Learning Experiences

The typical flight in a personal airplane is uneventful. We take off, fly the mission and land. Every now and then, though, stuff happens. Its one of the reasons flying has been called hours and hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror, a description it shares with many other activities. In fact, most of us have our own tales to tell, stories of airborne drama weve experienced personally or heard directly from the people involved.Ive been doing a lot of flying recently, spending quality time at airports and remote landing strips with other pilots and their airplanes. Along the way, I picked up several there I was narratives from pilots who made serious errors in judgment, plus others who experienced what can only be described as bad luck. Sharing these narratives with other pilots helps add to our knowledge of what can happen, how we should prepare for it and what we can do in response. In reflecting on them, I soon realized they all have a common element. And since I was the pilot for one such event, I can assure you: When an event begins, it often happens very quickly, providing little warning.

That was my inner voice screaming. My actual voice asking, What the *&^%* is going on? at least three times. It was a sudden, instantaneous event. One moment, I was trundling along in my Comanche 250 climbing slowly eastward over the Sierras, looking out at clear blue skies as the autopilot dutifully tracked the GPS toward my destination. Then, bam! The cabin filled with an acrid-smelling cloud. I could not see the instrument panel.

It was a stormy day over South Florida, and just as I was near my destination, a late afternoon thundershower decided to camp out over it. The storm wasnt moving, so I diverted to a nearby non-towered airport. Id never visited it before, so I rationalized it: I was multi-tasking.My divert field was VFR, so I cancelled IFR and tuned the CTAF. I was number two for the airport until a bizjet called in on an umpteen-mile final and the guy in front decided to let him go first. Once I finally landed, I discovered a pleasant, well-equipped FBO and settled in to wait for the destinations weather to improve.

The rule passed down from a father active in aviation to boys of teen age learning to fly an 85-hp Cessna 140: Never tie down or hangar the plane after a flight without topping off the tanks. It was good advice for the two of us flying the same plane: courtesy, good habits and prevention of water condensation in hot, humid Kansas.

As I scanned the local conditions for my first IFR flight after relocating the airplane to Non-Towered Municipal, I decided I needed to get my clearance on the ground before taking off. Using my cellphone, I called Flight Service, obtained my clearance and departed just fine. Only then I discovered the weather was far better than my estimation; good enough that I easily could have departed and picked up my clearance airborne.

Aviation Safety recently ran two articles, in the December 2014, and January 2015 issues) on the various considerations involving low-weather IFR departures. Under FAR 91, if we can find the runway in the fog, its legal to launch. Somewhat Darwinian, but legal.

Almost anyone whos flown a passenger has at least one open-door or open-canopy story. Here are two of mine.The plan was for a full day of flying, and we were getting an early start. My right front seat passenger had done this before, so I more or less delegated securing the cabin door to him. We took off, and immediately realized the doors upper latch hadnt engaged. During my pre-takeoff checks, I usually reach up and push against the doors trailing side to ensure the latch was engaged. I didnt this time.

The trip to the in-laws had gone about as well as those things can. We were airborne in a rented Piper Arrow II-the kind with the Hershey bar wings-headed back home. But first, we had to negotiate a line of thunderstorms. I knew they were there when I took off. But Ive always had pretty good luck in picking my way through them along this route without getting wet. So off we went.

I was flying my Cessna T210 Turbo Centurion from White Plains, N.Y. (KHPN), to Atlantas Dekalb-Peachtree Airport (KPDK). Thanks to a supplementary tank, I had enough fuel to make the flight with an hour’s reserve. Before takeoff, I had watched the line crew fill the fuel tanks to overflowing.

Pilots generally remember their landings, sometimes for years. They come in two basic flavors: best ones and worst ones. Everything else tends to fall into a memory-based black hole. My best ones are too numerous to mention, naturally, but my worst ones stick around in my memory like poor weather at the beach. One bad landing in particular stands out.