Put up your posts about things that have happened that you won't forget or that can help others. Theres lots of good stories out there! Bring um on!

While teaching, I was flying with a gal that did a pretty good job. I pulled the engine on her and she picked the field and started setting up. She went through her flow checks and cleaned it up. She was heading right for the end of the field and things were going great. I saw that she was set up almost perfect and we were getting down to about 100 feet, so I said "go around".

She paused, and didn't add throttle right away, but pulled back on the yoke. We were now down to the tree tops, but no big deal, had a huge field in front of us. I pointed to the throttle and she pushed it in, dumped the carb heat, and started to recover. Because she was now slow, climbing wasn't happening. The trees at the other end started to get bigger. I had her drop the nose and pick up some speed and pull to get over the trees.

Whew! It was close but we made it.

Gotta keep an eye on them. You never know when they are going to pause on adding throttle or pull up before adding it.

Instructor made me put my head down while in unfamiliar airspace. He wanted me to recover from an unusual attitude. I put my head down and closed my eyes. He then proceeded to put the airplane through some pretty dramatic manuevers, kicking the rudder and cross controlling the plane quite a bit. It really screwed me up. He then told me to recover. I peeked up and scanned my instruments real quickly then recovered. He said I did a great job. He told me to fly a heading of 180 and head for home field. We proceeded to shoot the bull for about 10 -15 minutes or so. I finally asked him where the hell we were. He asked me if we were heading the right direction, I told him we were flying 180 for home! I about pooped my panties once I looked up at the whiskey compass. The sunabeotch reached over and spun my DG knob when my head was down. From that point on I always crossed checked my DG with the Mag compass. He was laughing his ass off at me!!!

I heard some excellent stories during the time I worked the flight line of a FBO, so I don’t have anything that would qualify as “a real good story”, but I’ll throw one out just the same.

The C150 that I learned to fly in and took my private check ride did not have a built in headset communication center. Instead we used a portable unit that took power from the airplane’s cigarette lighter port. While taking my private check ride we were just flying along, I wasn’t demonstrating any abilities at the moment or answering questions when the portable unit lost power. I fiddled with the unit to regain power while the examiner was looking out the side window. He turned back just as I got the unit working again with a “what are you doing” look on his face. So I tell him “we lost power” before I could finish that it was with our headsets, the old dude has one hand on the yoke and the other one the throttle and looking like he’s having a coronary. Thought I failed after that exciting episode. At least he gave me my ticket before going to the hospital or cleaning out his drawers.

I was on a volunteer fire department and we were on standby for a 737 that was cleared for an emergency into Great Falls MT due to hydraulic failure. The airport is on top of a butte and we were at the bottom, so we couldn't see the plane land. We saw it go over us, then listened to the radio in case we were called to respond. After a few moments of silence, we called airport dispatch to get an update. The dispatcher screams "My God, He's all over the runway". So we roll, full turn-outs on and sirens blaring, up the hill to expect a huge tramatic fireball. All we saw was a 737 off the end of the taxiway with no appearent damage.

Her comment sent three fire battalions, four ambulances, a dozen police, and four VFDs onto the runway and shut down all operations for about two hours.

Appearently, when he landed, he didn't have any spoilers or brakes, so he was using his engines to slowdown, he was in a crosswind, so he a slipping all over the place and looked like he was "all over the runway".

This dispatcher got a little lecture on her choice of words.

None of my own, but when my dad was taking lessons in the late 70's he could land better than taking off. The main problem was keeping is straight on the runway. His instructor flew them down to Madison and asked the tower if they could use the main runway for some "high speed taxiing". Wasn't too busy, so the tower said sure. The ran up and down the main runway at high speed. By the end of a few passes, my dad could keep is straight no problem.

