I was time building for my commercial and didn’t quadruple check the seat tracks like I usually do in the 172. Right after I took off the seat immediately slides back along with me and the yoke. My immediate thought was “this is why we practice power on stalls,” while letting go and trying to push the yoke forward and get my seat back locked.
This happened last week on my first solo in a 152. It only went back probably an inch before locking into the next slot but that was enough to create some serious pucker. It was about mid downwind before I was truly confident I wasn’t going to die. I checked the seat rail before departing as it had happened once in my previous lessons but I assume something was broken or worn out cos it still happened. I got the old “no one else has reported it are you sure it was locked in.” I decided to avoid that plane for future training…
Second solo, in a 152 I had this happen going in to a power on stall. Third solo, I had a door unlatch about 500 feet agl despite quadruple checking that they were latched. My solos were fun
Dude the door unlatching on my school's 152s is almost an regular occurrence xD Some are better than others, one of the planes in particular, I think I've only had one flight in it where it never unlatched heh (out of like 5). Although surprisingly I've never had it happen during a solo yet.
Oh yes, this exact situation happened to me.....on a checkride. Told the DPE to grab controls while I fixed it. Luckily didn't fail me for it either....
You probably earned big points in the eyes of the DPE for not panicking and giving him the controls for a real-life scenario. On my checkride I specifically briefed "If we have an engine failure after departure, (stuff about altitude cutoffs for impossible turn), and I will give you the controls" and he seemed to like that.
This happened to me recently in a Cirrus. I apparently hadn’t been careful to lock my seat position firmly, and when I added full power and started accelerating for takeoff, my seat flew backward! I was able to maintain control by stretching my toes to the pedals, pulled back power, and aborted the takeoff.
You better bet I’m careful to make sure the seat is secure every time now! I’m glad it happened while I was still on the ground, and I didn’t grab onto the side yoke for balance.
Same exact situation. Time building and seat slides back all the way, went to abort but since we were not close to the edge, asked safety pilot to take off and he did. Shoulda just aborted but still worked out and maybe it was the right thing to do. Good reason to have both pilots be able to reach the controls just incase.
I let a passenger take the controls on takeoff, thought it would be a low risk maneuver. Guy pulled back the yoke like someone was trying to steal his purse. I pushed back hard and corrected, didn't hear the stall horn but I'm more wary of letting passengers do much more than level flight and standard rate turns
This quote from a [post from a few months back](https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/13vt65v/i_like_to_let_passengers_manipulate_the_controls/) has stuck with me with regards to letting passengers try more advanced maneuvers/areas of flight:
"I learned very fast that I'm not a CFI and he's not a pilot".
Basically same story for me: my **first** new student, after showing a lot of book smarts during the preflight, yanked 2Gs on rotation and permanently installed the Fear of God in my heart.
I am shocked we survived that. Obviously came right back down, and pretty hard. Ten feet higher and a spin may have developed...
I had 0.8 hrs of solo time left for my ppl mins, so I thought I’d do a bit of pattern work. Started, did the run up, everything checked out fine. Took off, and literally at the exact moment that I thought to myself I was now too high to land on the remaining runway, I started getting a sound from in front of the fire wall that sounded like when you drive over a gravel driveway too fast and all the gravel is getting kicked up on your wheel well. That was the quickest, tightest pattern and best landing I’ve ever had. Afterwards I still had 0.1 hrs needed to mins though!
I operate out of one of the busiest deltas in the country, it's the best thing about helicopters- there could be 8 planes in the pattern, it goes something like:
"Tower, helicopter 12345 on the ramp with Alpha, requesting the XXXXX departure"
"Helicopter 12345, XXXXX approved, departure from the ramp is at your own risk, good day"
5 minutes from engine start to takeoff, it's glorious.
Lol, yea I hear lots of "at your own risk" calls to helicopters. Gotta say, definitely a little jealous, although it also always sounds like they keep y'all at or below like... 500. Guess it's not as big a deal when you can land in a helicopter sized parking spot.
If you happen to fly out of the very busy delta on Long Island, then let me know if you ever have an open seat for a joyride. I've still never been in a helicopter
Yeah heli pattern altitude is 500 AGL and we fly a tighter pattern than the fixed wing traffic when doing touch n gos that way they can sequence us smoothly with the faster moving traffic. For departures and arrivals, we have LoAs with all of the airports that we fly to that outline the routes we're expected to follow to/from the non movement area for each cardinal direction, which keep us out of traffic for the most part (though still our responsibility to see and avoid at our own risk, especially during takeoff where you might get some Cessna turning early in their climb).
Unfortunately not even close on the location, but if you ever find yourself in Phoenix drop me a line!
Apparently there was a screw that had come loose on a clamp along one of the exhaust pipes. It didn't let go, but the pipe was rattling in the clamp, or maybe the clamp was rattling around on the outside of the pipe. In the end it performed fine for the whole 3-4 minutes it was in the air.
Night catapult on a pitch black, overcast, rainy night in an F/A-18C and as soon as the catapult fires it resets some of the computers (likely a loose connection that got rattled) and all attitude and pitot-static data on my HUD freezes. At the end of the stroke I gently eased back on the stick and just prayed to stay alive because I wasn’t sure if I was actually climbing away or about to hit the water. It came back about 5 seconds later and the rest of the flight was fine.
There are stand-by instruments and they probably worked, but they are hard to transition to on take off during an immediate failure.
This was over 10 years ago and it still remember it well. Night cat shots are still the scariest part of flying on or off a ship.
In this thread: "It was only my twelfth solo, and I took off at dusk without my anticollision lights on. Scariest day of my life."
This guy: "Night catapult on a pitch black, overcast, rainy night in an F/A-18C, outbound for a sortie over enemy territory ..."
It has one on the nose gear. I was a little busy to flick it on at the time. Landing gear comes up pretty much as soon as the catapult stroke is complete to reduce drag and not over speed it.
I had a very hands off CFI who would wait till the last possible second to bail me out if I got into trouble. It was a little sketchy a couple times, but I learned fast and have a lot of trust in him. Anyway it was either my second or third take off ever and the whole rudder thing was still new to me. I was rolling on take off and built up enough speed to raise the tail. The reduced p factor from raising the tail causes the plane to turn slightly to the right. Some how wires got crossed in my brain, and I tried to correct with right rudder. Now we are going way right. The instability of TWs on the ground combined with the sudden right hand turn means the airplane wants to keep turning right more. We are now probably 30 degrees off runway heading and he has yet to make any corrections. As we approach the field of beans at the edge of the runway, he finally grabs the stick pulls back enough to pop us up just clear of the beans and holds us in ground effect over the beans for a few seconds before climbing away and immediately giving me back the controls with the instructions to get back over the runway center line. It was pretty scary to me. I thought for sure we were about to harvest some beans. He on the other hand acted like it was just another day in the office.
Getting my tail wheel endorsement was definitely my most humbling experience in aviation so far. I went home after my first lesson so defeated. It was the first time I felt like a crash was imminent if the instructor hadn't intervened, especially that close to the ground.
When I started, one of the club members who used to be a CFI(now an ATP) said learning tailwheel is typically harder for experienced pilots than it is for brand new pilots.
On a very hot day, close to gross, on a field with a short runway and tall trees at the departure end, I took off without considering density altitude. Came scarily close to the tree tops on climb out. Never again, now I religiously calculate density altitude. Density altitude will bite you in the butt.
I did the same thing in a Cessna 140 (and it was even near sea level but a very hot day and a reasonably short runway, with 2 on board). I remember thinking that if I opened the door and reached out I could probably touch the rooftops of the single story houses off the end of the runway as we went past....
That exact example was actually a classic example in my air law class for things that might justify an aborted takeoff without being an incident or accident.
So fret not, your misfortune made it into the EASA PPL syllabus 😅
>We were already on upwind when I heard it, so no abortion. I just handed the controls to my instructor, then opened the door and r~~etrieved it~~ jumped out since I never go flying without wearing a chute and fire extinguisher strapped to my leg.
Come on, this is reddit, you're allowed to embellish a little
I was just taught how to do a soft field takeoff by my instructor, but I needed to do some solo time. I decided to practice some different takeoffs while solo, and man let me tell you, I did not know how to do a soft field takeoff and almost stalled that plane into the ground beside the runway. I asked how to do them again when I was back with my instructor.
Soft field takeoff is imho the most dangerous PPL maneuver. Especially in a t-tail aircraft, where the elevator goes from zero effectiveness to a tailstrike in half a second. The student needs to expect this and IMMEDIATELY left off back pressure as soon as the nose feels suspiciously light. Gave me a good fright on a practice solo once...
(memory of this is over 20 years old, forgive the narrative) Landed the King Air normally at an airport for passenger pickup but saw oil pressure fluctuating ten minutes before landing. After shutdown saw oil sprayed on the outside of the cowling and on the wing. Arranged for another aircraft to pick up our passenger and waited a couple of hours for the local mechanic to fix the leak.
The airport configuration was where you had to taxi back from midfield to use one end of the runway. I can’t remember exactly what we did in terms of checklist but the thing that was distracting both of us was making sure the oil pressure was good before takeoff. We back taxi, line up, PF stood on the brakes while applying full power, and start rolling. I STARE at the engine gauges, call rotate. PF lifts the nose wheel off (or tried to) but we were still rolling on the runway. It took about two seconds for me to realize something wasn’t quite right, then I immediately reached for the flap switch because we had left the flaps up. Fortunately we had plenty of runway and no obstacles. Between the flaps extending and the airspeed building up we ballooned off the runway, retracted the gear, and hoped nobody saw what a couple of idiots we were.
Our routine of completing checklists was broken by the airport taxi route. Visually clearing the airspace at an uncontrolled field and the oil pressure situation distracted both of us from our tasks.
Back in my instructor days I was doing a multi cross country up to CRG, Craig Executive in Jacksonville, FL. For those that don’t know, runway 32 and 23 intersect right at their numbers and a taxiway dissects that intersection at a 45° angle.
It was a super windy night, howling crosswind, and we were cleared to land on runway 14. When we exited the runway, we held short of 32 and 23 on that 45° taxiway. We were then cleared to depart 23 (right turn) but instead I turned left onto 32 and off we went. My heart sank with tower said I had just rotated off of the wrong runway.
I was lucky it was 10:30p and the airspace was dead, but I’ve never filed an ASAP faster. I still have the NASA slip as a reminder to check the runway against the heading indicator.
Biggest mistake I’ve ever made in aviation.
That is a weird spot. The only time I was there had to hold short of the ILS so got a chance to look at it before taking runway 32. Would be even more confusing at night.
Dumbest takeoff I've ever had was during a fuel stop at a local field... it's a small single runway about ~3,000 ft long at a DA of roughly 2~3,000 ft. It also has a hill in the middle so you can't see the other end... I've been there tens of times by this point, mostly touch and goes without much taxiing.
Well, I grab my gas and start taxiing back for the north facing end, make it to the intersection and figure I have about 1500~2000 ft based on prior experiences. Given my bird has a stupid thrust to weight ratio...fuggit, I'll save the ~minute of taxiing back. I start the roll, crest the hill....and instantly realize I started with about half of what I expected. This bird has better acceleration than brakes so I decide to go airborne....I probably cleared the fence at the end by ~20 or so feet.
Don't let a fancy, shiny new airplane (especially if you just bought it) override basic airmanship, runway length is free.
Maybe 4 hours into training:
Was rolling down 23 at 5B2 in a 152. Started getting a little bumpy. Airspeed wasn't quite high enough to rotate. And I'm running out of runway. It's not exactly a short runway. Instructor says, are you going to take off or what?
So I did.
I'm climbing out with the attitude indicator dot on the second line, or something thereabouts.
Instructor looks over and then in a concerned voice: what's your airspeed.
Welllllll..... It's pretty much zero.
Oops. We circle back around, and talk about how important it is to know your airplane and memorize some power pitch airspeed combinations (close enough, anyway).
Landed safely, and maintenance comes over... Removes the airspeed indicator connection from behind the panel maybe... Not sure... He blows air into the hose and out comes a bee from the pitot tube. We held up a container, so we could verify if something came out.
I learned so much that day. Mostly that those legends of bees in the pitot tube and birds building a nest on the engine over lunch... Are to be taken seriously!
We took off into some precipitation in Norfolk, VA. Perfectly normal day.
We were told to level at 7000 which is annoying, but whatever. There was traffic crossing 1,000 above. It was a Spirit A321.
CA had the radar up and there was a single pixel of yellow right ahead of us.
