Simviation Forums

G'day guys,

Just curious to know if you've ever made "pilot error" mistakes that have written-off / damaged your plane so much that you're glad you weren't flying for real!

3 of my doozys!
1. Taking off from Dubai in a 747 - forgot to set speed on Autopilot - pushed A/T and Spd hold - plane slowed to zero - unable to recover - a fully fuelled 747F crashed in the middle of Dubai City. 

2. Forcing an unstable approach into Kabul, in a 747 again - way too hot and high trying to negotiate the mountains - bounced heavily well down the runway on landing - ended up skidding off into the fence

3. Engine failure on a 737 over a snowy, low-vis Russia - panicked and decided to land then and there - rather than fly to a warmer, better-vis airport - ended up crashing trying to fly in zero-vis on one engine...

On the way to becoming a virtual stunt legend I've had more than my fair share of accidents.
One of the hardest was my infamous "Across the bridge" trick in Paris, only took 14 attempts before I made it!!!!

https://www.simviation.com/phpupload/upl ... 741720.jpg
That actually isn't my fail but rather atc I had a failed engine and bad engine leak and atc let that baron taxi onto the runway . Never used it since
I have a few others but I'll have to dig them out

My worst fail was at Cosford Flying School on their simulator... I was using a yoke and rudder pedal set for the first time. And for some reason the aicraft gained massive amounts of pitch when the flaps were deployed. Not good when on finals, I went soaring up, and because of my lack of experience with using a yoke, I made 3 landings on the same runway

1.) Engine Failure on PT6 engine in the Real Air Duke.  I did everything correctly except that I left the cowl flaps closed, which overheated the other engine and caused the other engine to fail.  Something to keep in mind if I ever fly a twin engine PT-6 A/C in RL that have cowl flaps.  Or even if it's a piston!

2.) Leaving the gear up on retractable gear aircraft and belly landing.  I guess that is why we have a GUMPS check in real life .  The same goes for overspeeding the prop.

3.) Leaving the choke on in the Aerosoft Katana 4X causes an almost unrecoverable engine failure.  I've only flown the Katana once in real life, but I suppose this is a good thing to keep in mind if I ever do so again 

4.) I've had some spiral dive incidents that resulted in crashing my aircraft at night due to being disoriented in FS.  Thankfully, it happened in the sim and not in real life.  Now I know what to look for.  Even the best training can't prepare you for complacency. 

5.) Landing on the wrong runway... on VATSIM too!   :-[.  A good learning experience to check those bearings when you get close to an airport! 

6.) Not overshooting a short field landing when screwing up royally on the approach. Ouch. 

7.) Leaving autothrottle on while landing an aircraft with autopilot.  The plane just won't land!

I make the odd mistakes here in FS and I admit it  .  Which is ironic, given real-life flying.  But I think I am thankful for flight sim, because for every mistake I make on my computer, the chances of me making the same mistake in real life is much slimmer. I've known ATPLs who've screwed up royally in Flight Sim too, so it's a good tool, given that most aviation accidents are the result of pilot error. 

Online: was to, once, mistake take off runway. Such an embarrassment with the controller.


Off line: ...the perhaps WORST mistake I ever did was not under FS, but in one of my first flights under X-plane. It was still X-plane 8 at that time. That day, I decided to take off with a Extra 400 add-on from a small runway in the US (forgot which airport, sorry). The day's weather was oppressive, with its menacing 8/8 covering, yet it wasn't [still] raining. The clouds were threatening, all right, but I decided to treat X-plane like FS9. "I will shake and dance a little, maybe," I thought, "But in the end, I'll get out of the clouds juuuust fine, you'll see..."

It didn't end up like that. As soon I entered the most interesting part of the clouds... my windshield flew apart and the plane was targeted by an horrifying hail storm... I did not last even one minute in those conditions.... my plane ended up exiting the clouds yes, but like a tattered, spinning corkscrew headed towards the unforgiving ground. :-/


PS
That was the start of a beautiful side experience with X-plane, for me. Up until that moment I really did not know what to do with it, but that day, it showed to be more life-like than anything I had used up until that moment, and that it deserved a rightful place among my flight simulators.

[quote]7.) Leaving autothrottle on while landing an aircraft with autopilot.

Online:
was to, once, mistake take off runway. Such an embarrassment with the controller.

happens to me every single time.
they say runway 24,i takeoff at runway 30.XD

Oh no.

Didn't happen like that. It was on a Pacific Island... don't remember which one, but was not Hawaii. I THINK it was in the French Polynesia... maybe... been a while. I took off with my trusty L-1649A (as I do not do kerosene burners, if I can help it) on a long haul, but there was control. The airport had ONE runway, he gave the... 24... I think... and I managed to bring the plane on the 6.

