Most Frightening Experience?

RyanB

RyanB

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As a spin-off from the ‘How safe is flying?’ thread, I thought this might be an interesting topic for discussion.

What has been your most frightening experience since you have started to fly?

I’ll go first:
During my initial 10 hours of solo time during primary training (5yrs ago), I was out in the practice area doing basic maneuvers, stalls, steep turns, slow flight etc. I decided that I had done enough steep turns and slow flight so I transitioned into stall recoveries. I performed the usual setup and began entering the stall as I typically did in the past. As the stall broke, I obviously did not have the airplane coordinated as it should have been and it started to break into an incipient spin. The left wing dropped and the nose rapidly started pointing for Mother Earth. I felt unprepared for this, but quickly put in the spin recovery control inputs and stopped it before it developed into anything further and recovered back to straight and level flight. I do not recall if it was a power-on or off stall, but I assume it was a power-on to have the amount of torque needed to get it to roll over so rapidly.

Although I’ve had a few minor things since this experience that has gotten my heart beating a bit faster than normal, this was my most frightening experience thus far, due to having a very little amount of practice with stalls and spin recovery. Needless to say, I quickly learned from this mistake and the hour of spin recovery training and intro aerobatics was well worth it.

So let’s hear yours. I know we all have them.
 
When eman wanted my address.
 
Well, there was this hooker see, that I skipped out on, and her pimp was looking for me. Got out of there just in time.

 
And I thought this was an interesting topic. Oh well.

My most frightening experience was not when our engine quit (failed catastrophically) at 1,000 ft over the ocean and around 5 miles from an airport with little between us and the airport besides trees and water, except for a single highway that took us away from the airport. (My wife, the PIC landed us on that highway with just a little damage to the wing, thanks to an errant road sign).

My most frightening experience was the first flight after the engine was replaced and the wing repaired. I kept telling myself, "you gotta get back in the saddle asap".
 
I can imagine anything involving hooker’s & a shemale requesting your address to be terrifying, especially if you test positive afterwards.

Now onto the real stories!
 
I have thankfully never been frightened, but I was certainly uncomfortable with my initial backcountry training. Something about those treetops wizzing past your wingtip while the instructor says "A little closer to the canyon"...
 
I may have shared this here before (I'm contemplating going into competition with Nate for longest posts...never mind...I'd lose!):

Prequel: By Sept 04, I had only been flying for two years and one month; and only had 360 hours in my logbook.

A DEADSTICK STORY (September 2004)

I had to go back to the Gulfport area one last time this week to coordinate a project’s final inspections with the city officials. These inspections were left incomplete when Hurricane Ivan ran us out of town two weeks earlier. It was forecast to be perfect flying weather both Wednesday and Thursday so I successfully talked Chris into joining me since it was just a short overnight trip. This would be her first long cross country in the 182. It’s a three hour flight from Harrison to Gulfport, easily made without stopping but, for Chris’ benefit, I planned this trip as two 1.5 hour legs with a fuel stop at Greenville, MS, both going and coming.

The trip down was uneventful; beautiful weather, clear skies and smooth air. Visibility was good with the exception of the last 100 miles or so. It was hazy along the coast as it tends to be in the summer due to the humidity. We arrived at noon and I finished up all the project’s loose ends by 4 pm. All went well. The owner of the grass strip (MS82) that I flew into has a cookout every Wednesday evening (and a reason this trip was planned with a Wednesday RON) so we joined the party and enjoyed a relatively cool evening on the Mississippi coast.

I awoke yesterday morning and did my early morning check of the weather. The forecast was a carbon copy of Wednesday, great weather with the exception of haze and reduced visibilities again along the coast. The visibility was forecast to be far worse than Wednesday but still well above VFR minimums.

We arrived at the airstrip about 8 am, checked weather again, filed our flight plans, performed the pre-flight inspection of the aircraft and we were in the air by 9:05. The haze along the coast was indeed as bad as forecast. Visibilities were 5 miles or less. During climb out we could see only see the ground immediately below us. All horizontal views were obscured by the haze, especially the view to the east towards the rising sun. The typical flying in the SE during the summer months, i.e. like flying through a bowl of skim milk.