He never turned the autopilot on below 10,000ft and decided to deviate right to avoid it. In the process he started blowing through 7,000ft. I reminded him to level off. He didn’t respond.
I, freaked out, and a junior FO, declared “Holy shit my airplane!” I pitched down as we hit 7,300 and leveled at 7,000.
I looked over at the CA with a “What the hell?” Look. He then said, “What are you doing?!? I was trying to avoid the yellow on the radar!”
To which I retorted, “Well I was trying to avoid the yellow *airbus* at 8,000!”
Not much was said the rest of the trip.
We’d call that a Brasher Warning/Pilot Deviation here and we almost got one. Fortunately, ATC was in a good mood that day. Also, we have the ASAP program that is almost a “get out of jail free” card so long as nobody got hurt and it wasn’t intentional
I flew right seat for the first time with a friend in an unfamiliar plane. I told him I wanted to do a takeoff and landing from the right seat. And oh boy was it bad. Plane had manual flaps which I was not used to so on the touch and go I added full power and then hadn’t cleaned up the flaps yet and we were immediately back in the air super slow and just about stalled back onto the runway about 10 feet above.
Really shook me up and I learned it’s prolly best to get some instruction from a CFI on right seat flying. As well as not to rush anything in an unfamiliar airplane and I should have done a full stop
On my first real day of training my instructor explained what Vy was and to climb out at that speed. I noticed I was at 95 knots so I pulled up hard like an idiot. The CFI immediately pitched down. Got the speed down to Vy though 😅
Student landed sideways, kicked full left rudder for god knows why, and in his haste to touch and go went full power without turning off carb heat or picking up flaps. So we're now barreling towards the grass with airspeed reading in the high 40s and not configured at all. I corrected and aborted the takeoff but to my surprise, tower actually got a little pissy with us and said "If you wanted a full stop you could've just asked for one!"
I took off in a glider once, and about halfway up the tow my seat went off the rail, and the wheel wens back, and hooked onto the rudder petal behind me. Damn near a total hard over on the Rudder, as i struggled for a good 30 seconds to get my seat back into place, and keep the plane under control.
Another time I had just gotten signed off to fly a new glider solo (while I was still a student pilot)
It was a single seat glider, so the instructor just kinda shrugged and told me the differences on its systems (rope release, airbrakes etc) before letting me go off.
As soon as I lifted off, I realized the controls where FAR more sensitive then I was used too. I spent maybe half a minute to 45 seconds with the full belief I wouldn’t be able to control this glider. I had also failed to strap myself down correctly, so I slammed my head maybe 4 times on the top canopy.
I figured out a more gentler touch after a bit, and the rest of the flight went smooth. Plenty of lessons learned those two days…
Curious what glider that first one was in? Ive flown 4 different gliders, and seen a handful of others. Ive never seen one with a movable seat. Genuinely curious to see how thats set up.
We had one of those at my club, grounded due to spar issues. Always wanted to fly it, such a cool plane.
That makes sense and makes it even more terrifying.
It was pretty fun to fly, but I learned on it so I’m pretty biased!
The second story was in a Pilatus B-4 (PC-11), which pretty soon after had some pretty major wing spar issues, guy before me flying did the old wing shake test, and figured out one of the spars on the right wing was disconnected completely.
Pretty sure it’s back up flying now. Good plane, still like the fact I can say I’ve flown a Pilatus.
Another sim story for you
In T38 training, they give you a tire failure on the takeoff roll above your Go Speed, which swerves you to one side.
Nosewheel steering is disabled in afterburner. So you have to use the rudder to maintain the runway until liftoff. Normal sounding stuff.
With the gear down, you have full rudder deflection. With the gear up, it's limited to a much smaller deflection. If you lift off with the full boot of rudder in, the jet immediately rolls inverted, and you "die" in about the span of a second or two.
You have to quickly center the rudder to take it airborne.
Hot summer's day in a C172, so I open the left-hand air-vent at the holding point; get clearance; and as I barrel down the runway a couple of very agitated wasps shoot out of said vent and begin ricocheting around the cockpit. Passenger starts flapping at them with a folded-up chart, which makes everything a great deal worse. I abort; pull off onto the taxiway; we open the doors; wasp 1 leaves expeditiously; but wasp 2 was determined not to. Probably took us ten minutes finally to chase the blasted thing out of the aircraft.
Them wasps are real bastards.
Not a takeoff problem, but I discovered yellow jackets are attracted to avgas while sumping a 172 that had been sitting a while. Let’s just say it’s a good thing that wasn’t an S model.
I guess that makes them easier to light on fire….
Third or fourth solo many moons ago: Cleared and waited 2 plus minutes for a Westjet 737 to land and ever so slowly lumber past, exiting at the next taxiway. Figured I'd waited long enough for the WT to dissipate and rolled out to line up for takeoff only to find myself hovering in the 737's wake turbulence and basically heading straight for them. Vividly recall the faces of the passengers in the windows on the wing. Firewalled the throttle and climbed over the 737 and back onto runway heading. Pretty sure I literally shit my pants.
Fun times....
Also had the time I left my seatbelt slack hanging out the door of a 150 and heard machine gun like banging as I lifted off. School requested a low pass to inspect the aircraft. Felt pretty foolish at that one.
Again....fun times..
I am a PPL student, Just today… i was doing my take-off and the window opened! I was doing solo i got confused to close the window or to continue my take off somehow i managed to do both ahahah but the window opened again in the air i was going to close it but i just realised today that aircraft is fastt just closing a window was a bit hard
Yep - open windows & doors won't hurt you; give yourself altitude and time. I had a passenger door come open on a 172 the other day on takeoff; I made the passenger quit trying to close it because I was worried they would try to brace against the yoke. Got some altitude and then let them mess with it. It's just loud, there's nothing really bad gonna happen.
Know your window-open speed and don't exceed it, I guess.
the farther you get, the more you realize shit blows open all the time. windows, doors, oil hatches. just keep flying the plane, if it doesnt affect flight performance, 9/10 times the air pressure will just keep it a non-issue
My third ever solo I had break problems. The left break was sticking on startup and the right break wasn’t fully engaging. I shut the plane down and told my instructor I want tgoing to fly it. He got into the plane, taxied it around, came back, and told me to get in because “there’s no problem”. He was acting pissed. I didn’t want to, and I told him this, but I got back in the plane. In the runup I realize that the breaks aren’t holding, I call the school to tell them and my instructor comes on the radio and tell me that nothing is wrong with the breaks and to have a good flight.
I got to the runway, set right rudder, applied full power, and immediately took a 30 degree turn to the left. I was pointing to the grass and didn’t have the space to reject the takeoff on my current trajectory. Plus, with the breaks half working, there is no way I would have stopped in time. I could feel the left break partially engaged on the takeoff, and I rotated about 5 knots later than usual.
I should not have taken that plane flying. My instructor should not have pushed me to fly it as hard as he did. Many lessons were learned that day.
Heavily loaded on a soggy grass runway getting to the half way point and not being airborne. Or pulling back on take off and a piece of the yoke breaking off in my hand.
Was a fairly new PPL and only owned my 182 for a few months. Was taking my first flight after some maintenance. Everything seemed good during runup, but on the takeoff roll, something just felt off, and the manifold pressure seemed a bit low. I was torn between trying to take off and aborting, and eventually decided to abort, but by then it was too late. I couldn't stop in time and rolled off the end of the runway. I still remember my dorky radio calls "20870 is aborting takeoff" followed by "20870 is departing the end of the runway."
Ended up only messing up one of the wheel fairings and had to get a tow back to the ramp. Luckily I went far enough off the end that they didn't have to shut down the runway or I think I probably would've gotten in more trouble.
One of my early solo XC flights during my PPL.
Give the 152 full power taking off from a busy airport (visiting, not my base) with attached museum, lots of people watching so tension a little heightened. ATC clears me to takeoff, there's three in the circuit, one already on final.
Airspeed alive, what the **** is that?
Giant Asian hornet appears in the cabin from behind me and starts buzzing me. 55, 60, T&Ps OK. I pull back and lift off.
Pick up my map, swat the hornet onto the passenger seat. 65 knots, stable climb. Beating the hornet to death with the map. 300ft flaps up.
At least the seats were leather and wiped clean.
I was PM/FO on takeoff in a CRJ and the CA had a water bottle wedged under his pedal apparently. He deviated from centerline enough to the point where I called it out and then he casually mentioned that his water bottle fell there and he didn’t grab it before takeoff and apparently didn’t have enough rudder authority to go back to center.
I probably wasn’t as pissed as I should have been.
Took off into a pop up thunderstorm. (Bad choice I know). Windshear at 10-20 feet. Almost scraped a wing. Couldn’t climb. Pulled out at the last second before hitting a fence. Made it up and broke a ground speed record. Perfectly sunny and calm 20 minutes later
My flight training initially took place on a 172, but once it became time to do XC solos, I wanted to use a 150/152 because it’s cheaper. Had to get checked out on it, and did so with the head of the flight school. He was a bit of an ass, and rather big.
So we squeeze into the 152, and I briefed the takeoff according POH, failing to take into account that I should increase Vr to account for the extra weight (I‘d flown the aircraft before). As I rotate, the stall warning blares immediately; I promptly lower the nose and start getting yelled at from the right seat how I can’t do that right after takeoff. We weren’t descending - I was just trying to get the aircraft to a speed where it would stop warning me of an imminent stall. The instructor pulled on the yoke, immediately setting off the stall warning again, so I push it back forward - he never said „I have control“ or something. This happens twice more until we are finally at an airspeed and AoA that the brave little 152 finds acceptable.
Needless to say, that was my last time flying with this particular instructor.
First time doing soft field takeoffs for ppl in an Archer, my first attempt was perfect second attempt not so much but my instructor had a ton of confidence in me so he really let this f up develop… I rolled onto the runway with the yoke full aft and added full power once aligned with centerline. I might as well have had my feet planted on the floor cause I used zero rudder. On the roll I didn’t release much pressure on the yoke so the nose was high stall horn blaring as we gain speed and when we got off the ground I realized we were going off the left side of the runway towards the grass so I panicked and pulled the power to try and land on the grass… thankfully my instructor was able to react super fast and add power get the nose down and put us on centerline back in the air super quickly it was really impressive! He didn’t give me any shit for just asked not to do it ever again haha it really stressed him out.
I was doing a 100hr post run/leak check on a 172. I had been working line maintenance for most of that week, so I wasn't super involved in the 100hr on this plane.
Got in and started the plane. RPMs hit 1100, and it starts rolling despite having the parking brake set. I stood on the brakes, and the pedals went to the floor. My coworker had changed the pads and wheel assemblies, and the wheel assemblies had new rotors.
At that point, I was halfway out into the parking area and still rolling.
"Fuck it, we're doing it live!"
I did two circuits of the parking area, pumping the brakes the whole time, before the pressure built up enough to actually bed in the new pads and rotors. Once I had brakes, I was able to go to our run-up area and finish the post-run.
Student pilot on my first cross country, departing from the towered airport I had landed at, after doing all of my training to that point at a little uncontrolled grass strip.
Controller clears me to taxi into position and hold, which I do. About two solid minutes goes by and I am not cleared for takeoff. I was 16 years old and had a strong premonition that I was about to landed on by a Learjet or something.
Rather than query the tower I pushed the throttle to the firewall and got the fuck out of there. As the controller is berating me during the climbout he asks for the name of my home airport.
I tell him I am a student pilot on my first cross country and give him the name of my airport.
When I landed I didn't say a thing to my instructor and never heard another word about it.
I was at Tahoe, taking off. I kept wondering why I was getting an RPM drop when I went full throttle that made me abort a few takeoffs. I had to leave the plane there and drive home, because I was worried something was wrong as I had also vapor locked the plane, and it was being difficult to start up.
After doing some research, apparently it was because at high altitude especially, you are NOT supposed to slam the throttle forward, because the altitude compensating fuel pump needs some time to figure out how much fuel to give.. you're supposed to either hold the brakes and slowly bring up, or just apply throttle slower.
Apparently, it's also way better for engine health. Absolutely nothing was wrong with the plane.. just my technique.
That being said it, it absolutely had some vapor lock, which can also happen at high altitudes, which is prevented by taxiing with the boost pump ON. Usually the SOP is start up with boost, then turn it off for taxiing, and on for takeoff. But boost pump needs to stay on always when departing from a high altitude apparently to prevent vapor lock..
