Your dumbest aviation moment?

I can, at times, be quite directionally dyslexic. I'd like to think I'm better now, but when I was a student on two different occasions it caused me some embarrassment.

The first, I came in to do a touch and go at a towered airport, then needed to head back to my home airport. I asked for a departure to the west instead of the east. Being younger and having a much thinner skin I was too embarrassed to own up to my mistake to the controller, so I told him I'd actually need to go north "first", then as soon as I left his airspace made my turn to the east.

The second was a solo that included a touch and go at an airport I had been to a couple of times before, but was at the far edge of my normal practice area. Approaching the airport I set up on a nice 45 downwind, called my downwind for runway 27, called my base for runway 27, called final for runway 27, and then looked out to see the giant '9' staring me in the face. The only radio traffic I had heard was from someone just starting his taxi, so I did my touch and go hoping to be gone before anyone could notice my mistake. He noticed, and called out saying something like "Traffic for 27, someone just departed on runway 9!" I 'fessed up and announced my departure from the area.
 
About the time my CFI and I get done laughing and looking around to see who's watching or laughing at me.
 
bobmrg said:
Don't fly fatigued. Combination of late return from a Citation trip (pax underestimated how long their meeting would last) and an early morning departure in a [different] company 182RG to PDX further complicated by headwinds/turbulence (read "sick pax") going south and an unexpected hold on a LOC-DME fix at PDX. DME kept blanking out on me, which didn't help. Finally cleared for LOC-DME to rwy 21, which crosses parallel runways 10-28. While on final cleared to land and told to turn left on rwy 28L, but I overshot it and turned left on 28R. Thank goodness I had given the controller his MEL checkride and he recognized my voice. Deplaned some very unhappy passengers, went into Flightcraft's pilot lounge and slept for four hours before deadheading back.

In retrospect, I should have cancelled the morning flight...but I had lobbied for the job, this was my first flight with them, and abandoning the boss would not have gone over well. The boss decided that they didn't need a company plane after all.

Bob
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Thank you for sharing your experience.

I guess you were screwed if you told your boss no and screwed if you flew tired. :dunno: kind of a crappy situation but at least the airplane, your pax, and your license ended up in one piece.
 
bobmrg said:
In retrospect, I should have cancelled the morning flight...but I had lobbied for the job, this was my first flight with them, and abandoning the boss would not have gone over well. The boss decided that they didn't need a company plane after all.
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That's the hardest thing about that kind of work - making an unpopular judgement call, especially when you don't have a reg to point to. We've definitely all been there!
 
When I was looking for my first plane I was looking at a MU-Jet.

Not realizing the progression of training... I laugh at the thought of me learning my ppl in a jet. Haha

Oh yeah and I flew through freezing rain. But that was easy. -_0
 
Oh gawd, where do I start? in 300 odd hours, I:

1) taxied with the parking brake on (all the way to the runup area)
2) almost busted Bravo a couple of times
3) almost (I'm being kind to myself - filed an ASRS report for this one) busted a Charlie (beat that!) after forgetting that FF squawked me back to 1200 when they lost me on radar
4) took off with 3/4 empty fuel tanks after checking then with my finger on a 182 and ignoring the fuel gauges - believing they were full (thankfully it was a <1hr flight, but I was sure surprised to find that almost 60 gallons went into the tanks at the destination)
5) took off with full rich mixture, all seats full and luggage at big bear lake. The only reason that one did not end in a crash is that I didn't fill up the tanks when I landed to pick everyone up. The <200ft/m climb rate on takeoff thankfully clued me in to what was going on.

There's more, but honestly, when I look back at my flying career so far, I can say a couple things: one, counter-intuitively, I am a far more cautious and attentive pilot today then when I had only 100 hours under my belt, and two, it's more or less pure dumb luck I'm still alive.
 
Just the latest...

In my new to me Mooney, I've been very careful to follow the "lean it out on the ground" advice. After I've turned off the runway, I raise the flaps, open the cowl flaps and lean it. I did this a few times and realized the mixture always ends up about the same place. So once I just pulled it out to about that. And I overshoot. And the engine dies. Now I have to call ground, tell them my engine quit and I'm trying to restart. While the commercial jet waiting to take off is listening to all of this. Arrrg. I'm asked if I have an equipment problem. "Uh, no, just pulled the mixture out too far."
 
Mistake Not... said:
Just the latest...

