The Fly Who Loved Me - and tried to crash my plane

rwellner98

rwellner98

Cleared for Takeoff
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Jul 26, 2009
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rw2
This was the weirdest problem I've had while flying. After well over a decade of aviating, I've had a handful of issues with airplanes, weather or other pilots. But I've never had something as small as a fly mess up the plane to the point of being a hazard. This is that flight and how we figured it out.

 
I have an insect-affecting-flight story...

As we were accelerating for takeoff on my IR checkride, a bumblebee popped out from somewhere behind the panel and started buzzing around the cockpit.

My DPE completely Lost. His. ...Mind.

He was yelling "GET IT ON THE GROUND! GET IT ON THE GROUND!" and started flailing around swatting at the bee. Eventually he knocked it out of the air onto the floorboard on his side, whereupon he proceeded to Stomp. The. ...Mind. out of it. I thought he was going to pull a Fred Flintstone and shove his foot through the floorboard.

I ended up making a touch-and-go and we completed the remainder of the checkride without incident.
 
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Jim_R said:
I have an insect-affecting-flight story...

As we were accelerating for takeoff on my IR checkride, a bumblebee popped out from somewhere behind the panel and started buzzing around the cockpit.

My DPE completely Lost. His. ...Mind.

He was yelling "GET IT ON THE GROUND! GET IT ON THE GROUND!" and started flailing around swatting at the bee. Eventually he knocked it out of the air onto the floorboard on his side, whereupon he proceeded to Stomp. The. ...Mind. out of it. I thought he was going to pull a Fred Flintstone and shove his foot through the floorboard.

I ended up making a touch-and-go and we completed the remainder of the checkride without incident.
Click to expand...
Uh, wow. What would have happened if that occured when he was PiC?
 
Jim_R said:
I have an insect-affecting-flight story...

As we were accelerating for takeoff on my IR checkride, a bumblebee popped out from somewhere behind the panel and started buzzing around the cockpit.

My DPE completely Lost. His. ...Mind.

He was yelling "GET IT ON THE GROUND! GET IT ON THE GROUND!" and started flailing around swatting at the bee. Eventually he knocked it out of the air onto the floorboard on his side, whereupon he proceeded to Stomp. The. ...Mind. out of it. I thought he was going to pull a Fred Flintstone and shove his foot through the floorboard.

I ended up making a touch-and-go and we completed the remainder of the checkride without incident.
Click to expand...


A friend of mine is deathly allergic to insect stings. He carries a EpiPen 24/7 and we all know how to use it if the need ever arises.

He once bailed out of his pickup when a wasp entered through the window. Fortunately it was in a field and he was only a touch above idle speed. But he was going downhill. I am sure his cows had a good laugh as he chased his truck... :lol:
 
Jim_R said:
I have an insect-affecting-flight story...

As we were accelerating for takeoff on my IR checkride, a bumblebee popped out from somewhere behind the panel and started buzzing around the cockpit.

My DPE completely Lost. His. ...Mind.

He was yelling "GET IT ON THE GROUND! GET IT ON THE GROUND!" and started flailing around swatting at the bee. Eventually he knocked it out of the air onto the floorboard on his side, whereupon he proceeded to Stomp. The. ...Mind. out of it. I thought he was going to pull a Fred Flintstone and shove his foot through the floorboard.

I ended up making a touch-and-go and we completed the remainder of the checkride without incident.
Click to expand...
I forget. Is distraction part of the instrument ACS?
 
rwellner98 said:
This was the weirdest problem I've had while flying. After well over a decade of aviating, I've had a handful of issues with airplanes, weather or other pilots. But I've never had something as small as a fly mess up the plane to the point of being a hazard. This is that flight and how we figured it out.

Click to expand...
It'd be nice to provide a summary of the story. This way it sounds like click bait.
 
I've had airspeed indicator issues on takeoff and failure to retract (C-150 and Arrow respectively) as a result of insect making their way to the pitot system. Frustrating way to delay or cancel a trip, and the reason I'm religious about tube cover use. Ditto for the second (and more expensive) one, pinched tire tubes, which is why I keep tires slightly overinflated and bring a bicycle pump with me on trips.
 
172andyou said:
Rich was flying his Maule-ish to get a furnace for his hangar. A fly messed up his fuel system to the point of creating high engine temps and being a hazard. He didn't die.
Click to expand...

"Maule-ish" :rofl:
hindsight2020 said:
I've had airspeed indicator issues on takeoff and failure to retract (C-150 and Arrow respectively) as a result of insect making their way to the pitot system. Frustrating way to delay or cancel a trip, and the reason I'm religious about tube cover use.
Click to expand...
Seems like everyone I know has had a problem like that at some point, but I never have. My factory Maule did have a gadget that would block the pitot on the ground and automatically open when flying. It failed to open once or twice, but not a huge deal. Just manually flipped it up and went on my way.
 
rwellner98 said:
"Maule-ish" :rofl:

Seems like everyone I know has had a problem like that at some point, but I never have. My factory Maule did have a gadget that would block the pitot on the ground and automatically open when flying. It failed to open once or twice, but not a huge deal. Just manually flipped it up and went on my way.
Click to expand...

The 150 I owned had one of them doo dads too, critters are industrious and still managed to get in there. Once I bought the actual covers, the problem went away.
 
I picked up 20 packages of honey bees. 3lbs per package, roughly 10,000 bees per package. Always a few riders on the outside of the packages. No biggie. Shortly after takeoff there seems to be more riders flying around. Turns out, one of the packages had a 2" tear in the metal mesh and a few hundred bees figured it out. Fun times.
 
Another pilot and I were assigned to pick up an aircraft at KARA and drop it off at KCRP. The a/c had been a hangar queen for a couple of years and now was returned to service. We climbed through 2 or 3 thousand direct over water to KCRP. We noticed that yellow jackets were now streaming out of the forward avionics bay and were now invading our personal space.
We both got the same idea. Opened all vents and expedited the climb to plus10 C oat. The bugs seemed to doze off and stopped flying.
We did a quick shut down at CRP, grabbed our gear and told the A&P that met us of the issue and wished him good luck. The wasps were just now waking up. We had no stings.
 
A few weeks ago a friend of mind had mouse decide to take a ride in the glider with him. The mouse started running around his feet and rudder pedals. Once he got above about 10000 feet the mouse apparently became hypoxic and passed out. Once below 10000 feet the mouse became active again. Upon landing the mouse finally decided to exit the airplane of fortunately most of the 5 hour flight was above 10000 feet.

Brian
 
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