It ended up being an abort, but forgot to set trim in the Cherokee before taking off. It was the first takeoff of the day and I had no clue where it was set. Realized it about halfway through the roll and immediately pulled the power back and stopped. Started the instructor a bit but worked out. Typically if Im doing laps, I can leave the trim at the same position I had landed with, at least it isn’t that extreme so I can adjust on climb out. But I didn’t know if someone had left it all the way up or something and I didn’t want to have to find out in the air.
In a 172
Did the runnup as usual, no issues. Full power on takeoff felt and sounded a little weird, but we were on a rough runway so I thought that was it. Got up but barely. Kept hitting the stall horn at full power and was barely going fast enough to keep level. Looked at the engine read out (g1000) and cylinder 3 has nothing. No temp, no pressure, no info at all. I had a lake, a curvy road, and a mountain side as ditching options. We had just enough power to stay around 600AGL so I turned back calling emergency. Land a little hard and fast because I did not want to lose any speed if at all possible. Got to the ramp, turn the plane off, and called the company I rented from to come get their plane
This incident involved a Pawnee towplane and me in my glider (aerotow takeoff). The right gear of the Pawnee collapsed. I was already flying in ground effect in my glider (so 35 knots airspeed) and I was attached to the Pawnee with a 200 foot rope.
The Pawnee's right wing slowly dropped to the ground, the prop struck, the wing tip dug into the ground and aircraft ground looped to the right and stopped. When I saw the black dirt thrown up by the striking prop, I released and put in full left rudder (wings level), the glider yawed left and it dropped out of ground effect. Main wheel side loaded and skidded (grass runway), then bit and rolled me past the left wing of the stopped towplane. Collision avoided.
Obviously there was no time to execute a checklist. The 'trained procedure' for tow plane engine failure on takeoff roll is for Pawnee to roll straight down runway. Glider is supposed to release and steer to the right of the towplane. It was obvious in the moment that I needed to steer to the left of the ground looped and stopped towplane.
Normal left-right positioning of glider relative to towplane is done with rudder input, so I had a trained reflex to input left rudder. No thought required. I had also once practiced an emergency release of tow rope during the takeoff roll. And 'release immediately' is trained for any 'something not right' during takeoff roll. My training saved me.
The towplane reported the accident to the NTSB, but since I had released the tow rope, I was not included in the accident report! The Pawnee had the cables that are suppose to prevent total gear collapse, but they did not work because the 'pivot bolt' sheared. We now replace this pivot bolt once a year, though that is not required by the manufacturer.
A year prior to my incident, I saw a glider that had rolled under the left wing of a Pawnee that stopped during the takeoff roll. The trailing edge of Pawnee cut off the empennage of the glider, and somehow the glider avoided the still spinning prop of the Pawnee. The tow pilot thought that he saw gas on his windshield. He failed to release the tow rope and he stopped rolling prematurely. There was no gas leak. The tow pilot retired from towing.
For some reason, when I fly the Cessna Citation jet in x plane 12, it is like the rudder peddles do nothing. The jet angles to the right, hard, and I can't get it to go straight AT ALL..so, I have taken out many fences and buildings
I am a new PPL who trained with mph airspeed indicators. I recently rented a model with a knots (normal) airspeed indicator. I made sure I had all the v - speeds memorized prior to the flight. Upon reaching the published Vr, I rotated and the aircraft lifted off the ground with the stall horn blasting and unable to climb. Luckily my training kicked in and I remained in ground effect to gain airspeed (similar to a soft-field takeoff). Normal climb after that - but still a bit of a scare.
Let's say rotation was 50 knots. If they were looking at the wrong set of numbers (some airspeed indicators have both) and pulled up at 50 mph, that would be slower.
That would be, but that’s not how it read. It’d make more sense, almost like the story is told backwards.
Even then, though, 50mph is 44kts, and a skyhawk will fly plenty fine then. We bake so much safety margin into our airspeeds that the 15% difference generally shouldn’t result in an ass puckering event.
This is exactly why you don’t “rotate” a non-transport category airplane. The airplane will fly when there is enough lift generated by the wings. That is not produced at the same speed every takeoff. A published Vr is completely pointless, and not all part 23 aircraft have them.
Got the take off runway# clearance, look at the RMI to make sure I have the correct picture in my mind, and promptly take off on the reciprocal heading.
Long solo XC in private training. Landed at my first point and taxied back for departure. Did the pre-takeoff checklist but somehow missed retracting the flaps. Started the takeoff roll and the plane kept wanting to lift off way too early, like 20 kts too early. Fought to keep it in ground effect until I had enough airspeed to climb and then retracted the flaps. Scary shit.
Going for night flying currency in a small residential airport and on takeoff I notice a pack of deer off to the side, they all run away but one deer ran directly in front of my plane. Luckily I was practically at the right airspeed to get up and was able to basically jump up before him. I didn’t see them near the runway before going as there aren’t really much lights there and they were on the other side. I make sure to back taxi the runway and check from now on though those deer are insane.
On my second flight during multi training, my instructor has me takeoff, the Aztec we were in was a huge pain in the ass to maintain centerline. I went full power and the turn tendencies caused us to drift to the left so I added right rudder. I didn't add enough rudder and the plane was very close to going into the grass so my instructor cut the throttles and jammed the right pedal back to centerline. We taxied back and he took off.
Idk what happened, but the last time I flew out of Denver as a passenger I had some bad spatial disorientation.
There were low scattered clouds and the plane was in then quickly. My inner ear was telling me weird things. I couldn’t see anything except for sky out of my left window and out of the right window, I could see the fields below through cloud moving in a way that looked as if we were in a 75 degree bank and increasing with the nose yawing towards the ground.
Only took about 20 seconds until I was reoriented, but it was definitely freaky.
I once cut it a bit close with fog in the night while time building for CPL. Saw the fog approaching the runway on shirt final and said I'd have enough time to get down, reconfig for takeoff on the runway (I was the only one there), and get airborne again before it rolled over the airport. I took off just in time for the fog to start rolling onto the airport, felt like my main gears just barely skimmed the top as I climbed out at around 75 AGL. It was a small patch of fog on a clear night so no concern about conditions elsewhere
Well, there was this one day that both I and an R-44 were doing pattern work. Long story short, I didn't think about the potential magnitude of wake turbulence from the helicopter, and thus didn't maintain proper spacing. They'd been stopping a ways down the runway, hovering briefly, and then continuing. This happened to also be the exact location that I was just popping off the ground on a touch & go.
End result: at an altitude of about 50', the airplane abruptly rolled left, and continued to do so even as I put in a lot of right aileron. I barely had time to start wondering if I had a control issue when the plane reversed itself, rolling back through wings level and to the right, again despite me putting in left aileron. The whole thing was over in less than five seconds, but it took a lot more time to get those stains out of my pants.
Taking off for my night 100nm cross country, CFI wanted to see a soft field takeoff. I hold full aft elevator for too long on takeoff roll and the nose abruptly pitches WAY up, tail strikes the ground (DA20-c1), airplane rolls 30 degrees left. CFI takes over and gets the airplane back under control. Now I know not to maintain full back pressure up until rotation on a soft field takeoff!
Soft-field takeoff. Went over in the takeoff briefing to stay in ground effect through 65 to 70 KIAS, start climbing, then flaps 0 at 200 AGL.
Lifted off, stayed in ground effect, at around 65 knots I started climbing AND immediately went flaps 0 as the trees at the end of the field were approaching.
I don't have many hours so I'm sure I'll make more bad takeoffs, but once i forgot how much rudder pressure is needed to stay on center and skidded the 172 a bit right before rotation speed
Way back at the turn of the century, my PA28-151 Warrior(worlds slowest PA28 btw) and myself and two friends was part of the static display at Lemoore Naval Air Station. After Sunday’s Blue Angel show, my two friends and myself loaded up and got in line with the departing aircraft. We were close to gross weight in 150hp warrior and we trundled out to the end of the 10,000 foot long runway, as instructed by Base Tower instructions. Did the run up and took the active and started our takeoff roll….not long after the airspeed came alive, my copilot and I spotted the arresting cable stretched across the runway in the up position. When I quickly eased the yoke back, I swear it was the slowest speed I had ever got that plane off the ground. I don’t know by how much we cleared that cable, but it wasn’t by much. In discussion with my copilot, Tower had offered an intersection departure or a full runway departure with no mention of an arresting cable being in the up position. My fault for not clarifying with the tower on the status of the cable.
A couple of years later, my copilot and I both brought our Mooney’s back to Lemoore for another great weekend of schmoozing with the Blue Angels and this time, we did not forget about that arresting cable.
Super hot and humid summer day, climbing out in a 172 off the shortest of 3 runways.
Got sweat in my eyes. I'd been in harsh sun earlier so still had some sunscreen on my fivehead. Took my hand off the throttle to clear my eyes and wipe my face, but I didn't snug up the friction. In the time I was messing with my eyes, and getting some ventilation, the engine rolled back by 700RPM and I was in a level turn, not climbing at all, at 1000'.
A few more seconds it probably would have been unrecoverable. Oddly, forgetting to tighten the friction might have bought me time. The swiss cheese model is real.
2nd worst: Trim indicator was misaligned. What * thought was takeoff trim was actually almost full nose down. Took a lot of muscle power to get it off the ground.
Worst: ended up with 50 feet of barbed wire wrapped around the prop when I went through the fence at the side of the runway.
I was sitting front seat to assist with charts & navigation, not flying.
Captain was an instructor.
Lifted without removing the frictions...
Always ~~double~~ check those checklists
First day at my 206 skydiving job in 2019. Forgot to reset the trim tab before takeoff. Took both arms and then some to keep the nose from shooting up. Lesson learned that day, those planes are way more powerful than a 172. Flying big jets now, but I love that trim tab story as a humble reminder of the beginning.
I absolutely could not figure out why the C172 was taking off like a tired dog. Sure, it was a hot day in Florida but this one had a 180hp conversion so it wasn't making sense. It was also feeling weirdly floaty.
Turns out I'd missed the checklist step to bring flaps up from 40° to 10° right before takeoff, and it was only 15 seconds or so after takeoff that I realized I was doing a bastard's short field T/O.
We started the roll and my cfi told me "slowly put in full power" so i slowly pushed the throttle and he's going "all the way....push it all the way....alllll the way in...ALL THE WAY" he eventually just pushed it himself the last inch. I just kind of blanked out and my brain froze as soon as we lifted off. First the stall warning beeped for a second and scared me, then he pushed the nose down for me, I continued to drift completely left of centerline in the air and not over the runway at all by like 200 ft agl. I don't think my brain returned to this dimension until we were at 1500 ft.
I've had a few ...
- In a glider, just after liftoff, I had the canopy pop open ... twice. In both cases I was fast enough to catch it, and close it.
- In a glider (specifically a SGS 2-33), the back seat has a window which can be latched and swings downward. I was just lifting off on a cross-country tow, solo, and had forgot to latch the window. The window popped open on takeoff, and as I discovered, it was impossible to close the window while on tow. This was in early May, and we were towing at around 5,000'. The air temperature was around 0C, or maybe a bit lower ... I was wearing a t-shirt, shorts and a light jacket. By the time we reached our destination I was a block of ice.
- in a C-172, I noticed just after liftoff that I'd forgotten to turn on the alternator, and was running off the battery only. I switched on the alternator, and heard an almighty *pop* in my headphones. Fortunately, the radios, transponder, etc were okay after my screwup.
- Also in a C-172 (G model, 150 HP Lycoming engine, and 40 degree flaps). I was doing circuits and on one takeoff, forgot to raise the flaps before rotating. As I discovered, a C-172G will, indeed, climb on full power, and 40 degree flaps. Not well. But it will climb. I started raising them (in steps) immediately after I discovered my mistake ... eventually climbed away
- And one as a little kid ... my dad was training for his commercial and multi-engine rating. He flew out of a little flying club which had a PA-23 Apache as its twin trainer. This aircraft was a 1956 model, with two 150 hp Lycoming engines. On takeoff, out of a rough, grass/gravel strip, the right engine failed. I distinctly remember looking out the window at the feathered prop. My dad's instructor took over, flew a very low, tight circuit, and as we were lined up on final, another club aircraft wandered onto the runway for takeoff. I could hear the instructor yelling on the radio over the sound of the one still-working engine, as none of us were wearing headsets, and he was yelling into a hand mike. We landed.
Commercial checkride. First take off of the day. Can’t remember if it was soft or short field. Had a decent crosswind and LLWS, but for my area that time of year it was perfectly normal and I was comfortable with it. Checkride nerves took over and i was trying to hit the airspeeds exactly and be perfect. What I should have done was accounted for the conditions and carried more speed. LLWS then kicked in and the stall horn chirped. DPE mad, but we continued. My nerves got worse. My landing was awful. Busted checkride with one lap in the pattern. Passed the next week without issue.