Last winter I was doing some solo work in the our practice area when the engine flamed out after a power-off stall. It turns out the little C-150 didn't like the rush of -20f air after turning the carb heat off and adding power. The engine re-started no problem and ran fine the rest of the flight, but I will stick to less drastic maneuvers when it is so cold. At the time this happened I had about 10 hours at the controls so the emergency procedures were very fresh in my mind and went smoothly.
Tim

I had been in New York for 6 weeks. Had a sick friend at home, and this was the second long trip in a row. We were at the airport and the flight we had that would take us home canceled. I called Dad to tell him and he and mom were both not doing well. They received a letter to me from my friend and had been opening my mail and taking care of everything for me, so they didn't know what to do with it. They both had a bad feeling though. I said open it up, and he read it and took it that it was a suicide note. I told my partner we could either fly the plane home, or I was going on the airline, but I was going no matter what. We opted to take the jet (he was tired of being there too.) I was flying (he thought it would take my mind off it) and he was in back doing the jeps. I was flying at FL410 (41,000 feet) the wrong way for fuel and wind so I wouldn't have to stop for gas going across the country. I was going around a huge thunder storm on the north side, and my partner came up and asked why I went around that way. I told him it was moving south fast and I couldn't go around it that way and get home without landing for gas. He finished and as he was climbing back into his seat, he leaned forward on the yoke, and as he pulled his foot over the center console, tripped the auto pilot. The nose dropped sharpley and I pulled back firmly. The aircraft didn't change pitch, but buffeted badly. He has 10 times the hours I do so he took it and pulled the power off both engines. He pulled back and the buffeting got worse. The over speed bell started ringing and I looked at the VSI and it was pegged. I keyed the mic and said "24N need lower now!". It was midnight and the controller was asleep so he came back with "say again". We were over 1000 feet low already, so all I could think about was the ticket we were going to get. I reached up and turned the transponders both off (primary and backup). By this time we were slowing and had the nose up at a pretty good angle and were climbing as fast as we can. I keyed the mic and said "disregard". About 10 seconds passed and the controller says "24N, I lost your transponder". I told him I would cycle it and see if that helped. As we leveled I turned it back on and asked if he had it. He said "yep, its there now."

Everyone said if we would have been in the Lear, we wouldn't have gotten it to pull out. The Westind doesn't TUCK as bad as a lear will.

From then on, my hand is over the auto pilot switches when anyone gets in or out of their seat.

We were really lucky on a few accounts that night.

Let me tell you though, the northern light show that night were the most magnificent I have ever seen!

Flyboy, those are to kind of stories I used to hear. I’m sure you have more!

This is a story that was told to me many years ago so I don’t remember if the guy that told it was a player in the story or this is one of those that floats around, but it’s a classic all the same. A crew flying cargo had a captain notorious for climbing into the seat and falling asleep. Well into a flight after the cap is nice a cozy the co-pilot and flight engineer decide it’s time to wake this guy up, in a way he’ll never forget. They took a needle and thread from a small sewing kit one of them carried and stitched a line through the end of his tie. Then they lifted the tie and attached the thread to an overhead knob, so the tie is now pointing straight up in front of his face. Now it was time to wake the captain by pushing the plane over just enough to develop some negative G’s. Don’t remember what the captain’s response was but I believe he gave up the habit of falling alseep on the job.

