How Close Did I Come To Killing Myself on Climbout

MAKG1 said:
I guess flatlanders don't always crash at Big Bear by taking off full rich while overloaded.
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Sometimes they take off at over gross when the DA is 10,500'. They hang on the prop for awhile, can't climb and lazily mush it into the lake or nearby cabin. Add unintended flaps and rich mixture, and the odds are even worse.

Big Bear has a big electronic sign that displays DA near the runway, or at least it did last time I flew there. Some ignore it at their peril. :eek:
 
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Yeah. I rent and jump back and forth from the older count it type to the newer set it type. I've had some adventures.
 
There is always a difference between learning about scenarios and experiencing first hand an actual scenario like you did. You were not close to the end because based on your post you kept a level head and were able to think through the process to figure it out in which most cases should be a non critical event. Had you frozen and panicked it may well have been a different story.

Having experienced that will make you a better pilot in my opinion because there will be another time that you may have to do an unexpected go around where you have not had time to pre-think through the process and you will know better how to get through it.

I had a similar thing during my training...raised flaps on a T&G, full power and then a "something is not right" moment. Looked out window, flaps were still down...looked at flap lever...it is up. Huh? Lowered lever down then back up and it reengaged all while not climbing out of ground effect. Luckily it was a 10,000ft runway so time was on my side. CFI was daydreaming out the window after initial wheels down, looks over at me and says "what was that?" as I am now finally climbing Vx.
 
Unless the ground was spinning around and around as you looked at it through the windshield, not close at all.
 
MAKG1 said:
On initial climbout? Yes.

At 3000 AGL or higher, only if spin recovery training has not taken place.
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And if you have altitude, just let go of the controls and most of 'em will recover without pilot input.
 
i think there 2 posts that might need editing .it is my understanding the last c172 to have 40 degrees of flap was the M model.
 
I'll add one thing, I have a vendor who was flying a C 150 and was coming into a small airport in the mountains of NE PA so not particularly High Alt but high enough. Person was landing put in full flaps ( since I'm not a Cessna flyer don't know if it was 30 or 40 degrees) the winds were a tad squirrelly and they decided to do a go around and made the mistake of taking out ALL flaps at one time. The plane crashed and they got a compound fracture of their forearm but thankfully survived. So good work recognizing not only the problem but the proper procedure for getting out of the situation i.e. Incrementally taking out flaps.
 
hotprops said:
i think there 2 posts that might need editing .it is my understanding the last c172 to have 40 degrees of flap was the M model.
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Nope, my 172N has 40 degrees of flaps. Or, had 40 degrees of flaps before we got the STC to increase max gross weight by limiting flaps to 30 degrees.

The N model has flaps 40, there was no O model and the P model has flaps 30.
 
thanks for the refresher.in a poor defense, i discounted the n model as it ether had h2ad engine or the o360 conversion all of which imo were compromises .
 
AdamZ said:
I'll add one thing, I have a vendor who was flying a C 150 and was coming into a small airport in the mountains of NE PA so not particularly High Alt but high enough. Person was landing put in full flaps ( since I'm not a Cessna flyer don't know if it was 30 or 40 degrees) the winds were a tad squirrelly and they decided to do a go around and made the mistake of taking out ALL flaps at one time. The plane crashed and they got a compound fracture of their forearm but thankfully survived. So good work recognizing not only the problem but the proper procedure for getting out of the situation i.e. Incrementally taking out flaps.
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I know this much the 172M I train in has a detent on the flap switch where if you put the flaps up and go too far with the switch it goes into the full retract position.

So if you are at 40deg then accidentally hit that detent on a go around you are going to have a bad day.
 
midcap said:
has a detent on the flap switch where if you put the flaps up and go too far with the switch it goes into the full retract position.
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Same with any airplane, the 172M just has the flap toggle switch vs. later models have the selectable type switch with increments.
 
The flaps on aircraft nowadays only extend to 30 degrees instead of 40. If you're too heavy or at a high density altitude, the aircraft may not be able to climb with the flaps fully extended at 40 degrees.

I heard of someone doing touch-and-go's, and upon powering up to take back off, the flaps malfunctioned and didn't retract (even though he remembered to retract them), and he ended up doing a trip around the pattern with them extended 40 degrees. He made a successful landing, but it goes to show what can happen.
 