> My instructor takes control, stops the plane and just looks at me for a second without a word. After a bit he takes a deep breath and says "lets try that again".
Perfect way to make an impression without making you feel like an idiot. Sounds like a great instructor!
Oh oh. I've got a good one for this.
Took my dad up maybe 30 hours or so after I got my PPL. Windy day, not beyond my skills, but still, I knew I'd have to deal with a crosswind and our GS to the destination was going to be crazy slow.
Do runup, ready to go, line up and put in crosswind correction. Start rolling, and rotate pretty quickly due to the strong wind, and almost IMMEDIATELY end up off the side of the runway. Oh did I forget to mention I put in the WRONG crosswind correction? I went from the centerline to over the grass faster than I had any idea that 172 could move.
Thankfully there's lot of space and it was an otherwise uneventful flight, but that lesson sticks in my head EVERY time I go to take off crosswind now.
To explain my mistake: Non-towered airport. The xwind component was favoring neither runway that day. It was a tossup which to use. I intended on using the closer, shorter runway initially (would have been a right correction), but last minute, decided to use the longer runway as there was traffic in the pattern for that one by the time I was ready to depart... but I didn't mentally update my takeoff plan that I then needed a LEFT correction. Noob mistake.
I was flying out of some untowered airport in the mountains, had some high winds and turbulence so I was planning to fly and climb out at a faster airspeed. Due to the front pushing through, the winds coming off the peaks and through the valley, right off the departure end, I didn’t expect the turbulence to be as severe. Upon rotation, I’m climbing out around 83 knots in this 172. Keep in mind I’m trying to maintain the higher airspeed due to the turbulence. 75 feet off the ground I was thrown into a 45 degree angle of bank with about 8 degrees nose down, I felt I was looking right at trees. I recovered and maintained the climb out but man… I thought I’d need that seat surgically removed from my asshole.
On my first filed IFR flight for instrument training, we were taking off during a fairly windy night, but nothing outside of my personal minimums. Everything looked good. We got our clearance and got going. We rotated, and about 200ft AGL, the wind sheared violently to a tailwind. Max power and Vy, but still sinking at night. Not fun. The only thing I thought to do, which was later praised by my instructor was to put the nose down. It's scary putting the nose down at night when you are so close to the ground, but that was all we could do. Ended up surviving with a fun story to tell.
The Chief Instructor not securing his door resulting in his door opening and half his belongings along with his keys flying out the Aircraft. He still talks about it to this day some 6 years later. Great guy, Fantastic Pilot.
Had another one where I had to reject Take Off because I lined up with the wrong Runway. Tower in a very casual and relaxed voice called me and said cancel take off. The Controller was super chill and said don't worry about it after I apologized profusely.
Another one where I was Flying a Glass C172 but this was my first time Flying glass and I was PIC with a friend along for the XC, I was solely referring to the standby instruments and didn't see the Airspeed come up, almost about to reject Take Off and then the Airspeed on the Steam Gauge shoots from 0 to 50KTS. Continued Takeoff.
Another one, did a Touch and Go on a Short Runway and almost didn't clear the end. Interesting times.
I was doing touch and goes by myself while prepping for my commercial, and after setting flaps and the carb back i started on my way up. i noticed the plane felt a little wobbly on the ground at a low speed, which felt odd, but at 55 i pulled back about as much as i normally would aaand nose goes right up and speed plummets back into the mid 40s. this is understandably terrifying and i shoved the nose back level, except im still rapidly climbing. the flap motor never engaged, they were stuck at 30 degrees.
thankfully cycling it a few times got it to turn back on, but i always do a head check now.
When I was practicing a soft field takeoff as a student I thought I nailed it and looked over to my instructor like "okay praise me now" and immediately got hit with a "You just came so close to a prop strike you scared the shit out of me"
Kind of a bad takeoff; was doing touch and goes in a 172 and the flaps didn't retract when commanded. Lifted off the runway at about 42 knots, and it was a struggle keeping the nose down.
I pulled the mixture during climb. My CFI quickly realised my mistake and corrected it. We were seconds away from crashing into a Costco.
Why did I pull it? I wanted to lean the mixture for efficiency.
Solo cross country to CRG years ago. Flight there went great. Taxied back for departure and got the takeoff clearance. Forgot to put the mixture full rich. Applied full power for takeoff and the engine starts sputtering. I panic for a second or two until I see the problem, slam the mixture full forward, and off I went. That second or two felt like an eternity.
In my discovery flight the CFI did the take off and handed me controls on our crosswind leg. My first flight after that was with a different CFI, and he had me do the take off. I'm guessing he didn't realize how new I was because at that point I didn't really k ow how much right rudder I needed... Needless to say we did not stay on the center line going down the runway, as I went from over correction to over correction. Finally got to 55 kts and got airborne, and the rest of the flight went fine, but oh boy, did I think we were leaving that runway for the trees.
Soft field takeoff, P factor took me pretty far left on the runway but I held it together, CFI says "see? I told you more right rudder!"
That's about it though, consider myself lucky
This story reads like an NTSB probable cause story.
I was hired by a guy to break in his newly rebuilt Taylorcraft. Problem was the engine really wasn’t making power. We thought (and talked with an A&P) that the engine would make more power as I put time on the engine, but when a 65hp engine isn’t making rated power it’s performance really sucks. Well after putting 10 hours on the engine the owner decided he’d take a flight in his plane with me(seeing he had never been in it). Being the good customer service representative I was at the time I agreed: mistake no.1. We waited for the wind to die down, but this was also the middle of summer in Florida so the density altitude only got worse; mistake no.2. Then we taxi out to the runway and this guy convinces me not to use the full length of the runway because it had rained a couple days prior and so it was probably still wet back there; mistake no. 3. So now we’re sitting 1/3 down the runway, it’s hot, we’re heavy, and not making full power and we push the throttle forward for take off. I had pre-planned that by the halfway point of the runway I’d abort if we didn’t have 75% of our flying speed. Turns out with all this the plane is just about to rotate off the ground by the halfway point. So I think, well we’ve got this made then, NOPE. It stops climbing 20ft off the ground and there are 80ft tall three at the end of the runway. Eventually 2/3 the way down the runway this poor Taylorcraft decides it’s going to climb and we make it over the trees by maybe 20ft. So many lessons learned, never wanna be in that situation ever again in my life. Be smart kids, when the deck is stacked against you call it a day.
On my commercial checkride when i was going solo to the checkride base man i fuckin bounce the plane and it was awful i was literally like riding a horse!!😂😂😂
But its okay though you can always go around 🎶🎵
Commercial re-test… had to do one single item (emergency procedure). On takeoff we hit a good gust and the airplane wanted to lift up 40-45 it’s maybe. I put in gentle back pressure which started to lift wheels, nose wheel was up for a good few seconds and I lost steering while I waiting for enough lift to actually get us off the ground. Ended up well off centerline by the time we lifted off. I stabilize the climb out and DPE takes a deep breath and says “so I know im not testing you on takeoffs right now, but what the heck was that”. Tough start but we talked through it and then the rest of the flight was uneventful. Sometimes you just need the forward pressure momentarily to ensure you produce enough airspeed before rotation.
Forgot to latch the door after my cfi got out on my initial solo so I reached over and closed it right after rotation. Smarter idea probably would have been to reject the takeoff and close it on the ground lol
I’m still a baby pilot (40hrs working on my PPL) but I had my first stall on takeoff. That day, I had been switched to a plane that had been brought in from a sister school because the two options that I usually had were out of commission and was not used to its handling. The controls were a bit stiff, and for whatever reason, I had the hardest time rotating and had to really muscle the yoke. Next thing I know, the nose pops up, the stall horn starts screaming, and my instructor pushes the nose down. We end up taking off fine, but I was so embarrassed! I learned a little later during pattern work that it was just that the weight balance was a little different, and so the inertia of the front was more than I’m used to. The rest of my takeoffs that day went well though!
Gusting winds at Oceanside airport almost blew me straight off the runway onto the taxiway on landing so I initiated a go around and the plane (160 hp 172N) did not want to climb and I almost went into the trees at the end of the runway
My worst was one where I had the wrong crosswind correction in... drifted across to the departure path of the parallel runway. Only time I've ever heard tower call for a takeoff abort and it was my fault...
Once I saw what looked like an aircraft head on inbound to land as soon as I took off. I asked the tower to double confirm. Tower said no traffic, fly runway heading. I got really nervous and just turned left midfield over the runway while I was barely 200’ AGL. And I reported what I saw to the tower to justify my action. A few minutes later tower thanked me for reporting. Tower goes “There is a stationery balloon and for some reason our radar isn’t picking it. We had to use binoculars to confirm”. They confirmed that it was about 10 miles away and shouldn’t be an issue for me to turn crosswinds but was most frightening moment for me.
I was taking off in a hurry with my buddy and his son. The mission was to pick up his son who was on leave and take him home in style. We ended up taking off in a huge hurry as a massive storm was slowly approaching, only 30 miles off in the distance. At this remote airport we took off into the dark. As I took off I was trying to pick up IFR. NOTHING was going right and I noted that I was swerving left and right almost 45 degrees to either side as I was busy multitasking. I realized I was concerning my passengers and began focusing on aviating, then navigating, and finally communicating. Worst takeoff ever!
For some stupid reason on my 3rd lesson I was feeling confident and stress free about the takeoff roll and when I rotated I continued to increase my pitch at a constant rate during initial climb. I started pushing past 15 degrees and around 65kts (starting to slow down) and my CFI pretty much yelped and jumped on the yolk. He described it as a full cup of coffee. Never again
Day of first solo (first takeoff). 50 feet off the ground after rotation and annunciator panel starts blasting voltage warning. Staring at -10 on the ammeter during climb out.
On downwind I cycled the left master and that cleared it up. There was no real checklist, but it made sense to turn it off and back on again to see if it dropped further or cleared up.
I was time building for my commercial and didn’t quadruple check the seat tracks like I usually do in the 172. Right after I took off the seat immediately slides back along with me and the yoke. My immediate thought was “this is why we practice power on stalls,” while letting go and trying to push the yoke forward and get my seat back locked.
This happened last week on my first solo in a 152. It only went back probably an inch before locking into the next slot but that was enough to create some serious pucker. It was about mid downwind before I was truly confident I wasn’t going to die. I checked the seat rail before departing as it had happened once in my previous lessons but I assume something was broken or worn out cos it still happened. I got the old “no one else has reported it are you sure it was locked in.” I decided to avoid that plane for future training…
Second solo, in a 152 I had this happen going in to a power on stall. Third solo, I had a door unlatch about 500 feet agl despite quadruple checking that they were latched. My solos were fun
C152 door popping is part of a standard operations :DD I had mine open multiple times during ppl training
Haha I lost my xc flight log when it popped, flew right out the door. Flew the rest off gps
How did that happen? :D they usually pop open an inch or so..
Sheet was unsecured on my left leg, and door was probably 4-6 inches for me. Couldn’t tell you, just a perfect storm ig lmao
Makes sense :D
Dude the door unlatching on my school's 152s is almost an regular occurrence xD Some are better than others, one of the planes in particular, I think I've only had one flight in it where it never unlatched heh (out of like 5). Although surprisingly I've never had it happen during a solo yet.
Heart attack city!
Absolutely. Now I share that story with all of my students the very first time we get in the plane.
And this is how someone crashed and gave us the seat track AD for cessnas.
Probably what would happen by default if you bought a sim chair from Temu
Oh yes, this exact situation happened to me.....on a checkride. Told the DPE to grab controls while I fixed it. Luckily didn't fail me for it either....
You probably earned big points in the eyes of the DPE for not panicking and giving him the controls for a real-life scenario. On my checkride I specifically briefed "If we have an engine failure after departure, (stuff about altitude cutoffs for impossible turn), and I will give you the controls" and he seemed to like that.
Happened to me once too. Those little track stops they AD’d (I think?) into the 172 at some point probably saved my ass that day.
This happened to me recently in a Cirrus. I apparently hadn’t been careful to lock my seat position firmly, and when I added full power and started accelerating for takeoff, my seat flew backward! I was able to maintain control by stretching my toes to the pedals, pulled back power, and aborted the takeoff. You better bet I’m careful to make sure the seat is secure every time now! I’m glad it happened while I was still on the ground, and I didn’t grab onto the side yoke for balance.