I opened my flight plan with the Greenwood, MS FSS during our climb out and also picked up flight following with Gulfport Departure. We climbed to our planned altitude of 6500’, which was about 1000’ above the haze layer so at that altitude we had a good reference to the horizon but still not much visual ground contact except for straight down. Gulfport handed me off to Houston Center (ZHU) just as I was reaching my cruise altitude. I leveled off the aircraft at 6500, adjusted the power settings for cruise flight, trimmed and began leaning the engine…

…and…

…that’s when it happened...

...as soon as I touched the mixture control knob the engine quit dead.

Dead.

Totally dead.

Really! Dead!

The silence was deafening.

I’ve always been proud that I was taught to fly by a retired full bird Colonel who did two tours in Vietnam and who was a Squadron Executive Officer of an Air Cavalry Squadron during his second tour. And today I may be typing this only because it was “Colonel Al” who taught me to fly. Because thanks to Al, as soon as the engine died, I could hear him barking orders to me:

FLY THE AIRPLANE

TRIM FOR BEST GLIDE

NEAREST AIRPORT or EMERGENCY LANDING SITE

EMERGENCY CHECKLIST


(Okay, I’ll admit, maybe I didn’t hear him as soon as the engine died…maybe it was more like after about 5 seconds of disbelief, horror, shock, panic, and absolute terror but after that, his voice definitely took over.)

I declared an emergency with Houston Center (“Houston, we’ve had a problem!” James Lovell, Apollo 13) and the controller began suggesting vectors to the nearest airport as I was trimming for best glide. At first Houston Identified an airport 10 miles ahead as being nearest but then quickly revised this to an airport 5 miles behind us. That airport was M24 (Wiggins, MS). Once the plane was trimmed for best glide speed, I hit the “nearest” button on the GPS. It also indicated that M24 (Wiggins, MS) was closest and five miles behind me. The GPS and Houston agreed; comforting.

Okay, so now I’m on the proper heading for the nearest airport and, better yet, one that I have a good shot of making it to, and trimmed for best glide, so it’s time to go though the emergency checklist and try to get the engine restarted. No luck. She’s dead. Quite surprisingly, Chris is very calm (probably calmer than I).

And…by the way…looking straight down, to the left, to the right, in front and behind…there’s nothing but freakin' pines, pines, and more pines as far as the eye can see. Not many options for an off field landing.

Houston communicated closely with us during the 4 to 5 minute glide to M24, and there was a Baron in our area that relayed our messages to Houston once we got too low for Houston to hear us. We made it to the 3000’ strip, had an uneventful landing (greased it, no flaps) and even had the perfect amount of momentum to coast off the runway and onto the ramp. I called the Baron and told him we were safely on the ground (better yet… we’re ON PAVED GROUND) and asked that he give Houston a big “THANK YOU” from us. ZHU was instrumental in getting us onto the ground in one piece and that is a testament to the benefit of VFR pilots using flight following.

I will admit that I landed way too close to the end of the runway for my comfort and for a moment I actually wondered if I was going to make it. I was shooting for about 1/3 of the way down the runway for a safety margin but landed only about 200’ past the numbers. Unfortunately, I have practiced engine out landings far more in my old 172 than my recently purchased 182 and yesterday I found out that the 182 drops like a rock comparatively speaking. I think it’s time to go out and practice some more.

We weren’t on the ground for 5 minutes when the fire/rescue squad showed up. Apparently a local had been listening to us on his scanner and called 911. I told them to move on, there’s nothing to see here! ;-)

Well, after Chris and I took a walk, regained our composure and filled out some paperwork for the local fire department, I took the cowl off the airplane and found that the clamp holding the mixture control cable to the carburetor was loose. The mixture cable sheath came out of this clamp as soon as I touched the mixture control to begin leaning the engine. When the cable came out of the clamp, it pulled the carb mixture to idle cut off; killed the engine; and I was an unwilling glider pilot. A local mechanic (A&P) put things back together for us and, three hours later, we completed our trip. (Note: To this day I still can’t believe that Chris actually got back in but I guess it would’ve been a long walk back home from Alabama.)