Truth to be told, at the time I was (and still am) quite green in online flights, and had expected the airport to be unmanned. Add to this that the controller would not hear reasons and insisted I had to fly a RNAV SID, while I was alone in a 2000nm radius, in a propliner, simulating a back-in-the-days flight, and you have a recipe for a disaster.

In the end he allowed me take off from there, since wind was weak, and released me to UNICOM as soon I was airborne... talk about consistency...

other things include atc letting a little cessna on the runway while me gliding in a 737.

Are you talking default ATC? I left it behind alone and forgot quite a lot of time ago. :-?

For the reason you exposed and a lot more.

online a little near accident:i landed and i was taxiing but the taxiway was far away,in the meantime a tanker came on the runway,didnt see me and then i was like:is it coming closer and then it was like 20 ft from me and so i decided to use a little afterburner.

IRL, the plane in the front wising up to the SNAFU would have to do a balked landing. FAST. The ones behind could only hit the reversers and brakes full blast and not attempt anything else, not to make a FUBAR Tenerife style. Both crews, afterwards, would have to unite and accurately search the idiot(s) in the tower to give them the gratitude they deserved, of course. With the help of several knobby clubs, possibly.

Anyway, I'm quite surprised a staffed online ATC fell in this kind of snag. :-?

also a few before runway landings but that was mainly due to altitude,but its a grass runway so no difference ...

and a few 'bush' landings if you get what i mean.

Been there, done that, got several T-shirts.

and a few carrier landings that result in me trapping but going too fast so i am like'DONT FALL OFF!!!'

Eh, one of the reasons I've stopped attempting carrier landings was because I always came too low... with unsightly disasters following suit.

but my dad is terrible at fs.
on takeoff and landing he nearly ALWAYS hits a tree.
even if there is only one nearby,he will probably hit it.

A real Tree-hugger.

I've weaned out that tendency in myself in ancient versions of FS, when trees were only in your mind, but "bush landings", as you call them, happen to me still, from time to time, when against all common sense I try to push the envelope, trying to land WHERE I shouldn't, WHEN I shouldn't, IN THE WAY I shouldn't. The sole fact we're flying a simulator is the only reason we're still here, talking about it. ALL of us.

probably the time I was flying for delta VA, a short one hour flight, I calculated my fuel a couple hundred pounds off and I ran out of fuel on final, but the fsx atc had me at 2000 ft asl so I was able to bring her 50 feet from the airport fence, where I crashed and burned

Being new to the 777 (addon plane I got from simviation), I took off, let it stall, made the wrong move to recover from that and went on a dive that ended up on the ground. I guess that it was one of the worst errors I made since I was flying in FSX for some time already. Yet it always serves as a learning lesson. From that day on my flights with the 777 have improved a lot.

I have had my fair share of accidents. I have not had a fatal accident in years thankfully but I always seem to get something wrong when I start learning a new aicraft.

Yesterday I was taking off 4L at JFK in my new Embraer 190. I forgot the altitude hold is a bit different and dialed in 500 instead of 5000 which was my initial altitude designated by atc.

So as you can imagine, I took off turned to heading 100 as per the DP, waited for vectors, then dialed in the vector heading and engaged HDG hold on the flight director. I flew manually untill 4500ft then I sat back and hit the autopilot command switch. Punched LNAV then hit FLCH. Upon hitting FLCH the aircraft did a nose dive and tried to decend to 500ft heading 240kias.  Well lets say the passengers may have gotten sick from that.

Another embarrassing thing that seems to happen all the time with the default ATC is they will order me to descend to 10,000 feet and feel thats low enough for them to tell me to contact tower and land.  :-/ Sorry to say there is know way I can descend 10,000 feet in 20 miles safely and I fly missed approach and hold until I reach 3000 before requesting vectors for a second approach.

There was also the time when I was learning the 757 and forgot to engage one of the engine bleeds or something. 10 minutes after takeoff my right engine fails and I was forced to make a one engine landing. 

I have had one glaring mistake too. One time I took off in my Embraer 170 and shortly after takeoff engaged the NAV, VNAV, and A/T, but forgot to push the AP MAST. so I thought the autopilot was flying the plane when it wasn't so I went down right into the middle Kansas City.

I was in a Cessna 172 and I was in the mountains and I had 

I majorly underestimated how much fuel a 727 consumes. Ran out of fuel half way through my flight and crashed in the forests of Venezuela.

Took a picture right before impact:



That was 3 years ago. I'm now much better at calculating how much fuel I need.

I really cannot choose my "worst" mistake, because I'v made so many... however, the most surprising for me was when FSX ATC crashed me into a mountain in the north of Africa. "descend to 4000"... yeah, right! I was astonished: I honestli tought that could not happen!