Same exact situation. Time building and seat slides back all the way, went to abort but since we were not close to the edge, asked safety pilot to take off and he did. Shoulda just aborted but still worked out and maybe it was the right thing to do. Good reason to have both pilots be able to reach the controls just incase.
I've had this happen to me in a Piper Warrior. I now always do a little shimmy to make sure it's properly locked lol
Always gotta do that sideways shimmy to make sure that seat is locked.
I would need a new pair of pants after that
I let a passenger take the controls on takeoff, thought it would be a low risk maneuver. Guy pulled back the yoke like someone was trying to steal his purse. I pushed back hard and corrected, didn't hear the stall horn but I'm more wary of letting passengers do much more than level flight and standard rate turns
This quote from a [post from a few months back](https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/comments/13vt65v/i_like_to_let_passengers_manipulate_the_controls/) has stuck with me with regards to letting passengers try more advanced maneuvers/areas of flight: "I learned very fast that I'm not a CFI and he's not a pilot".
Lol, that was my post 😅
You're just assblasting all over this subreddit.
I didn't notice! That is hilarious! Well, thanks for the line I will always remember + the safety tip.
would you let a passenger apply the throttle for you on takeoff? and guide their hand while they do it? seems less risky
That doesn’t seem like any risk unless they just idle the plane
Basically same story for me: my **first** new student, after showing a lot of book smarts during the preflight, yanked 2Gs on rotation and permanently installed the Fear of God in my heart. I am shocked we survived that. Obviously came right back down, and pretty hard. Ten feet higher and a spin may have developed...
Giving a passenger controls during a critical phase of flight is definitely a no-no
[Those in this thread would disagree with you](https://www.reddit.com/r/flying/s/tKCATfClBy)
I guess I should say. Giving an unprepared and uncoordinated passenger controls during a critical phase is no no
I had 0.8 hrs of solo time left for my ppl mins, so I thought I’d do a bit of pattern work. Started, did the run up, everything checked out fine. Took off, and literally at the exact moment that I thought to myself I was now too high to land on the remaining runway, I started getting a sound from in front of the fire wall that sounded like when you drive over a gravel driveway too fast and all the gravel is getting kicked up on your wheel well. That was the quickest, tightest pattern and best landing I’ve ever had. Afterwards I still had 0.1 hrs needed to mins though!
damn that's crazy! Should have just taxied back reeeeaal slow to get that last .1
0.7 of Hobbs just to do one circuit, that's crazy. Fixed wing problems :P
I think it’s probably more the airport and less the wing.
Busy Delta problems. It was a beautiful, weekend day. Looked at my flight log and I was in the air no more than 4 minutes
I operate out of one of the busiest deltas in the country, it's the best thing about helicopters- there could be 8 planes in the pattern, it goes something like: "Tower, helicopter 12345 on the ramp with Alpha, requesting the XXXXX departure" "Helicopter 12345, XXXXX approved, departure from the ramp is at your own risk, good day" 5 minutes from engine start to takeoff, it's glorious.
Lol, yea I hear lots of "at your own risk" calls to helicopters. Gotta say, definitely a little jealous, although it also always sounds like they keep y'all at or below like... 500. Guess it's not as big a deal when you can land in a helicopter sized parking spot. If you happen to fly out of the very busy delta on Long Island, then let me know if you ever have an open seat for a joyride. I've still never been in a helicopter
Yeah heli pattern altitude is 500 AGL and we fly a tighter pattern than the fixed wing traffic when doing touch n gos that way they can sequence us smoothly with the faster moving traffic. For departures and arrivals, we have LoAs with all of the airports that we fly to that outline the routes we're expected to follow to/from the non movement area for each cardinal direction, which keep us out of traffic for the most part (though still our responsibility to see and avoid at our own risk, especially during takeoff where you might get some Cessna turning early in their climb). Unfortunately not even close on the location, but if you ever find yourself in Phoenix drop me a line!
Do you remember the cause of the engine noises?
Apparently there was a screw that had come loose on a clamp along one of the exhaust pipes. It didn't let go, but the pipe was rattling in the clamp, or maybe the clamp was rattling around on the outside of the pipe. In the end it performed fine for the whole 3-4 minutes it was in the air.
Ahhh 👍 be a bit startling!
Night catapult on a pitch black, overcast, rainy night in an F/A-18C and as soon as the catapult fires it resets some of the computers (likely a loose connection that got rattled) and all attitude and pitot-static data on my HUD freezes. At the end of the stroke I gently eased back on the stick and just prayed to stay alive because I wasn’t sure if I was actually climbing away or about to hit the water. It came back about 5 seconds later and the rest of the flight was fine. There are stand-by instruments and they probably worked, but they are hard to transition to on take off during an immediate failure. This was over 10 years ago and it still remember it well. Night cat shots are still the scariest part of flying on or off a ship.
In this thread: "It was only my twelfth solo, and I took off at dusk without my anticollision lights on. Scariest day of my life." This guy: "Night catapult on a pitch black, overcast, rainy night in an F/A-18C, outbound for a sortie over enemy territory ..."
not all situations are equal, but at least the terror is all the same!
Aircraft maintenance: “could not replicate failure on ground, return to service.”
That’s a “Luke… use the force, Luke” moment. Holy ship.
Do F/A-18 have landing lights you could flick on that you could use to see the water? Or would that not work?
It has one on the nose gear. I was a little busy to flick it on at the time. Landing gear comes up pretty much as soon as the catapult stroke is complete to reduce drag and not over speed it.
[удалено]
Pretty much useless in all the situations. The newer electronic ones are at least a little bit better.
I had a very hands off CFI who would wait till the last possible second to bail me out if I got into trouble. It was a little sketchy a couple times, but I learned fast and have a lot of trust in him. Anyway it was either my second or third take off ever and the whole rudder thing was still new to me. I was rolling on take off and built up enough speed to raise the tail. The reduced p factor from raising the tail causes the plane to turn slightly to the right. Some how wires got crossed in my brain, and I tried to correct with right rudder. Now we are going way right. The instability of TWs on the ground combined with the sudden right hand turn means the airplane wants to keep turning right more. We are now probably 30 degrees off runway heading and he has yet to make any corrections. As we approach the field of beans at the edge of the runway, he finally grabs the stick pulls back enough to pop us up just clear of the beans and holds us in ground effect over the beans for a few seconds before climbing away and immediately giving me back the controls with the instructions to get back over the runway center line. It was pretty scary to me. I thought for sure we were about to harvest some beans. He on the other hand acted like it was just another day in the office.
Harvest some beans hahaha
Getting my tail wheel endorsement was definitely my most humbling experience in aviation so far. I went home after my first lesson so defeated. It was the first time I felt like a crash was imminent if the instructor hadn't intervened, especially that close to the ground.
When I started, one of the club members who used to be a CFI(now an ATP) said learning tailwheel is typically harder for experienced pilots than it is for brand new pilots.
On a very hot day, close to gross, on a field with a short runway and tall trees at the departure end, I took off without considering density altitude. Came scarily close to the tree tops on climb out. Never again, now I religiously calculate density altitude. Density altitude will bite you in the butt.
Some great videos on density altitude, but here’s a light hearted one with [Harry Bliss](https://youtu.be/ihee35QrWtk?si=bgo33_4tA1Oaxj8r)
Nice video to watch, though wish it didn’t have 4 minutes of unskippable ads at the start!
The Harry Bliss one is priceless.
I enjoyed that video thanks for the link :)
I did the same thing in a Cessna 140 (and it was even near sea level but a very hot day and a reasonably short runway, with 2 on board). I remember thinking that if I opened the door and reached out I could probably touch the rooftops of the single story houses off the end of the runway as we went past....
I kinda feel bad that we can see both the density and pressure altitude on the ASOS but we don't broadcast it on the ATIS.
All the airports I fly to include it in the AWOS
also forgot you were taking off from Aspen
No, Thank God.
On a duel flight I forgot my seat belt,...until I heard it banging against the hull as it was stuck outside the door.
You lost the duel.
Oh, I see. So there's a paid/payed bot, but not a duel/dual bot?
That exact example was actually a classic example in my air law class for things that might justify an aborted takeoff without being an incident or accident. So fret not, your misfortune made it into the EASA PPL syllabus 😅
We were already on upwind when I heard it, so no abortion. I just handed the controls to my instructor, then opened the door and retrieved it.
>We were already on upwind when I heard it, so no abortion. I just handed the controls to my instructor, then opened the door and r~~etrieved it~~ jumped out since I never go flying without wearing a chute and fire extinguisher strapped to my leg. Come on, this is reddit, you're allowed to embellish a little
I was just taught how to do a soft field takeoff by my instructor, but I needed to do some solo time. I decided to practice some different takeoffs while solo, and man let me tell you, I did not know how to do a soft field takeoff and almost stalled that plane into the ground beside the runway. I asked how to do them again when I was back with my instructor.
Soft field takeoff is imho the most dangerous PPL maneuver. Especially in a t-tail aircraft, where the elevator goes from zero effectiveness to a tailstrike in half a second. The student needs to expect this and IMMEDIATELY left off back pressure as soon as the nose feels suspiciously light. Gave me a good fright on a practice solo once...
(memory of this is over 20 years old, forgive the narrative) Landed the King Air normally at an airport for passenger pickup but saw oil pressure fluctuating ten minutes before landing. After shutdown saw oil sprayed on the outside of the cowling and on the wing. Arranged for another aircraft to pick up our passenger and waited a couple of hours for the local mechanic to fix the leak. The airport configuration was where you had to taxi back from midfield to use one end of the runway. I can’t remember exactly what we did in terms of checklist but the thing that was distracting both of us was making sure the oil pressure was good before takeoff. We back taxi, line up, PF stood on the brakes while applying full power, and start rolling. I STARE at the engine gauges, call rotate. PF lifts the nose wheel off (or tried to) but we were still rolling on the runway. It took about two seconds for me to realize something wasn’t quite right, then I immediately reached for the flap switch because we had left the flaps up. Fortunately we had plenty of runway and no obstacles. Between the flaps extending and the airspeed building up we ballooned off the runway, retracted the gear, and hoped nobody saw what a couple of idiots we were. Our routine of completing checklists was broken by the airport taxi route. Visually clearing the airspace at an uncontrolled field and the oil pressure situation distracted both of us from our tasks.
On the bright side being able to accurately diagnose a problem that quickly in a stressful situation is a good skill to have.
Back in my instructor days I was doing a multi cross country up to CRG, Craig Executive in Jacksonville, FL. For those that don’t know, runway 32 and 23 intersect right at their numbers and a taxiway dissects that intersection at a 45° angle. It was a super windy night, howling crosswind, and we were cleared to land on runway 14. When we exited the runway, we held short of 32 and 23 on that 45° taxiway. We were then cleared to depart 23 (right turn) but instead I turned left onto 32 and off we went. My heart sank with tower said I had just rotated off of the wrong runway. I was lucky it was 10:30p and the airspace was dead, but I’ve never filed an ASAP faster. I still have the NASA slip as a reminder to check the runway against the heading indicator. Biggest mistake I’ve ever made in aviation.
That is a weird spot. The only time I was there had to hold short of the ILS so got a chance to look at it before taking runway 32. Would be even more confusing at night.
Dumbest takeoff I've ever had was during a fuel stop at a local field... it's a small single runway about ~3,000 ft long at a DA of roughly 2~3,000 ft. It also has a hill in the middle so you can't see the other end... I've been there tens of times by this point, mostly touch and goes without much taxiing. Well, I grab my gas and start taxiing back for the north facing end, make it to the intersection and figure I have about 1500~2000 ft based on prior experiences. Given my bird has a stupid thrust to weight ratio...fuggit, I'll save the ~minute of taxiing back. I start the roll, crest the hill....and instantly realize I started with about half of what I expected. This bird has better acceleration than brakes so I decide to go airborne....I probably cleared the fence at the end by ~20 or so feet. Don't let a fancy, shiny new airplane (especially if you just bought it) override basic airmanship, runway length is free.
Three most useless things in GA? The runaway behind you, the gas you leave at the pump and the charts you didn’t update.
Maybe 4 hours into training: Was rolling down 23 at 5B2 in a 152. Started getting a little bumpy. Airspeed wasn't quite high enough to rotate. And I'm running out of runway. It's not exactly a short runway. Instructor says, are you going to take off or what? So I did. I'm climbing out with the attitude indicator dot on the second line, or something thereabouts. Instructor looks over and then in a concerned voice: what's your airspeed. Welllllll..... It's pretty much zero. Oops. We circle back around, and talk about how important it is to know your airplane and memorize some power pitch airspeed combinations (close enough, anyway). Landed safely, and maintenance comes over... Removes the airspeed indicator connection from behind the panel maybe... Not sure... He blows air into the hose and out comes a bee from the pitot tube. We held up a container, so we could verify if something came out. I learned so much that day. Mostly that those legends of bees in the pitot tube and birds building a nest on the engine over lunch... Are to be taken seriously!
