worst pilot I ever saw was.....

dmccormack said:
Was your groundspeed 55 knots??
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Nope... Had we been going that slow, I would have taken the controls from him. I let it go and spoke about it later with the chief CFI but not sure whatever happen with it. I never flew with him again.
 
dmccormack said:
Last time I flew to CLT, I waited and waited for clearance. Finally got it, then switched to ground.

Taxi instructions -- no big deal, right?

Wrong -- me without pen and paper at the ready.

Fortunately he only gave me instructions tot he first intersection.

(We were at Wilson Air at the GA Ramp -- were directed to 18R)

KCLT Airport Diagram

00078AD.PDF
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Dan, that is absolutely hilarious. The best part is that you were as far away as possible. Hahaha oh man
 
docmirror said:
We have a whole sub-forum for those. This one is for the bone-head moves we've seen.
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Hmmm, some folks are relating stories they've heard so here goes:

I know a guy who took a 172 cross country off the end of a 4,000 ft strip. He went about another 1,000 ft through the grass, bushes and all but into a pond. Really, really lucky to get out relatively unscathed. All he'd ever say was that a wind shear musta got'im. Hellofa shear...

Another time I lost a scheduled flight because the previous pilot locked the brakes on landing while laterally departing the paved runway. Instant flat and aircraft stuck overnight at airport about 15 miles away...That pilot is now a certificated private pilot. I do hope they learned to push in the loud knob when things aren't lined up quite right immediately prior to touchdown.

I'm not fessing up to the stupid student pilot tricks I've pulled. Nope. I've never over flown the airport without seeing it. Nope. I've never flown into the ground at night (gently but still a no flare arrival). Nope. I've never initiated a left turn when given right traffic on departure. Nope. None of it ever happened and nobody got pictures anyway.

All I can say is that the aircraft so far have always been mostly reusable when returned, mostly....
 
smigaldi said:
I have seen lots of close calls from people who should have crashed.

But the one that sticks out in my mind was when I was a student sitting in the left seat with my CFI to the right. I was just finishing the engine start checklist, my nose was pointed at the arrival end of the runway, in comes a 182 going kinda fast. We both look up and see him hit both mains-BOUNCE-then left main/nose/right main -BOUNCE-both main, nose - BOUNCE! I say well he is current as we loose site of him on the runway and then we hear the CRUNCH.

I secure the airplane and we dart out to see down the runway a little further and he is all crinkled up on the runway. My CFI calls 911 and gets on the radio (his handheld) to tell other planes the runway is fouled and to go elsewhere.

I run to the airplane that has crashed and as I approach fuel is pouring out of the wing, I see the pilot starting to get himself out of the wreckage and I grab his arm and pull him clear and get away form the plane in case of fire. I ask him if he is alright and he says yes.

Then he floored me at what he said next, "I must have blown a tire". Ya dude thats what it was not your lousy technique.

Turns out he had just bought the plane that morning and was not supposed to be flying it until he got 5 hours of dual in it, but no CFIs were around to start him flying it. So he figured he knew enough. He ended up loosing his plane and his certificate from what I have heard.

It all reminds me of this dingle berry

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Was this 3CK? I was training for my PPL and remember seeing a 182 all smashed and hearing a story similar to this.
 
My story revolves around a retired IBM engineer who decided he was going to learn to fly and bought a Cardinal that he flew out of our rural Vermont sod strip. He practiced carrier landings that took him around 2/3 of the way down the short runway, and then slammed the power in and climbed out at a high AOA. I asked him if he was OK, and he said of course, what was the problem (he had bent the firewall with his repeated attempts). He later bought a Cherokee 140, and then attempted to take off on a hot summer day with three adults and full fuel out of a 2200 foot grass field. They didn't get very far and he crashed into the tree tops and burned. The pax got out, but he died in the fire. None of us is perfect, but this guy should never have been flying a plane in the first place.
 
The worst pilot that I ever saw was my Dad, he never filed a flight plan or talked on the radio, went cross country by pilotage with no weather brief, never had a BFR, or a tail wheel endorsement, Landed on water with out a ses rating.
He sat in the back of the J-3 with a rolled up news paper and smacked you behind the ear with it until you fixed your heading and airspeed. Taught me every thing I needed to know to solo the J-3 in 3.5 hours. He would fly needle ball and airspeed in the clouds with out ever having an instrument rating.
And he would fly for hire with out an CPL.

He would allow kids to play in his aircraft with out supervision.

Total hours unknown because he didn't log every flight, but he flew from 1916 to 1986 with out a problem, and never bent any metal.
 
alindsay said:
Was this 3CK? I was training for my PPL and remember seeing a 182 all smashed and hearing a story similar to this.
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Yes it was 3CK. The plane was even in the newspaper (NW Herald) a few weeks later when they were doing a story on that bomber trainer (I think it was an AT10) that was being restored. It was sitting in the background when the photographer snapped a picture of the really nice Beech!
 
NC19143 said:
He sat in the back of the J-3 with a rolled up news paper and smacked you behind the ear with it until you fixed your heading and airspeed.
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Well, at least he was a stickler for heading an airspeed...:D
 
The worst one that I saw was when I working at the airport. There was a fellow who had a C-180 and he would love to taxi it tail high or with the tail wheel off the ground using power and brakes. One day he landed and was taxing back to his hanger which was quite a long taxi with three 90 degree turns. He also had is really nice 1957 T Bird parked at the front of the hanger. Well as he taxied by the fuel island where I was I could smell his brakes and my boss who was next to me comemted" This ought to be interesting" The C-180 was diong close to 25 mph taxing down a slight down grade to the hanger area.

The pilot tried to swing it around with the tail pointing toward the hanger but he ran out of brakes and chopped up his T-Bird. My boss said"Lets see how long he takes to get out of his plane" Needless to say that pilot once he got out was never seen again by anyone. The car was junk and the plane needed much repair to make if flyable again.

As a airport kid I got to see a lot and a lot

John J
 
John J's story reminded my of a incident when I was a kid at the airport. A guy pulled his Cub out of the hanger, set the brakes and proped it then instead of getting in the plane he relized that he had left something in his car parked right next to him and he went to get what ever it was.

The plane started rolling and rolled right accross the taxiway into another, luckily, empty hanger.

I hadn't thought about that in years.
 
I was cleared for the right runway and another plane was cleared for the left runway. He lined-up for the right runway despite a lot of yelling from the tower telling him he was in the wrong place. That was a little closer than I would've liked.
 
tlglenn said:
I was cleared for the right runway and another plane was cleared for the left runway. He lined-up for the right runway despite a lot of yelling from the tower telling him he was in the wrong place. That was a little closer than I would've liked.
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That's not far off from an occurrence at KCXO. There were at least three, possibly four aircraft in the pattern to land or to touch-n-goes. A Duches shows to enter the pattern some place behind me and makes a call to do an simulated, engine-out landing. Presumably, this Duches had both a student and a CFI on board.

After telling them that was not the time to be doing such a maneuver, the pattern was too busy, he said to mind my own business. I repeated the warning, indicating how dangerous such a move would be. He then indicated he would cancel the maneuver and fly a normal landing.

What's worse is this wasn't a blind action. They planned to do it even with a warning of the potential danger. How would ya like to take lessons from that MEI?
 
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