I had an oil filter adapter installed on the 182 about three weeks before and the mixture cable had to be rerouted to accommodate the filter location. Apparently, the A&P who did this work didn’t quite finish the job. What’s amazing is that I flew the plane for 15 hours before it came apart. It went to Georgia and back, and then went to Mississippi and started back. This is another good example of why it is so important for us to remain actively involved with the maintenance of our aircraft. I try to owner assist and work with the A&Ps on as much as possible (not that I don’t trust them per se but because I’m just an overly anal retentive and obsessive compulsive type of a guy and I finally found a hobby that is a perfect match for these otherwise undesirable traits). However, I neither assisted with nor did I double check this work; my bad.

As a pilot, we log all our hours flown. Some hours far outweigh others in providing us with experience and teaching us lessons. Yesterday, I flew about 100 hours…

But...

God, it’s good to be alive!

Tim
 
It would have to be my only real experience in a GA plane to date, the discovery flight I took several years ago. While my work requires a lot of commercial air travel, this was my first time in a small plane. It was super windy that day, at least to the inexperienced such as myself; looking at the historical data on Wunderground shows winds at 10 to 21 with higher gusts. I rode in the right seat and never had an opportunity to take the controls, I'm guessing due to the winds and rough ride. I didn't get sick, but I was NOT prepared for how much more you feel the bumps compared to the commercial flights I've been on. The discovery flight was a gift from my wife since she knows I've wanted to learn to fly. While I didn't have the finances to start training at the time, it didn't scare me away and I'm hoping to start training this fall.
 
My most frightening experience was a wave-off in a Cherokee 140 after failing to realize I was attempting to land with about a 10 knot tailwind. Smoke from small fire on the ridge line north of the east-west runway looked to be coming from the other direction. But, As I flared, I realized my groundspeed was much too fast. I waved off and had trouble climbing fast enough with power lines and trees ahead of me. In retrospect, I know I was well above everything. But, at the time, I thought for sure I was going into those power lines. In a corral at the fairgrounds just beyond the runway was a rider and horse staring up at me. It seemed to me I could see the terror in their eyes pretty much matched my own.
 
My scariest was what prompted me to update my fuel gauge with digital and more accurate senders and display. We left Tucson early in the morning bound for Aransas County (RKP) Texas, where a controller buddy of mine is the airport manager. About 30 minutes into the flight and at 9,500’ with flight following, we flew over a cloud deck. We didn’t think much about it and thought that it would be only a few miles/minutes until it petered out. It didn’t. We flew over El Paso and had to continue on to the East because both of our fuel stops were marginal VFR, a third was already IFR. I had planned on the fuel stops which were about 15/20 minutes SE of El Paso to be a pee stop as well. (First and last time I never had a pee worthy container on the plane.) The closest VFR fuel stop was Winkler County Texas so we flew on. I had to pee but could easily hold it till the first planned fuel stop. Winkler County was further away, a LOT further away. The cloud deck was still there, tops at 7000’ and reported ceiling was 4,500’ according to the ATIS. Having no choice, we descended through the solid cloud deck and sure enough popped out at 4,500’ but the fuel gauges were hovering between a little bit and nothing with no way to accurately gauge how much fuel was left in the tanks. We followed a dirt road all the way to the airport just in case we ran out. Thirty minutes before we reaching the airport I was in excruciating pee pain. I though about peeing in the flight bag but it wasn’t water tight. I thought about sticking it out the storm window (Piper Cherokee) but the geometry wouldn’t fit, plus I didn’t want to run the risk of it blowing back in. My copilot was also a pilot and my CFI so I told him that unless I peed in my pants, there was no way I could fly the plane and for him to take the controls. Fifteen minutes later the runway came into view and the radio sounded a bit off when we announced to land. After landing we both clamored out of the plane right off the runway and I must have stood there watering the taxiway for five minutes. I could have easily written the first chapter of War and Peace had there been snow on the ground.