In my new to me Mooney, I've been very careful to follow the "lean it out on the ground" advice. After I've turned off the runway, I raise the flaps, open the cowl flaps and lean it. I did this a few times and realized the mixture always ends up about the same place. So once I just pulled it out to about that. And I overshoot. And the engine dies. Now I have to call ground, tell them my engine quit and I'm trying to restart. While the commercial jet waiting to take off is listening to all of this. Arrrg. I'm asked if I have an equipment problem. "Uh, no, just pulled the mixture out too far."
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:rofl:
 
redtail said:
Yes trees everywhere.
I used to live in Tobyhanna during my flying hiatus, so I didn't get a chance to use that airport until a few years ago. I flew in from FRG. Although I had my charts, I was using a G1000:D
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I fly out of FRG also and I did the trip MTO in a 172N. I probably should have picked better checkpoints
 
BG305 said:
Mine happens every once in a while. I go through my checklist yell clear prop and realize the keys are in the glove box. My CFI the first couple of times would look over and ask what's wrong, now he just goes into the glove and hands me the keys.
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Here is a way to solve that. "Put mag keys on glareshield" is part of the early aircraft cabin inspection. When you get to looking the prop over for nicks and cuts, part of THAT checklist is "key on glareshield?"

Jim
 
I'm a student pilot and on my 2nd solo I landed at SQL and exited the runway.
The tower said taxi to 12 via the parallel so I turned left and heard "12 is the other way". I had gotten into the habit of turning left and never really listened to what
the tower said.

Now I listen much more carefully and actually caught the controller at SQL telling
me that I was cleared to land on 12 as I turned final for 30. I asked if he
meant 30 and he said "Sure did!". Granted they had just switched due to changing
wind conditions.
 
The two that have stuck with me.

Way way back when I was a towered field but no ASOS/AWOS. I just got a briefing by phone. So, I cranked up in the Citabria, and the ground was pretty casual about it and said 'cleared to taxi for take off'. So, I did. I taxied to the upwind runway, passing a perfectly good windsock on the way showing I was headed the wrong way. When I get down there, I call tower and request take off. They clear me to take off, and I'm wondering why the take off roll is sooooooo long. DOH!

More recent, once again at fairly large metro airport, I taxi out, with the xpndr on standby. Do all my check list stuff, and as I get cleared to take off, set the xpndr to Alt mode. Happily trundling down the runway, lift off nicely, get a straight out, and tower says; 'bugsmasher 12345, umm - cycle transponder'. So, I look down and see that I'm sending out 1455 for a VFR flight with no take off pre clearance. Thank you mr tower controller!
 
weirdjim said:
"Put mag keys on glareshield" is part of the early aircraft cabin inspection. When you get to looking the prop over for nicks and cuts, part of THAT checklist is "key on glareshield?"

Jim
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That's what I've always done, too. Pull mixture, retard throttle, Master Off, ignition Off, Keys on glareshield. I look there before doing anything near the prop (inspection, tow bar, cleaning, etc.).

If I'm preflighting and don't see the keys, I check my pockets. No keys, no getting near the prop!
 
jfrye01 said:
My dumbest aviation moment happened on a night flight from El Dorado, KS (EQA) to Wichita Mid-Continent (ICT) in my Skyhawk...I added a quart of oil and allowed myself to become distracted...I'm sure you all know where this is going...Long story short, I somehow forgot to replace the oil cap...Upon landing at ICT, I notice oil streaming down the side of the fuselage...I was less than a quart low, but the mess made it look like I had lost several quarts. Anyway, that's my story, what's yours??
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This happened to me during my training in a C150. I didn't tighten the oil stick. I never lost oil pressure in flight. Lesson learned.
 
They say confession is good for the soul.

95% of my flying has been in and out of uncontrolled fields.

I landed at the local Class C, made careful note of which turnoff I took (black square, you are there), and then sat on the taxiway staring dumfounded at the taxiway diagram because the magic letter from the sign didn't appear on my diagram. <tick> <tock> <tick> <tock> I should contact ground but where am I? :dunno: <tick> <tock> <tick> <tock> Simultaneously I realize I have the diagram upside down (parallel runways) and ground control calls me to ask if I'm on frequency. :) No harm, no foul, I made it to the FBO and ground control seemed to speak extra slowly when giving directions there. :) I'm sure the confused moment wasn't any longer than 30 seconds but it felt like an eternity. At least it happened while I was going 0kts at 0AGL.
 