DMD3. said:
I heard of someone doing touch-and-go's, and upon powering up to take back off, the flaps malfunctioned and didn't retract (even though he remembered to retract them), and he ended up doing a trip around the pattern with them extended 40 degrees. He made a successful landing, but it goes to show what can happen.
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Had that happen flying with my son. They didn't come up and we had just lifted of Ellijay GA airport, and we were over a gully (mountainous terrain). Told him to just fly and I'll work the flap problem. Finally got them to retract. Returned to the FBO and told the owner what happened, and he nonchalantly said, yeah it's been doing that lately. I told him it was very dangerous and should be looked at by a mechanic. We never returned to rent a plane there again.
 
Dang...wanted to follow up on the Big Bear comments. I came across an article, written in 2006, that stated there were 47 fatal crashes there in 25 years. So roughly a biannual occurrence on average for that time period. :eek::eek: I haven't heard of one recently, which is a very good thing indeed...maybe that DA billboard is helping.
 
I've never forgotten to retract full flaps on a T&G, but a couple of times when shooting instrument approaches I've forgotten to retract approach flaps when going missed. Also forgotten the gear in the same circumstance. :redface:
 
Coming from mostly a Cessna background, I had to pound flaps into my head on other models. On a Cessna, you feel those big, effective flaps. Even the first notch is significant. It does not feel the same at all. Hard to forget they're down. On other models, I need to retrain for the signals that I've forgotten something.

Cherokees aren't bad. The flaps don't do nearly as much, but the big Johnson bar is a great visual indicator that things are not clean. Especially on Arrows, where the gear being down can mask the sound of the flaps being out of place. Flew a Turbo Arrow that was definitely a handful on a go-around, since the fixed-wastegate turbo and huge turbo lag meant you had to be very hands-on with the throttle on go-around. Didn't leave you a lot of time to deal with flaps and gear.

Bo flaps are weird in that they're reversed and hidden. What the hell?

Mooney flaps...I've forgotten them more than once. Worst of all worlds. Relatively ineffective. Toggle-switch control with bad indications. And low extend speeds. And you're supposed to take off with a notch. At least the Mooney can almost always fly through them as long as you keep your airspeed up.
 
One lesson I learned the hard way...not only do you need to command the flaps to retract..you need to make sure they actually do...every single time.

Did a touch and go with a student once, they landed kind of long but we still had twice the runway we needed. The student retracted the flaps (I watched their hand do it), set the trim, and applied power. It was a hot (90 degree plus) day.

The student rotated and the tires came off the runway but that was all the airplane wanted to do. I knew we had a problem, looked out the window and saw the flaps still 40 degrees down. Not enough runway to land...absolutely not climbing..wouldn't even clear the gentle terrain in front of me in Nebraska.

Call to ATC was something like "tower, XXX can't climb, turning before kawasaki factory, landing...uh...somewhere." Response was "cleared to land".

My first plan was to plant it in a field in front of us but a big factory there and rising terrain made that really unattractive. Started a gentle left turn looking for something that looked softer and less...explosive.

Was very happy to discover in the turn that I could keep it in the air without having to "land" it on something undesirable.

I sure did a hell of a lot of cussing at the Cessna engineers that decided electric flaps were a good idea while we were cruising the "pattern" at 100 ft with a blaring stall warning and jammed flaps.

Student solo'd a day or two after that. Funny thing is now that I think about it I can't remember who the student was. I'm getting old...
 
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jesse said:
Call to ATC was something like "tower, XXX can't climb, turning, landing...uh...somewhere." Response was "cleared to land".
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That's so funny because I had no words for mine either. I told the tower I was "re-landing" after the G part of my night T&G went wrong at flap 40 in the 182.

I'm awfully glad it was a 10000' runway. I don't think I'd enjoy your experience of having to milk I around the pattern really low -- at night.

I thought about pulling the LiveATC recording just to have it so I could see exactly how stupid I sounded, but decided against it. LOL.

Tower didn't have time for the "cleared to land" even -- but I already had the runway for the T&G ops. So it was, "Cessna 79 Mike, exit ... at Alpha-(Whatever high number it was) there, and... Uhhh... let me know what you need."

"We'll just stop here for a minute -- (I had cleared the runway already and all services were on the Tower frequency since it was nighttime) -- we had a flap problem. Thanks."
 
I hear that if youre flying a beechjet and there is a persistent pitch oscillation after you turn on the autopilot it's a good idea to make sure you retracted the flaps after takeoff.
 
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