Got back in the plane to taxi to the fuel pump and “click”. Dead battery. Broke out the tow bar and pulled the plane the ¼ mile or so to the fuel pump. After removing the cap I could only see only aluminum in the bottom of the tank (later learned that there was about 5 gallons left in each tank which was easily another hour of flying time but there was no way to telling) After hooking the plane up to a charger and about 15 phone calls to various airports for someone who would be willing to look at the plane, I finally found someone in Midland. We let it charge for an hour, starting it right up and then took off bound for Midland which was only about a 30 minute flight. We did it with the master off and using no electronics at all other than Foreflight. We only turned the radios on when we were within the Class C ring and got clearance to land. Turns out that there was only ONE little strand of the wire to the alternator holding on to the connector.



That fixed we pressed on South to Hondo where we ran into weather. Landed, fueled up and waited about two hours until the weather cleared enough to press on. What follows is the scariest part, the most dangerous and had it not been for an over confident, twenty something companion I wouldn’t have done it: We flew right below the clouds for the rest of the flight with the temperature hovering at freezing so every couple minutes of so we’d shine the flashlight out on the wings to check for icing. We were so low at one point we passed over a community in which everyone was burning wood in their fireplaces which gave us yet another scare. For a trip that should have take about six and a half hours of flight time, it took twelve but we made it safely. Like Tim posted, I flew about 100 hours that day.
 
Ryanb said:
What has been your most frightening experience since you have started to fly?
Click to expand...
I'll play...

I was a young (read stupid) 19 year old MEI and my fellow MEI at our school (my former instructor/current DAL captain) and another guy that was building twin time decided to rent out the Seneca I and fly from FFC (ATL area) down to KEYW for lunch and back in one day. There were two very scary experiences during this trip.

First I was sitting right seat with the non-MEI left seat and the other MEI in the back. We were just crossing the GA/FL line and the storms were building. We decided to climb above the clouds to be able to dodge the buildups. There were two buildups ahead and we were at 11,500 and decided to try to shoot the gap (stupid). In the gap the buildups were growing so fast that it was very disorienting feeling like we were falling. I told the guy flying to turn right and hug the right one and make a left 180 to get the hell out of there. I should have taken the controls here. As he was making the turn it was too wide and we pierced the left one at which point he starts over-banking. As we exceeded 60 degrees and descending I grabbed the controls from him and got out of there.

We then tried to go east of the system and ended up way out over the water with no flotation and ATC informed we had a ways to go to get around it. We then decided to get back over land and go below the bases to avoid the rain shafts but north FL was on fire and it was so smokey it was hard to see. We make it to TPA and stopped for a rest. We decided to scrap the mission at ate then started the return. We stopped at Tallahassee (TLH) to fuel up and check the wx. There was a nasty line of thunderstorms approaching the ATL area and we thought if we hugged the west of the line and planned Auburn (AUO) we may be able to find a gap or just land there to wait it out.

Second very scary part. This was my leg to fly with my MEI buddy sitting right seat. It was night and we had zero wx equipment on board. We also failed to check the aircraft squawks prior to departure (stupid). As we started getting closer to AUO we were IMC and the clouds were starting to get lighting in them...man it's bright to be in a cloud with lightning at night. Well AUO's ILS was out so all we had available was the VOR-A. On the approach the turbulence was so bad it was very hard to read the instruments and as we were coming up to the MDA the right engine started failing. The MP was fluctuating up and the RPM's down. It seemed to be producing a bit so we held off on the feather and decided to dip a little below (we were an emergency) as we were concerned about going around with one engine in a thunderstorm. Just as my buddy was calling for us to go-around he caught the beacon off his right shoulder and said I have the plane and banked it hard over and landed. I got out of that plane shaking so bad in the pouring rain and literally kissed the ground. We slept in the plane as it was late and no one was around and the flight school sent someone the next day to fix the plane and give us a ride back. The plane had a fuel flow issue on the right engine that was in the squawks that we failed to see. If I remember correctly it was a corroded fuel line that had a blockage and had to be replaced.