Not my dumbest moment. Someone else's.

I was preflighting a warrior while my CFI was inside. Drained right tank, drip. Hmmm, that's odd. Tap tap, echo echo echo. Yep, empty. Drain right tank. Drip drip tap tap echo echo, empty as well. Looking around for a pool of fuel that I didn't notice. Nope, pavement is dry. Drain the strainer, kind of a sputter of fuel comes out. Roughly with the force of the only fuel left being the fuel in the strainer and hose.

Yep. The recent PPL who rented the aircraft before me landed with literally no fuel left. If he had to go around, he'd be in the water. I called in to my CFI and told him we're going to need fuel and you're not going to like it when you see the quantity.
 
My old 1966 C172G came with a factory 35A generator. Near the very end of my first flight from Outlaw Field in Tennessee (via several stops) to Midland International (KMAF), I noticed that my radios got pretty dim (at night). I had landed and taxied to parking before realizing that the generator breaker had popped. I was on the ground for a short time (no idea why landed at KMAF and then went to KMDD). Upon startup I told tower I had intermittent electrical problems. That was my first "real" experience with the light gun, even though I still had 2-way comm.

So I put in a 60A alternator ASAP and that solved the overloaded generator problem. But then this happened...

I did my preflight using just the BAT side of the master switch like I had been taught at the time (this was 1996) and forgot to flip on the ALT side. After a few night T&Gs at College Station (KCLL, tower closed), I noticed things got pretty dim and the radio wouldn't transmit. This time I was ready and flipped the ALT switch and everything got bright again. I no longer use just the BAT side during preflight.
 
Pedals2Paddles said:
Drained right tank, drip. Hmmm, that's odd. Tap tap, echo echo echo. Yep, empty. Drain right tank. Drip drip tap tap echo echo, empty as well. Looking around for a pool of fuel that I didn't notice. Nope, pavement is dry. Drain the strainer, kind of a sputter of fuel comes out. Roughly with the force of the only fuel left being the fuel in the strainer and hose.

Yep. The recent PPL who rented the aircraft before me landed with literally no fuel left. If he [had] had to go around, he'd be in the water.
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In that situation, I'd be wary that there could have been an in-flight fuel leak (even though pilot miscalculation seems more likely).
 
You mean besides spending $35,000+ getting all my certificates and ratings to get a $1200.oo per month job?
 
Got my Private and had accumulated a whopping 80 hours, and went flying one beautiful, crisp, Fall day in a rented two-seater. 'Depart a rather busy Class C airport and head out of the area to just mess around. While still on with Departure, the radio/GPS starts playing country music loud and clear. I hear the call letters of the station and recognize it as a local station. It's as clear as a bell -- not like someone holding a mic to a radio.

With just 80 hours under my belt, anything is a big deal. I try hard to focus on flying the airplane first and to not let the radio problem cause a bigger problem. I power down the radio and turn it back on. Music is still there. I try another frequency; the music is still there. Hmmm, what to do? My mind is scrambled as it's my first quasi-emergency. I recall something about a transponder code to indicate back to ATC I've lost comms. I look at my trusty kneeboard to confirm the code and enter 7600 on the transponder keypad.

I give ATC a minute before turning back to the field -- and to give me a second to try to recall the light gun signals. Something about green = good and red = bad, I think to myself. I didn't have them on my kneeboard but just would circle until I saw a lot of green. So I feel ready to land at the Class C without comms and turn toward the airport.

I get really close to the field -- about 2 miles -- and am just over the tall buildings downtown when I can suddenly hear ATC clearly. It was like a switch flipped and the country music went away.

I say something like, "Approach, I can hear you now." Approach responds with, "Understood, proceed inbound, cleared to land, could you change your squawk at this time?"

I look down and my stomach sank through the floor of the plane. I had accidentially entered 7500 on the transponder keypad instead of 7600. I've been indicating HIJACK for a good 20-30 minutes -- only about 1 year after 9/11. I look around for fighter planes but see none. Still, I think, "There goes my pilot's license."

I call back to Approach, "What runway am I cleared for?"

Approach responds (and I can still hear this in my head as if it happened today), "It doesn't matter -- your choice -- you're the only one up there now."

Practically shaking at the controls, I somehow land fine and taxi to parking half expecting to be met by security, police, FBI, something. I open the canopy and am prepared to keep my hands above my head as someone points a gun at me. But no -- no one says a word, no swat teams swarming the plane, nothing. The FBO knows nothing about the incident. A few months go by and no summons, supeonoa, citation, anything shows up in the mail.