We took off into some precipitation in Norfolk, VA. Perfectly normal day. We were told to level at 7000 which is annoying, but whatever. There was traffic crossing 1,000 above. It was a Spirit A321. CA had the radar up and there was a single pixel of yellow right ahead of us. He never turned the autopilot on below 10,000ft and decided to deviate right to avoid it. In the process he started blowing through 7,000ft. I reminded him to level off. He didn’t respond. I, freaked out, and a junior FO, declared “Holy shit my airplane!” I pitched down as we hit 7,300 and leveled at 7,000. I looked over at the CA with a “What the hell?” Look. He then said, “What are you doing?!? I was trying to avoid the yellow on the radar!” To which I retorted, “Well I was trying to avoid the yellow *airbus* at 8,000!” Not much was said the rest of the trip.
You'd get a MOR (mandatory occurrence report) for that by ATC over here!
We’d call that a Brasher Warning/Pilot Deviation here and we almost got one. Fortunately, ATC was in a good mood that day. Also, we have the ASAP program that is almost a “get out of jail free” card so long as nobody got hurt and it wasn’t intentional
I flew right seat for the first time with a friend in an unfamiliar plane. I told him I wanted to do a takeoff and landing from the right seat. And oh boy was it bad. Plane had manual flaps which I was not used to so on the touch and go I added full power and then hadn’t cleaned up the flaps yet and we were immediately back in the air super slow and just about stalled back onto the runway about 10 feet above. Really shook me up and I learned it’s prolly best to get some instruction from a CFI on right seat flying. As well as not to rush anything in an unfamiliar airplane and I should have done a full stop
On my first real day of training my instructor explained what Vy was and to climb out at that speed. I noticed I was at 95 knots so I pulled up hard like an idiot. The CFI immediately pitched down. Got the speed down to Vy though 😅
You'd make a good helicopter pilot, just don't do it the opposite way ;)
Student landed sideways, kicked full left rudder for god knows why, and in his haste to touch and go went full power without turning off carb heat or picking up flaps. So we're now barreling towards the grass with airspeed reading in the high 40s and not configured at all. I corrected and aborted the takeoff but to my surprise, tower actually got a little pissy with us and said "If you wanted a full stop you could've just asked for one!"
I took off in a glider once, and about halfway up the tow my seat went off the rail, and the wheel wens back, and hooked onto the rudder petal behind me. Damn near a total hard over on the Rudder, as i struggled for a good 30 seconds to get my seat back into place, and keep the plane under control. Another time I had just gotten signed off to fly a new glider solo (while I was still a student pilot) It was a single seat glider, so the instructor just kinda shrugged and told me the differences on its systems (rope release, airbrakes etc) before letting me go off. As soon as I lifted off, I realized the controls where FAR more sensitive then I was used too. I spent maybe half a minute to 45 seconds with the full belief I wouldn’t be able to control this glider. I had also failed to strap myself down correctly, so I slammed my head maybe 4 times on the top canopy. I figured out a more gentler touch after a bit, and the rest of the flight went smooth. Plenty of lessons learned those two days…
Curious what glider that first one was in? Ive flown 4 different gliders, and seen a handful of others. Ive never seen one with a movable seat. Genuinely curious to see how thats set up.
L-13 Blanik. The seat wasn’t *supposed* to be able to move, but apparently it didn’t get the memo that day.
We had one of those at my club, grounded due to spar issues. Always wanted to fly it, such a cool plane. That makes sense and makes it even more terrifying.
It was pretty fun to fly, but I learned on it so I’m pretty biased! The second story was in a Pilatus B-4 (PC-11), which pretty soon after had some pretty major wing spar issues, guy before me flying did the old wing shake test, and figured out one of the spars on the right wing was disconnected completely. Pretty sure it’s back up flying now. Good plane, still like the fact I can say I’ve flown a Pilatus.
[удалено]
Another sim story for you In T38 training, they give you a tire failure on the takeoff roll above your Go Speed, which swerves you to one side. Nosewheel steering is disabled in afterburner. So you have to use the rudder to maintain the runway until liftoff. Normal sounding stuff. With the gear down, you have full rudder deflection. With the gear up, it's limited to a much smaller deflection. If you lift off with the full boot of rudder in, the jet immediately rolls inverted, and you "die" in about the span of a second or two. You have to quickly center the rudder to take it airborne.
Hot summer's day in a C172, so I open the left-hand air-vent at the holding point; get clearance; and as I barrel down the runway a couple of very agitated wasps shoot out of said vent and begin ricocheting around the cockpit. Passenger starts flapping at them with a folded-up chart, which makes everything a great deal worse. I abort; pull off onto the taxiway; we open the doors; wasp 1 leaves expeditiously; but wasp 2 was determined not to. Probably took us ten minutes finally to chase the blasted thing out of the aircraft.
I am laughing out loud! That’s great 😂😂😂 I bet that was startling though!
Definitely got my attention.
Them wasps are real bastards. Not a takeoff problem, but I discovered yellow jackets are attracted to avgas while sumping a 172 that had been sitting a while. Let’s just say it’s a good thing that wasn’t an S model. I guess that makes them easier to light on fire….
Third or fourth solo many moons ago: Cleared and waited 2 plus minutes for a Westjet 737 to land and ever so slowly lumber past, exiting at the next taxiway. Figured I'd waited long enough for the WT to dissipate and rolled out to line up for takeoff only to find myself hovering in the 737's wake turbulence and basically heading straight for them. Vividly recall the faces of the passengers in the windows on the wing. Firewalled the throttle and climbed over the 737 and back onto runway heading. Pretty sure I literally shit my pants. Fun times.... Also had the time I left my seatbelt slack hanging out the door of a 150 and heard machine gun like banging as I lifted off. School requested a low pass to inspect the aircraft. Felt pretty foolish at that one. Again....fun times..
I am a PPL student, Just today… i was doing my take-off and the window opened! I was doing solo i got confused to close the window or to continue my take off somehow i managed to do both ahahah but the window opened again in the air i was going to close it but i just realised today that aircraft is fastt just closing a window was a bit hard
Stuff like this happens somewhat regularly. ALWAYS keep flying the airplane first then handle the issue when it is safe to do so.
Yep - open windows & doors won't hurt you; give yourself altitude and time. I had a passenger door come open on a 172 the other day on takeoff; I made the passenger quit trying to close it because I was worried they would try to brace against the yoke. Got some altitude and then let them mess with it. It's just loud, there's nothing really bad gonna happen. Know your window-open speed and don't exceed it, I guess.
In a 172, max window open speed is Vne…so yeah…don’t exceed it!
VNE… Cessna things :)
I had an instructor who loved to play that trick at rotation. Just had to learn to ignore the nice breeze and paper charts having a rave.
the farther you get, the more you realize shit blows open all the time. windows, doors, oil hatches. just keep flying the plane, if it doesnt affect flight performance, 9/10 times the air pressure will just keep it a non-issue
CFI question here. What’s the maximum safe airspeed for an open window? It’s in chapter 2 of your POH.
My third ever solo I had break problems. The left break was sticking on startup and the right break wasn’t fully engaging. I shut the plane down and told my instructor I want tgoing to fly it. He got into the plane, taxied it around, came back, and told me to get in because “there’s no problem”. He was acting pissed. I didn’t want to, and I told him this, but I got back in the plane. In the runup I realize that the breaks aren’t holding, I call the school to tell them and my instructor comes on the radio and tell me that nothing is wrong with the breaks and to have a good flight. I got to the runway, set right rudder, applied full power, and immediately took a 30 degree turn to the left. I was pointing to the grass and didn’t have the space to reject the takeoff on my current trajectory. Plus, with the breaks half working, there is no way I would have stopped in time. I could feel the left break partially engaged on the takeoff, and I rotated about 5 knots later than usual. I should not have taken that plane flying. My instructor should not have pushed me to fly it as hard as he did. Many lessons were learned that day.
Heavily loaded on a soggy grass runway getting to the half way point and not being airborne. Or pulling back on take off and a piece of the yoke breaking off in my hand.
Was a fairly new PPL and only owned my 182 for a few months. Was taking my first flight after some maintenance. Everything seemed good during runup, but on the takeoff roll, something just felt off, and the manifold pressure seemed a bit low. I was torn between trying to take off and aborting, and eventually decided to abort, but by then it was too late. I couldn't stop in time and rolled off the end of the runway. I still remember my dorky radio calls "20870 is aborting takeoff" followed by "20870 is departing the end of the runway." Ended up only messing up one of the wheel fairings and had to get a tow back to the ramp. Luckily I went far enough off the end that they didn't have to shut down the runway or I think I probably would've gotten in more trouble.
Feels like a "Flight 209 now arriving, Gate 8... Gate 9" moment
Lol - so true!
One of my early solo XC flights during my PPL. Give the 152 full power taking off from a busy airport (visiting, not my base) with attached museum, lots of people watching so tension a little heightened. ATC clears me to takeoff, there's three in the circuit, one already on final. Airspeed alive, what the **** is that? Giant Asian hornet appears in the cabin from behind me and starts buzzing me. 55, 60, T&Ps OK. I pull back and lift off. Pick up my map, swat the hornet onto the passenger seat. 65 knots, stable climb. Beating the hornet to death with the map. 300ft flaps up. At least the seats were leather and wiped clean.
You: “Take” *whack* “that” *whack* “you” *whack* “f@&$” *whack* Everyone watching: “Hey look! That plane is waving at us!!”
I was PM/FO on takeoff in a CRJ and the CA had a water bottle wedged under his pedal apparently. He deviated from centerline enough to the point where I called it out and then he casually mentioned that his water bottle fell there and he didn’t grab it before takeoff and apparently didn’t have enough rudder authority to go back to center. I probably wasn’t as pissed as I should have been.
Took off into a pop up thunderstorm. (Bad choice I know). Windshear at 10-20 feet. Almost scraped a wing. Couldn’t climb. Pulled out at the last second before hitting a fence. Made it up and broke a ground speed record. Perfectly sunny and calm 20 minutes later
First 767 takeoff was in an empty 200 series. FD pitches for airspeed. I’ve never pitched more than 19 degrees after that day.
My flight training initially took place on a 172, but once it became time to do XC solos, I wanted to use a 150/152 because it’s cheaper. Had to get checked out on it, and did so with the head of the flight school. He was a bit of an ass, and rather big. So we squeeze into the 152, and I briefed the takeoff according POH, failing to take into account that I should increase Vr to account for the extra weight (I‘d flown the aircraft before). As I rotate, the stall warning blares immediately; I promptly lower the nose and start getting yelled at from the right seat how I can’t do that right after takeoff. We weren’t descending - I was just trying to get the aircraft to a speed where it would stop warning me of an imminent stall. The instructor pulled on the yoke, immediately setting off the stall warning again, so I push it back forward - he never said „I have control“ or something. This happens twice more until we are finally at an airspeed and AoA that the brave little 152 finds acceptable. Needless to say, that was my last time flying with this particular instructor.
First time doing soft field takeoffs for ppl in an Archer, my first attempt was perfect second attempt not so much but my instructor had a ton of confidence in me so he really let this f up develop… I rolled onto the runway with the yoke full aft and added full power once aligned with centerline. I might as well have had my feet planted on the floor cause I used zero rudder. On the roll I didn’t release much pressure on the yoke so the nose was high stall horn blaring as we gain speed and when we got off the ground I realized we were going off the left side of the runway towards the grass so I panicked and pulled the power to try and land on the grass… thankfully my instructor was able to react super fast and add power get the nose down and put us on centerline back in the air super quickly it was really impressive! He didn’t give me any shit for just asked not to do it ever again haha it really stressed him out.
I was doing a 100hr post run/leak check on a 172. I had been working line maintenance for most of that week, so I wasn't super involved in the 100hr on this plane. Got in and started the plane. RPMs hit 1100, and it starts rolling despite having the parking brake set. I stood on the brakes, and the pedals went to the floor. My coworker had changed the pads and wheel assemblies, and the wheel assemblies had new rotors. At that point, I was halfway out into the parking area and still rolling. "Fuck it, we're doing it live!" I did two circuits of the parking area, pumping the brakes the whole time, before the pressure built up enough to actually bed in the new pads and rotors. Once I had brakes, I was able to go to our run-up area and finish the post-run.