If anyone has made it this far, I was a typical 10 foot tall bullet proof teenager and was overconfident being a 19 year old CFI/MEI and am glad to have made it out of that phase of life alive. I think there is something to the idea of the human brain not being fully developed until 25. Remember that old bold pilot cliche. So when I hear about that crash that had those 6 people in the Comanche with a CFI/MEI in the right seat I think to myself, ratings don't mean sht compared to experience.

I am now a 36 year old conservative pilot who trains regularly and upgraded my plane to ensure I have de-ice, multiple wx tools on board, multiple AI's and GPS's and I never push a flight. There is always next time when the plane, pilot or wx will be ready for a successful flight.
 
Timbeck2 said:
My scariest was what prompted me to update my fuel gauge with digital and more accurate senders and display. We left Tucson early in the morning bound for Aransas County (RKP) Texas, where a controller buddy of mine is the airport manager. About 30 minutes into the flight and at 9,500’ with flight following, we flew over a cloud deck. We didn’t think much about it and thought that it would be only a few miles/minutes until it petered out. It didn’t. We flew over El Paso and had to continue on to the East because both of our fuel stops were marginal VFR, a third was already IFR. I had planned on the fuel stops which were about 15/20 minutes SE of El Paso to be a pee stop as well. (First and last time I never had a pee worthy container on the plane.) The closest VFR fuel stop was Winkler County Texas so we flew on. I had to pee but could easily hold it till the first planned fuel stop. Winkler County was further away, a LOT further away. The cloud deck was still there, tops at 7000’ and reported ceiling was 4,500’ according to the ATIS. Having no choice, we descended through the solid cloud deck and sure enough popped out at 4,500’ but the fuel gauges were hovering between a little bit and nothing with no way to accurately gauge how much fuel was left in the tanks. We followed a dirt road all the way to the airport just in case we ran out. Thirty minutes before we reaching the airport I was in excruciating pee pain. I though about peeing in the flight bag but it wasn’t water tight. I thought about sticking it out the storm window (Piper Cherokee) but the geometry wouldn’t fit, plus I didn’t want to run the risk of it blowing back in. My copilot was also a pilot and my CFI so I told him that unless I peed in my pants, there was no way I could fly the plane and for him to take the controls. Fifteen minutes later the runway came into view and the radio sounded a bit off when we announced to land. After landing we both clamored out of the plane right off the runway and I must have stood there watering the taxiway for five minutes. I could have easily written the first chapter of War and Peace had there been snow on the ground.



Got back in the plane to taxi to the fuel pump and “click”. Dead battery. Broke out the tow bar and pulled the plane the ¼ mile or so to the fuel pump. After removing the cap I could only see only aluminum in the bottom of the tank (later learned that there was about 5 gallons left in each tank which was easily another hour of flying time but there was no way to telling) After hooking the plane up to a charger and about 15 phone calls to various airports for someone who would be willing to look at the plane, I finally found someone in Midland. We let it charge for an hour, starting it right up and then took off bound for Midland which was only about a 30 minute flight. We did it with the master off and using no electronics at all other than Foreflight. We only turned the radios on when we were within the Class C ring and got clearance to land. Turns out that there was only ONE little strand of the wire to the alternator holding on to the connector.