I breathe a sigh of a relief and guess I may be able to stick with this pilot thing a little while longer. 12 years later, that's easily the dumbest thing I've done in an airplane...
 
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I was flying locally and picked up a tower enroute clearance back to my home airport. The controller told me to expect a departure off of 15 and to fly runway heading as part of my clearance. I had flown out of this airport a bunch and had gotten this same clearance several times. I call ground to taxi and I get told taxi to runway 25 via Juliet. I read it back to the controller and then began my taxi on Charlie to runway 15... Nearly to the runway the controller comes on and says "taxi runway 15 via charlie". I had quite the blonde moment. :mad2:
 
The xpndr thing reminded me of something else I did. It's not dumb, really, I handled it. But it's a lesson in how not being familiar with your equipment can be a real problem.

Going into KORL (Orlando Exec), I was maybe 30 miles out when I started getting a loud buzzing / static sound in the headset. I could hear incoming signal fine but when no one was transmitting, the noise was really bad.

It was fairly bumpy under the clouds, and I'm getting bounced around enough I have to brace my fingers on the bezel of the 430W to change freqs and adjust volume. Can't figure out what's going on.

Almost to the airport I finally figure it out. I'd pressed the volume control and put it in the mode that disables squelch. Bleah. One press and blissful quiet. But it was a bad distraction in busy airspace at a time I really, really, really didn't need to be distracted.
 
Mistake Not... said:
The xpndr thing reminded me of something else I did. It's not dumb, really, I handled it. But it's a lesson in how not being familiar with your equipment can be a real problem.

Going into KORL (Orlando Exec), I was maybe 30 miles out when I started getting a loud buzzing / static sound in the headset. I could hear incoming signal fine but when no one was transmitting, the noise was really bad.

It was fairly bumpy under the clouds, and I'm getting bounced around enough I have to brace my fingers on the bezel of the 430W to change freqs and adjust volume. Can't figure out what's going on.

Almost to the airport I finally figure it out. I'd pressed the volume control and put it in the mode that disables squelch. Bleah. One press and blissful quiet. But it was a bad distraction in busy airspace at a time I really, really, really didn't need to be distracted.
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This is exactly what happened to me during my first flight after getting checked out in the 172. I had never used the 430 before so I had no idea what was going on.
 
Martymccasland said:
Got my Private and had accumulated a whopping 80 hours, and went flying one beautiful, crisp, Fall day in a rented two-seater. 'Depart a rather busy Class C airport and head out of the area to just mess around. While still on with Departure, the radio/GPS starts playing country music loud and clear. I hear the call letters of the station and recognize it as a local station. It's as clear as a bell -- not like someone holding a mic to a radio.

With just 80 hours under my belt, anything is a big deal. I try hard to focus on flying the airplane first and to not let the radio problem cause a bigger problem. I power down the radio and turn it back on. Music is still there. I try another frequency; the music is still there. Hmmm, what to do? My mind is scrambled as it's my first quasi-emergency. I recall something about a transponder code to indicate back to ATC I've lost comms. I look at my trusty kneeboard to confirm the code and enter 7600 on the transponder keypad.

I give ATC a minute before turning back to the field -- and to give me a second to try to recall the light gun signals. Something about green = good and red = bad, I think to myself. I didn't have them on my kneeboard but just would circle until I saw a lot of green. So I feel ready to land at the Class C without comms and turn toward the airport.

I get really close to the field -- about 2 miles -- and am just over the tall buildings downtown when I can suddenly hear ATC clearly. It was like a switch flipped and the country music went away.

I say something like, "Approach, I can hear you now." Approach responds with, "Understood, proceed inbound, cleared to land, could you change your squawk at this time?"

I look down and my stomach sank through the floor of the plane. I had accidentially entered 7500 on the transponder keypad instead of 7600. I've been indicating HIJACK for a good 20-30 minutes -- only about 1 year after 9/11. I look around for fighter planes but see none. Still, I think, "There's goes my pilot's license."

I call back to Approach, "What runway am I cleared for?"

Approach responds (and I can still hear this in my head as if it happened today), "It doesn't matter -- your choice -- you're the only one up there now."