Thats a good one. hahahahaha

My father was sitting in the rear seat on a L1011 at O-Hare. The plane had been on the taxiway for 2 hrs waiting to be cleared to take-off because of thunderstorms. Once cleared, the plane began to take off and after breaking ground, began to bank to the left, the lights flickered, and everyones’ hair was standing strait up. Since Dad was an electrical engineer, he knew that the plane had been struck by lightning and told the flight attendant sitting next to him. She couldn’t reply. Her face was white and her lips turned blue, and she went into telling him not to worry and how well built the plane was etc. etc.
Once the plane got to it’s service altitude, the captain came on the intercom and said these two things. “I have good news and I have bad news. The plane behind us said that we had taken a direct hit by lightning and we have lost some rudder response, which explains why those of you on the left side of the plane got a lovely view of West Chicago and those on the right got to see that lovely full moon we have tonight. The good news is that we are still in the air, the bad news is that we have to go back the Chicago for an emergency landing.” It took Chicago another 2 hrs to clear for an emergency landing. The plane landed, was taxied strait to the hangar, and the passengers disembarked. As he was leaving, he watched as a maintenance crewman in a service bucket was sticking his head through an 18” by 6’ split down the vertical stabilizer. Not known for his tact, he pointed this out to the women in front of him, which whom, upon seeing the damage inflicted by the lightning strike, promptly fainted and almost fell down the stairs.
This story was told by a co-worker that was traveling with my dad.
Scott

I sometimes fly around Charlotte, NC with my dad and on one of our expeditions we were cautioned of mild turbulence near the end of the rnwy we were on final for. We didnt take much notice because we had flown our Centurion into things worse than "mild" turbulence. As we lined up on final the left cowling all of a sudden got sucked off the plane and flew straight up ,and back behind us[:-]. I have no idea still to this day why the heck it flew off ,because all of the cowling screws were still in place when we inspected the airplane on the ground. Anyways a few monts later we recieved a phone call from a farm up in the charlotte aera saying he had found an aircraft cowling that matched our "wanted" add we had set up around the airport. We quickly got it back and saw for some reason the only damge to the cowl was the holes where the screws should have been[&:]. This is still a real mystery to me today and has also been a big money pit for getting the replacment cowl for no reason.

I was flying some cercutes and t&g it was getting late in the evening, thought I had better call it a day. Went around on final on 33 when a gust of wind cought me, 0ne of those devil twiters or what ever you want to call them. sent me off the run way, what a ride . the next morning I went back out to do a cross country and the air port manager asked if I saw any one shooting rabbits on the run way last nite. He said some one had shot out 3 run way lights last nite. I told him what happened when I was flying last nite and we went out and checked the plane and the tail tie down ring was drove back 4 in. the expirience is on I will b\never for get or will the air pory manager wayne. CROSSEN FEILD. I will never for get that 1959 150 n8104f dump flapps and all.

Way back when I was going through USAF flight training, I was flying with a guest Instructor on an instrument flight in the T-33.
One of the requirements was the unusual attitude thing which was usually a piece of cake. After all I was under a big hood in the back seat. So maybe I cheated a bit when told to close my eyes. We went through the basics of nose up, inverted and descending turns. All just fine. THEN:
The instructor shakes the stick, reaches back to raise the hood, and waves his hand in front of his mouth to signal No-Talk. If I had a brain it was definitely not working as The "Hot" mike allowed one to monitor the other's breath. [:'(] Then he wrote a note and passed it under the rudder pedals. Now consider I was dressed in Jet-Pilot stuff, helmet, O-2 mask, shoulder harness, seat belt, crotch belt, boots, Bail-out bottle (o-2, not gin) on the parachute harness, and bending down to get that note was the most important thing -- or so I thought -- I could do. After much shuffling and directed attention to the chore, I opened the note to see the word, "RECOVER". Well I was in some 60*+ nose down at some way past 90* bank angle and approaching the red-line on the airspeed indicator with a vertical velocity pegged beyond the 6000 ft per minute descent point.
I did it, and will never forget it. It was the best lesson ever. In those days, Instructors did not laugh much, but we both did after that ride. (28 started in my class, 13 graduated)
When I later went back and instructed in the T-33 I used that trick on every student where basic instruments were performed.
NOT ONE ever complained. Each thought it was the best thing ever.
Unfortunately the T-38 had two cockpits and the trick could not be done.

The lesson learned is, "FIRST FLY THE AIRPLANE" Those old words Aviate, then communicate, then navigate.
In 41 years of professional aviation it was always true.

I still apply such in its way when I instruct RC students. Safety is part of everything they do and planning ahead is most important.