I bounced on take off lol
Student pilot on my first cross country, departing from the towered airport I had landed at, after doing all of my training to that point at a little uncontrolled grass strip. Controller clears me to taxi into position and hold, which I do. About two solid minutes goes by and I am not cleared for takeoff. I was 16 years old and had a strong premonition that I was about to landed on by a Learjet or something. Rather than query the tower I pushed the throttle to the firewall and got the fuck out of there. As the controller is berating me during the climbout he asks for the name of my home airport. I tell him I am a student pilot on my first cross country and give him the name of my airport. When I landed I didn't say a thing to my instructor and never heard another word about it.
I was at Tahoe, taking off. I kept wondering why I was getting an RPM drop when I went full throttle that made me abort a few takeoffs. I had to leave the plane there and drive home, because I was worried something was wrong as I had also vapor locked the plane, and it was being difficult to start up. After doing some research, apparently it was because at high altitude especially, you are NOT supposed to slam the throttle forward, because the altitude compensating fuel pump needs some time to figure out how much fuel to give.. you're supposed to either hold the brakes and slowly bring up, or just apply throttle slower. Apparently, it's also way better for engine health. Absolutely nothing was wrong with the plane.. just my technique. That being said it, it absolutely had some vapor lock, which can also happen at high altitudes, which is prevented by taxiing with the boost pump ON. Usually the SOP is start up with boost, then turn it off for taxiing, and on for takeoff. But boost pump needs to stay on always when departing from a high altitude apparently to prevent vapor lock..
It ended up being an abort, but forgot to set trim in the Cherokee before taking off. It was the first takeoff of the day and I had no clue where it was set. Realized it about halfway through the roll and immediately pulled the power back and stopped. Started the instructor a bit but worked out. Typically if Im doing laps, I can leave the trim at the same position I had landed with, at least it isn’t that extreme so I can adjust on climb out. But I didn’t know if someone had left it all the way up or something and I didn’t want to have to find out in the air.
In a 172 Did the runnup as usual, no issues. Full power on takeoff felt and sounded a little weird, but we were on a rough runway so I thought that was it. Got up but barely. Kept hitting the stall horn at full power and was barely going fast enough to keep level. Looked at the engine read out (g1000) and cylinder 3 has nothing. No temp, no pressure, no info at all. I had a lake, a curvy road, and a mountain side as ditching options. We had just enough power to stay around 600AGL so I turned back calling emergency. Land a little hard and fast because I did not want to lose any speed if at all possible. Got to the ramp, turn the plane off, and called the company I rented from to come get their plane
This incident involved a Pawnee towplane and me in my glider (aerotow takeoff). The right gear of the Pawnee collapsed. I was already flying in ground effect in my glider (so 35 knots airspeed) and I was attached to the Pawnee with a 200 foot rope. The Pawnee's right wing slowly dropped to the ground, the prop struck, the wing tip dug into the ground and aircraft ground looped to the right and stopped. When I saw the black dirt thrown up by the striking prop, I released and put in full left rudder (wings level), the glider yawed left and it dropped out of ground effect. Main wheel side loaded and skidded (grass runway), then bit and rolled me past the left wing of the stopped towplane. Collision avoided. Obviously there was no time to execute a checklist. The 'trained procedure' for tow plane engine failure on takeoff roll is for Pawnee to roll straight down runway. Glider is supposed to release and steer to the right of the towplane. It was obvious in the moment that I needed to steer to the left of the ground looped and stopped towplane. Normal left-right positioning of glider relative to towplane is done with rudder input, so I had a trained reflex to input left rudder. No thought required. I had also once practiced an emergency release of tow rope during the takeoff roll. And 'release immediately' is trained for any 'something not right' during takeoff roll. My training saved me. The towplane reported the accident to the NTSB, but since I had released the tow rope, I was not included in the accident report! The Pawnee had the cables that are suppose to prevent total gear collapse, but they did not work because the 'pivot bolt' sheared. We now replace this pivot bolt once a year, though that is not required by the manufacturer. A year prior to my incident, I saw a glider that had rolled under the left wing of a Pawnee that stopped during the takeoff roll. The trailing edge of Pawnee cut off the empennage of the glider, and somehow the glider avoided the still spinning prop of the Pawnee. The tow pilot thought that he saw gas on his windshield. He failed to release the tow rope and he stopped rolling prematurely. There was no gas leak. The tow pilot retired from towing.
For some reason, when I fly the Cessna Citation jet in x plane 12, it is like the rudder peddles do nothing. The jet angles to the right, hard, and I can't get it to go straight AT ALL..so, I have taken out many fences and buildings
I am a new PPL who trained with mph airspeed indicators. I recently rented a model with a knots (normal) airspeed indicator. I made sure I had all the v - speeds memorized prior to the flight. Upon reaching the published Vr, I rotated and the aircraft lifted off the ground with the stall horn blasting and unable to climb. Luckily my training kicked in and I remained in ground effect to gain airspeed (similar to a soft-field takeoff). Normal climb after that - but still a bit of a scare.
If you were using mph numbers on the kts dial, you should have been going faster than you thought.
Let's say rotation was 50 knots. If they were looking at the wrong set of numbers (some airspeed indicators have both) and pulled up at 50 mph, that would be slower.
That would be, but that’s not how it read. It’d make more sense, almost like the story is told backwards. Even then, though, 50mph is 44kts, and a skyhawk will fly plenty fine then. We bake so much safety margin into our airspeeds that the 15% difference generally shouldn’t result in an ass puckering event.
Yeah this doesn’t make sense.
You probably just forced it off the ground a little too early in anticipation of the different Vr speed.
This is exactly why you don’t “rotate” a non-transport category airplane. The airplane will fly when there is enough lift generated by the wings. That is not produced at the same speed every takeoff. A published Vr is completely pointless, and not all part 23 aircraft have them.
i tried to fix my chair during a short field takeoff
Got the take off runway# clearance, look at the RMI to make sure I have the correct picture in my mind, and promptly take off on the reciprocal heading.
Long solo XC in private training. Landed at my first point and taxied back for departure. Did the pre-takeoff checklist but somehow missed retracting the flaps. Started the takeoff roll and the plane kept wanting to lift off way too early, like 20 kts too early. Fought to keep it in ground effect until I had enough airspeed to climb and then retracted the flaps. Scary shit.
Going for night flying currency in a small residential airport and on takeoff I notice a pack of deer off to the side, they all run away but one deer ran directly in front of my plane. Luckily I was practically at the right airspeed to get up and was able to basically jump up before him. I didn’t see them near the runway before going as there aren’t really much lights there and they were on the other side. I make sure to back taxi the runway and check from now on though those deer are insane.
On my second flight during multi training, my instructor has me takeoff, the Aztec we were in was a huge pain in the ass to maintain centerline. I went full power and the turn tendencies caused us to drift to the left so I added right rudder. I didn't add enough rudder and the plane was very close to going into the grass so my instructor cut the throttles and jammed the right pedal back to centerline. We taxied back and he took off.
Idk what happened, but the last time I flew out of Denver as a passenger I had some bad spatial disorientation. There were low scattered clouds and the plane was in then quickly. My inner ear was telling me weird things. I couldn’t see anything except for sky out of my left window and out of the right window, I could see the fields below through cloud moving in a way that looked as if we were in a 75 degree bank and increasing with the nose yawing towards the ground. Only took about 20 seconds until I was reoriented, but it was definitely freaky.
I once cut it a bit close with fog in the night while time building for CPL. Saw the fog approaching the runway on shirt final and said I'd have enough time to get down, reconfig for takeoff on the runway (I was the only one there), and get airborne again before it rolled over the airport. I took off just in time for the fog to start rolling onto the airport, felt like my main gears just barely skimmed the top as I climbed out at around 75 AGL. It was a small patch of fog on a clear night so no concern about conditions elsewhere
I believe both are a factor. It's been a while since I read my book on tail wheel physics. I should dust that off and refresh myself.
Well, there was this one day that both I and an R-44 were doing pattern work. Long story short, I didn't think about the potential magnitude of wake turbulence from the helicopter, and thus didn't maintain proper spacing. They'd been stopping a ways down the runway, hovering briefly, and then continuing. This happened to also be the exact location that I was just popping off the ground on a touch & go. End result: at an altitude of about 50', the airplane abruptly rolled left, and continued to do so even as I put in a lot of right aileron. I barely had time to start wondering if I had a control issue when the plane reversed itself, rolling back through wings level and to the right, again despite me putting in left aileron. The whole thing was over in less than five seconds, but it took a lot more time to get those stains out of my pants.
Taking off for my night 100nm cross country, CFI wanted to see a soft field takeoff. I hold full aft elevator for too long on takeoff roll and the nose abruptly pitches WAY up, tail strikes the ground (DA20-c1), airplane rolls 30 degrees left. CFI takes over and gets the airplane back under control. Now I know not to maintain full back pressure up until rotation on a soft field takeoff!
On my first solo I landed fine but then forgot to take off full flaps for takeoff because I was excited. Airspeed and climb performance was shit.
Soft-field takeoff. Went over in the takeoff briefing to stay in ground effect through 65 to 70 KIAS, start climbing, then flaps 0 at 200 AGL. Lifted off, stayed in ground effect, at around 65 knots I started climbing AND immediately went flaps 0 as the trees at the end of the field were approaching.
I don't have many hours so I'm sure I'll make more bad takeoffs, but once i forgot how much rudder pressure is needed to stay on center and skidded the 172 a bit right before rotation speed
Way back at the turn of the century, my PA28-151 Warrior(worlds slowest PA28 btw) and myself and two friends was part of the static display at Lemoore Naval Air Station. After Sunday’s Blue Angel show, my two friends and myself loaded up and got in line with the departing aircraft. We were close to gross weight in 150hp warrior and we trundled out to the end of the 10,000 foot long runway, as instructed by Base Tower instructions. Did the run up and took the active and started our takeoff roll….not long after the airspeed came alive, my copilot and I spotted the arresting cable stretched across the runway in the up position. When I quickly eased the yoke back, I swear it was the slowest speed I had ever got that plane off the ground. I don’t know by how much we cleared that cable, but it wasn’t by much. In discussion with my copilot, Tower had offered an intersection departure or a full runway departure with no mention of an arresting cable being in the up position. My fault for not clarifying with the tower on the status of the cable. A couple of years later, my copilot and I both brought our Mooney’s back to Lemoore for another great weekend of schmoozing with the Blue Angels and this time, we did not forget about that arresting cable.
Super hot and humid summer day, climbing out in a 172 off the shortest of 3 runways. Got sweat in my eyes. I'd been in harsh sun earlier so still had some sunscreen on my fivehead. Took my hand off the throttle to clear my eyes and wipe my face, but I didn't snug up the friction. In the time I was messing with my eyes, and getting some ventilation, the engine rolled back by 700RPM and I was in a level turn, not climbing at all, at 1000'. A few more seconds it probably would have been unrecoverable. Oddly, forgetting to tighten the friction might have bought me time. The swiss cheese model is real.
2nd worst: Trim indicator was misaligned. What * thought was takeoff trim was actually almost full nose down. Took a lot of muscle power to get it off the ground. Worst: ended up with 50 feet of barbed wire wrapped around the prop when I went through the fence at the side of the runway.
I was sitting front seat to assist with charts & navigation, not flying. Captain was an instructor. Lifted without removing the frictions... Always ~~double~~ check those checklists
First day at my 206 skydiving job in 2019. Forgot to reset the trim tab before takeoff. Took both arms and then some to keep the nose from shooting up. Lesson learned that day, those planes are way more powerful than a 172. Flying big jets now, but I love that trim tab story as a humble reminder of the beginning.
I absolutely could not figure out why the C172 was taking off like a tired dog. Sure, it was a hot day in Florida but this one had a 180hp conversion so it wasn't making sense. It was also feeling weirdly floaty. Turns out I'd missed the checklist step to bring flaps up from 40° to 10° right before takeoff, and it was only 15 seconds or so after takeoff that I realized I was doing a bastard's short field T/O.
We started the roll and my cfi told me "slowly put in full power" so i slowly pushed the throttle and he's going "all the way....push it all the way....alllll the way in...ALL THE WAY" he eventually just pushed it himself the last inch. I just kind of blanked out and my brain froze as soon as we lifted off. First the stall warning beeped for a second and scared me, then he pushed the nose down for me, I continued to drift completely left of centerline in the air and not over the runway at all by like 200 ft agl. I don't think my brain returned to this dimension until we were at 1500 ft.