Practically shaking at the controls, I somehow land fine and taxi to parking half expecting to be met by security, police, FBI, something. I open the canopy and am prepared to keep my hands above my head as someone points a gun at me. But no -- no one says a word, no swat teams swarming the plane, nothing. The FBO knows nothing about the incident. A few months go by and no summons, supeonoa, citation, anything shows up in the mail.

I breathe a sigh of a relief and guess I may be able to stick with this pilot thing a little while longer. 12 years later, that's easily the dumbest thing I've done in an airplane...
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AWESOME! Just wow. This is the best flying story ever!
 
I've learned a lot in my first 200 hours. Many many mistakes, but luckily most are no worse than a bruised ego or frightened spouse.

During a stage check during my primary training (141 program), I reversed the wind direction 180 degrees in my head and did a bunch of ground reference maneuvers the wrong direction. After completing the last one, I comment that it all felt weird, like the wind was carrying me the wrong way. The instructor had been quiet the whole time and simply retorted "that's because it is." Oops. He let me do it all again because of my comment. I passed.

Looking for Gaston's, coming from the South East in an LSA with my wife, I finally spot the field about a mile from the end of the runway. I was at pattern altitude and on frequency with no traffic reports for at least 10 minutes, so I pulled throttle, dropped flaps and kicked over into a nice slip to landing. My wife wasn't expecting that, had no idea what a slip was, didn't see the airport was an airport until we were on the ground, and she was still a nervous flier. Um, that didn't go over so well.

First flight with my wife on board. I was working on getting current after 10 years away from flying and only about 55 hours in my logbook. On this flight, my instructor plans for us to go to a local grass strip to practice soft field ops. I had already expressed an interest to go to Gaston's. We were in a 172S. That day we experienced the worst turbulence I had ever felt. My wife was already a touch nervous, but the turbulence was not welcome. We made it back and she RAN to the restroom with airsickness and stayed there a good 20 minutes. Great intro.

Planned my first big cross country with an overnight in Oklahoma. Day of the trip comes and we have to get going early to beat a line of storms. We didn't get started early enough and the line moved faster than predicted, so we diverted to wait out the line and let it pass. We were waiting 5 hours in Tahlequah, OK for the line to pass enough to scud run the rest of the way. I've never heard the end of that one.

Same trip, the next day, planning to fly from Oklahoma City to Shawneee to meet some friends, before heading to a few more stops and then home. I was in a rush. I started the engine and entered the freq for weather and got nada. I kept rechecking against my planning notes, trying to figure out if I somehow miss configured the radios (this was a G1000 equipped 172). I wondered if maybe I was parked in a dead spot. Finally, I gave up and tried to call ground. They heard me. I reported that I wasn't getting weather and asked it they could relay for me. Instead they gave me a frequency to double check -- in my planning notes I swapped the weather frequencies for my departure and arrival fields. Sigh. My wife sat there quietly wondering what was going on and if this was normal.
 
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Your wife sounds awesome. Most would have quit flying after any one of those. :)
 
Most of the dumbest aviation moments in this thread I just call "Tuesday"
 
acrophile said:
In that situation, I'd be wary that there could have been an in-flight fuel leak (even though pilot miscalculation seems more likely).
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Yes, that thought did indeed cross my mind. I was keeping a sharp eye on the fuel levels and performance while we were putzing around that day. We didn't use/lose any more fuel than we should have. Which concludes: knucklehead.
 
Did an almost perfect approach in my Skyhawk. Cut the engine at touchdown. Noticed then I've had my right hand at the mixture, not the throttle all the way down! :mad2:
 
kayoh190 said:
I was 16 and preflighting a 152, and got distracted by a good looking brunette - .... and proceed to walk right into the trailing edge of the left aileron. Knocked me flat on my ass, and left a small gash on my forehead that bled furiously. :)
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So did you at least talk to the girl?
 
chrisbre said:
Did an almost perfect approach in my Skyhawk. Cut the engine at touchdown. Noticed then I've had my right hand at the mixture, not the throttle all the way down! :mad2:
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That's a new one on me, suhweet! I've done plenty of stupid stuff on my Skyhawk, which made it onto my checklist as a result.

My #1? Never ever leave the tow bar attached. If it isn't in my hand, it's on the ground or stowed. It NEVER stays attached to the plane.
 
danhagan said:
So did you at least talk to the girl?
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No, I completely wussed out. Her parents came over to make sure I was okay, but she hung back at their Cherokee. It's one of those moments where you look back and think, "Man, if I could just go back in time and do it over again..."
 
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