That fixed we pressed on South to Hondo where we ran into weather. Landed, fueled up and waited about two hours until the weather cleared enough to press on. What follows is the scariest part, the most dangerous and had it not been for an over confident, twenty something companion I wouldn’t have done it: We flew right below the clouds for the rest of the flight with the temperature hovering at freezing so every couple minutes of so we’d shine the flashlight out on the wings to check for icing. We were so low at one point we passed over a community in which everyone was burning wood in their fireplaces which gave us yet another scare. For a trip that should have take about six and a half hours of flight time, it took twelve but we made it safely. Like Tim posted, I flew about 100 hours that day.
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Ah, Midland. I left midland, driving in a rental car for work, headed for Lubbock earlier this year. I usually don't push it, but had enough fuel to get to Lamesa, but no further. I'd never been to Lamesa and, right after passing the point where I didn't have enough gas to drive back to Midland, started to wonder if the gas station I plugged into my GPS in Lamesa even existed any more. The only thing I could think about for the rest of the drive into Lamesa was how ironic it would be to run out of gas surrounded by oil wells...
 
Left the pitot cover on once to do a lap around the pattern. Didn’t notice anything odd till I began descending on final approach. It was a little bumpy so my senses were a little off and I was a pretty low time pilot at the time. As the ASI dropped I began to panic. I nosed down and looked out the windows to try and see if I could “feel” a problem. Finished the landing just fine and somewhere around the flare I realized what I’d done.

Minor compared to most people’s experiences I’m sure.
 
I had a RLOC (runway loss of control) on takeoff 20 years ago. Nosewheel hit a bump on a short private strip while I was holding full up elevator and was nearing rotation speed. The abrupt pitchup and bump launched me into the air prematurely and the nose went way left during the event. Unfortunately, there was a hangar to the left. BTW, this was in a Tomahawk.

Much piloting ensued in the following 250' and 3 seconds. I kept full power on, pitched the the nose down, banked right, put the airplane back on the ground in a swale between the runway and hangar (on one wheel - still needed to bank/turn to miss the hangar and didn't dare put the nosewheel on the ground). After a couple of seconds of that, I lifted the plane off again, made a coordinated turn to set it back on the runway, rolled another 200', and completed a successful takeoff.

Witnesses said I missed the hangar by about 5'.

The interesting thing was, as it happened, adrenaline kicked in and the world slowed down. Everything I did was very deliberate and not rushed during the event, even though the whole thing was over in probably 5-8 seconds.

I landed at my home field 45 minutes later and developed a case of the shakes that lasted the rest of the day.
 
kyleb said:
I had a RLOC (runway loss of control) on takeoff 20 years ago. Nosewheel hit a bump on a short private strip while I was holding full up elevator and was nearing rotation speed. The abrupt pitchup and bump launched me into the air prematurely and the nose went way left during the event. Unfortunately, there was a hangar to the left. BTW, this was in a Tomahawk.
Click to expand...

Nosewheel friction was hiding that you needed more right rudder, you say? :) :) :)

That never happens. :) :) :)
 
With a little over 100hrs, I definitely can't compete with the previous posts.

For me it was unexpected snow! I had started up the plane and was gonna do about 7 hops around the patch to practice landinds and more importantly...warm up the engine to change oil.

There were clouds but also some clear skies so scattered. On the first takeoff I'm like "Kinda dark straight ahead, must be thicker clouds". At this point I'm not processing what that dark means nor even considering it's moving, let alone possibly fast. So I take off on lap #2 and in 182 fashion and -800DA I'm like 300AGL in what seems lile 5 seconds and "Oh **** it's almost here!". I knew my adrenaline dumped. I was thinking one thing...what if it hits before I can land.

For the only time ever, I started to level off around 500agl turned crosswind and downwind quickly. I welcomed a fast downwind and then pulled back a lot of power, almost like the power off 180s I had practiced. Landed just a bit long and the snow hit as I was still on the runway. By the time I had cleared and taxied to the end I couldn't see the wind sock 1700ft down the runway. Another plane had announced arriving and I called him off. It cleared up to beautiful blue skies just 15 minutes later.

Maybe in hindsight I should have just continued that downwind and headed to the nearby delta to wait it out.

That snow squall was definitely an eye opener!
 
Snow by itself usually isn't a problem. I've flown out of the mountains in snow. OTOH I've picked up an IFR clearance to get through snow in the Texas panhandle. And OTOOH i've picked up ice in a mixed snow/rain squall. As always, YMWV and no greenstamps were available or redeemed for this post.
 