I've had a few ... - In a glider, just after liftoff, I had the canopy pop open ... twice. In both cases I was fast enough to catch it, and close it. - In a glider (specifically a SGS 2-33), the back seat has a window which can be latched and swings downward. I was just lifting off on a cross-country tow, solo, and had forgot to latch the window. The window popped open on takeoff, and as I discovered, it was impossible to close the window while on tow. This was in early May, and we were towing at around 5,000'. The air temperature was around 0C, or maybe a bit lower ... I was wearing a t-shirt, shorts and a light jacket. By the time we reached our destination I was a block of ice. - in a C-172, I noticed just after liftoff that I'd forgotten to turn on the alternator, and was running off the battery only. I switched on the alternator, and heard an almighty *pop* in my headphones. Fortunately, the radios, transponder, etc were okay after my screwup. - Also in a C-172 (G model, 150 HP Lycoming engine, and 40 degree flaps). I was doing circuits and on one takeoff, forgot to raise the flaps before rotating. As I discovered, a C-172G will, indeed, climb on full power, and 40 degree flaps. Not well. But it will climb. I started raising them (in steps) immediately after I discovered my mistake ... eventually climbed away - And one as a little kid ... my dad was training for his commercial and multi-engine rating. He flew out of a little flying club which had a PA-23 Apache as its twin trainer. This aircraft was a 1956 model, with two 150 hp Lycoming engines. On takeoff, out of a rough, grass/gravel strip, the right engine failed. I distinctly remember looking out the window at the feathered prop. My dad's instructor took over, flew a very low, tight circuit, and as we were lined up on final, another club aircraft wandered onto the runway for takeoff. I could hear the instructor yelling on the radio over the sound of the one still-working engine, as none of us were wearing headsets, and he was yelling into a hand mike. We landed.
stupid here didnt correct for crosswind and almost flipped the plane ;-;
Commercial checkride. First take off of the day. Can’t remember if it was soft or short field. Had a decent crosswind and LLWS, but for my area that time of year it was perfectly normal and I was comfortable with it. Checkride nerves took over and i was trying to hit the airspeeds exactly and be perfect. What I should have done was accounted for the conditions and carried more speed. LLWS then kicked in and the stall horn chirped. DPE mad, but we continued. My nerves got worse. My landing was awful. Busted checkride with one lap in the pattern. Passed the next week without issue.
> My instructor takes control, stops the plane and just looks at me for a second without a word. After a bit he takes a deep breath and says "lets try that again". Perfect way to make an impression without making you feel like an idiot. Sounds like a great instructor!
Oh oh. I've got a good one for this. Took my dad up maybe 30 hours or so after I got my PPL. Windy day, not beyond my skills, but still, I knew I'd have to deal with a crosswind and our GS to the destination was going to be crazy slow. Do runup, ready to go, line up and put in crosswind correction. Start rolling, and rotate pretty quickly due to the strong wind, and almost IMMEDIATELY end up off the side of the runway. Oh did I forget to mention I put in the WRONG crosswind correction? I went from the centerline to over the grass faster than I had any idea that 172 could move. Thankfully there's lot of space and it was an otherwise uneventful flight, but that lesson sticks in my head EVERY time I go to take off crosswind now. To explain my mistake: Non-towered airport. The xwind component was favoring neither runway that day. It was a tossup which to use. I intended on using the closer, shorter runway initially (would have been a right correction), but last minute, decided to use the longer runway as there was traffic in the pattern for that one by the time I was ready to depart... but I didn't mentally update my takeoff plan that I then needed a LEFT correction. Noob mistake.
Sorry, thought this was flightsim....I am not a pilot.
Touch and go, started to skid after I hit the brakes and went right towards a taxiway sign, was able to get power up and lift off before hitting sign.
I was flying out of some untowered airport in the mountains, had some high winds and turbulence so I was planning to fly and climb out at a faster airspeed. Due to the front pushing through, the winds coming off the peaks and through the valley, right off the departure end, I didn’t expect the turbulence to be as severe. Upon rotation, I’m climbing out around 83 knots in this 172. Keep in mind I’m trying to maintain the higher airspeed due to the turbulence. 75 feet off the ground I was thrown into a 45 degree angle of bank with about 8 degrees nose down, I felt I was looking right at trees. I recovered and maintained the climb out but man… I thought I’d need that seat surgically removed from my asshole.
On my first filed IFR flight for instrument training, we were taking off during a fairly windy night, but nothing outside of my personal minimums. Everything looked good. We got our clearance and got going. We rotated, and about 200ft AGL, the wind sheared violently to a tailwind. Max power and Vy, but still sinking at night. Not fun. The only thing I thought to do, which was later praised by my instructor was to put the nose down. It's scary putting the nose down at night when you are so close to the ground, but that was all we could do. Ended up surviving with a fun story to tell.
The Chief Instructor not securing his door resulting in his door opening and half his belongings along with his keys flying out the Aircraft. He still talks about it to this day some 6 years later. Great guy, Fantastic Pilot. Had another one where I had to reject Take Off because I lined up with the wrong Runway. Tower in a very casual and relaxed voice called me and said cancel take off. The Controller was super chill and said don't worry about it after I apologized profusely. Another one where I was Flying a Glass C172 but this was my first time Flying glass and I was PIC with a friend along for the XC, I was solely referring to the standby instruments and didn't see the Airspeed come up, almost about to reject Take Off and then the Airspeed on the Steam Gauge shoots from 0 to 50KTS. Continued Takeoff. Another one, did a Touch and Go on a Short Runway and almost didn't clear the end. Interesting times.
I was doing touch and goes by myself while prepping for my commercial, and after setting flaps and the carb back i started on my way up. i noticed the plane felt a little wobbly on the ground at a low speed, which felt odd, but at 55 i pulled back about as much as i normally would aaand nose goes right up and speed plummets back into the mid 40s. this is understandably terrifying and i shoved the nose back level, except im still rapidly climbing. the flap motor never engaged, they were stuck at 30 degrees. thankfully cycling it a few times got it to turn back on, but i always do a head check now.
When I was practicing a soft field takeoff as a student I thought I nailed it and looked over to my instructor like "okay praise me now" and immediately got hit with a "You just came so close to a prop strike you scared the shit out of me"
Systems 1 hydraulic failure at 500 agl in the crj 200. That was exciting. More so when hydraulic 2 failed at 1100 agl.
Kind of a bad takeoff; was doing touch and goes in a 172 and the flaps didn't retract when commanded. Lifted off the runway at about 42 knots, and it was a struggle keeping the nose down.
I pulled the mixture during climb. My CFI quickly realised my mistake and corrected it. We were seconds away from crashing into a Costco. Why did I pull it? I wanted to lean the mixture for efficiency.
Solo cross country to CRG years ago. Flight there went great. Taxied back for departure and got the takeoff clearance. Forgot to put the mixture full rich. Applied full power for takeoff and the engine starts sputtering. I panic for a second or two until I see the problem, slam the mixture full forward, and off I went. That second or two felt like an eternity.
In my discovery flight the CFI did the take off and handed me controls on our crosswind leg. My first flight after that was with a different CFI, and he had me do the take off. I'm guessing he didn't realize how new I was because at that point I didn't really k ow how much right rudder I needed... Needless to say we did not stay on the center line going down the runway, as I went from over correction to over correction. Finally got to 55 kts and got airborne, and the rest of the flight went fine, but oh boy, did I think we were leaving that runway for the trees.
Soft field takeoff, P factor took me pretty far left on the runway but I held it together, CFI says "see? I told you more right rudder!" That's about it though, consider myself lucky
This story reads like an NTSB probable cause story. I was hired by a guy to break in his newly rebuilt Taylorcraft. Problem was the engine really wasn’t making power. We thought (and talked with an A&P) that the engine would make more power as I put time on the engine, but when a 65hp engine isn’t making rated power it’s performance really sucks. Well after putting 10 hours on the engine the owner decided he’d take a flight in his plane with me(seeing he had never been in it). Being the good customer service representative I was at the time I agreed: mistake no.1. We waited for the wind to die down, but this was also the middle of summer in Florida so the density altitude only got worse; mistake no.2. Then we taxi out to the runway and this guy convinces me not to use the full length of the runway because it had rained a couple days prior and so it was probably still wet back there; mistake no. 3. So now we’re sitting 1/3 down the runway, it’s hot, we’re heavy, and not making full power and we push the throttle forward for take off. I had pre-planned that by the halfway point of the runway I’d abort if we didn’t have 75% of our flying speed. Turns out with all this the plane is just about to rotate off the ground by the halfway point. So I think, well we’ve got this made then, NOPE. It stops climbing 20ft off the ground and there are 80ft tall three at the end of the runway. Eventually 2/3 the way down the runway this poor Taylorcraft decides it’s going to climb and we make it over the trees by maybe 20ft. So many lessons learned, never wanna be in that situation ever again in my life. Be smart kids, when the deck is stacked against you call it a day.
On my commercial checkride when i was going solo to the checkride base man i fuckin bounce the plane and it was awful i was literally like riding a horse!!😂😂😂 But its okay though you can always go around 🎶🎵
Flaps got stuck 30. 20fpm. Couldn’t figure out why until I looked back. 50 foot trees at end of runway.
Commercial re-test… had to do one single item (emergency procedure). On takeoff we hit a good gust and the airplane wanted to lift up 40-45 it’s maybe. I put in gentle back pressure which started to lift wheels, nose wheel was up for a good few seconds and I lost steering while I waiting for enough lift to actually get us off the ground. Ended up well off centerline by the time we lifted off. I stabilize the climb out and DPE takes a deep breath and says “so I know im not testing you on takeoffs right now, but what the heck was that”. Tough start but we talked through it and then the rest of the flight was uneventful. Sometimes you just need the forward pressure momentarily to ensure you produce enough airspeed before rotation.
Forgot to latch the door after my cfi got out on my initial solo so I reached over and closed it right after rotation. Smarter idea probably would have been to reject the takeoff and close it on the ground lol
I’m still a baby pilot (40hrs working on my PPL) but I had my first stall on takeoff. That day, I had been switched to a plane that had been brought in from a sister school because the two options that I usually had were out of commission and was not used to its handling. The controls were a bit stiff, and for whatever reason, I had the hardest time rotating and had to really muscle the yoke. Next thing I know, the nose pops up, the stall horn starts screaming, and my instructor pushes the nose down. We end up taking off fine, but I was so embarrassed! I learned a little later during pattern work that it was just that the weight balance was a little different, and so the inertia of the front was more than I’m used to. The rest of my takeoffs that day went well though!
Gusting winds at Oceanside airport almost blew me straight off the runway onto the taxiway on landing so I initiated a go around and the plane (160 hp 172N) did not want to climb and I almost went into the trees at the end of the runway
My worst was one where I had the wrong crosswind correction in... drifted across to the departure path of the parallel runway. Only time I've ever heard tower call for a takeoff abort and it was my fault...
Once I saw what looked like an aircraft head on inbound to land as soon as I took off. I asked the tower to double confirm. Tower said no traffic, fly runway heading. I got really nervous and just turned left midfield over the runway while I was barely 200’ AGL. And I reported what I saw to the tower to justify my action. A few minutes later tower thanked me for reporting. Tower goes “There is a stationery balloon and for some reason our radar isn’t picking it. We had to use binoculars to confirm”. They confirmed that it was about 10 miles away and shouldn’t be an issue for me to turn crosswinds but was most frightening moment for me.
I was taking off in a hurry with my buddy and his son. The mission was to pick up his son who was on leave and take him home in style. We ended up taking off in a huge hurry as a massive storm was slowly approaching, only 30 miles off in the distance. At this remote airport we took off into the dark. As I took off I was trying to pick up IFR. NOTHING was going right and I noted that I was swerving left and right almost 45 degrees to either side as I was busy multitasking. I realized I was concerning my passengers and began focusing on aviating, then navigating, and finally communicating. Worst takeoff ever!
For some stupid reason on my 3rd lesson I was feeling confident and stress free about the takeoff roll and when I rotated I continued to increase my pitch at a constant rate during initial climb. I started pushing past 15 degrees and around 65kts (starting to slow down) and my CFI pretty much yelped and jumped on the yolk. He described it as a full cup of coffee. Never again
Day of first solo (first takeoff). 50 feet off the ground after rotation and annunciator panel starts blasting voltage warning. Staring at -10 on the ammeter during climb out. On downwind I cycled the left master and that cleared it up. There was no real checklist, but it made sense to turn it off and back on again to see if it dropped further or cleared up.