Clark1961 said:
Snow by itself usually isn't a problem. I've flown out of the mountains in snow. OTOH I've picked up an IFR clearance to get through snow in the Texas panhandle. And OTOOH i've picked up ice in a mixed snow/rain squall. As always, YMWV and no greenstamps were available or redeemed for this post.
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What's weird is that icing wasn't really on my mind. I was worried that with so little hood time that in the low visibility I'd get so disoriented and that my instinct would be to climb which would just put me more in the clouds. Plus it just looked so dark like it went on for a hundred miles into Mordor :) Chainging oil afterwards was a welcome relief.
 
Sinistar said:
What's weird is that icing wasn't really on my mind. I was worried that with so little hood time that in the low visibility I'd get so disoriented and that my instinct would be to climb which would just put me more in the clouds. Plus it just looked so dark like it went on for a hundred miles into Mordor :) Chainging oil afterwards was a welcome relief.
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On the mountain flight, IFR wasn't really a reasonable choice. Over Texas I had filed IFR then departed VFR because the field was obviously clear. I was on flight following and then picked up the clearance once I lost ground contact. Everybody was happy and ATC asked for an icing pirep once they saw I was clear of the precip. As for the mixed rain/snow squall...well ya makes yer choices and then lives with the result. I'm still here.
 
#1... I was low time AND rusty, maybe 60 hours total and hadn't flown in a couple-few months. I rented a Cherokee from the FBO, and when I reached over to pull the throttle back after climbing out to maybe 1500 AGL or so... pulled the mixture instead. It was so quiet for that second or two that you could actually hear the seat cushion getting sucked up my ...

#2... Gave a newbie a ride in my RV-12. He's a student pilot, and has a good amount of Champ time, so I tell him he's going to do the takeoff. Told him to hold the stick full aft while we start the takeoff run, to get the nosewheel off the runway early and just let her run along on the mains to about 55-60 knots. OK, so in hindsight maybe I should have mentioned that he should ease off the back pressure once the nose came up a few inches. At about 40 knots we were airborne at a pretty good angle of attack. Needless to say, this i snot a good long term strategy. I managed to get the nose back down, more or less gracefully, so we could continue with our second takeoff at a little more viable airspeed.
 
My most scary moment was when I had a complete electrical systems failure in flight--caused by a battery not having enough liquid in it-- something I could never have possibly noticed on the preflight.) I posted a thread on here about the experience so I won't repeat the whole story( I'll try and link the thread.). In hindsight, I made plenty of mistakes but I made enough correct choices that I'm still here and able to post about it. I don't remember being scared but I do remember thinking "this is more serious than anything I've ever experienced before and I hope I don't screw it up!"

This thread reminds me of a saying I've read. A pilots prayer is "may the only thing that breaks on this airplane today be the Hobbs meter!"

Here's the link to my story

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/total-electrical-failure-this-morning.105460/
 
I know I've told this one before so I won't post it here, again... but I can tell you, not withstanding those who have shyt their pants for engine failures on take-off, you ain't been scared in an airplane until you realize the airplane isn't responding to control inputs, and you need it to do so, RIGHT NOW!
 
Two of them in my short amount of aviation time.

#1. The first CFI I took a lesson with we were crossing the airport in the middle and we saw an airplane coming across us on the left side, the CFI took the controls and cut the person off in the pattern. We were less than 50 yards away from the other airplane. I asked him were we suppose to do that, he said: "Yeah, it's in the airport report in Fore flight" I never flew with him again and that is sometimes why I'm critical when it comes to Flight Instructors. Why would you teach me that?

#2. The Engine quit in a Cessna 172 while landing because the air conditioner was turned on. The scary part is the CFI was going to turn it on while we were landing.
 
steingar said:
I landed at my home drome having to take a dump something super-fierce, and the john was closed.
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Hmm......sounds familiar. We don't have a toilet. I keep a bucket, a jug of water, and some soft shop towels in the hangar.
 
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