Fess up... dumbest thing you've done in a plane

[Boss_BlueAngels]

LOL... well, this may not get too much of a response here... but, what are some of the dumbest things you've done in a plane?

I'll go first...

I managed to be a test pilot for a few moments once... I actually tookoff in a Cessna 150 with full (40*) flaps once!  I had just done a full stop landing and had to back-taxi (at a small airport with no taxiways, you just go to the end of the runway you landed on, turn around and taxi back down the runway) and the little switch that does the flaps is kinda tricky.  To lower the flaps you have to hold it down... 3 seconds equals 10* of flaps... but to raise them, the flap switch has two detents... "neutral" and "up."  In neutral... the flaps are at whatever setting you previously had... in the "up" position, the lever sticks so that you can raise the flaps without having your hand on the lever... but one time my instructor warned me that just leaving that lever in the full "up" position can put strain on the electrical system and short out the motor and when they flaps are up... lower it to the neutral spot.  Well, on this solo flight, apperantly I only left the flap lever in the neutral spot.  The roll was noneventful, but as soon as I was in the air I had the right pitch attitude, but something didn't feel right.  I looked at the ASI and it was at 45!! lol  Tach, temps, and pressures were all OK and I was quite puzzled as to why the plane wouldn't fly!  I lowered the nose, and even at a level attitude the thing only got up to like 60... I started looking around for someplace to land if the engine went out, and as I glanced over my right shoulder... I noticed my problem... WHOA!! FLAPS!!! lol  I raised them and all was well, except I almost had to land to change my pants. lol  

Um, another time with an instructor I don't really care for, I had just taken off of the runway, and was starting to turn direct to the VOR, when suddenly my stomach dropped, as I just realized that I had never even done a RUN UP!!!  No mag-check, no aux vacuum pump check, nothing!  Needless to say I was kinda edgy the rest of that flight... as the thing that freaked me out the most was not that I had ommitted that step, but that MY INSTRUCTOR missed it too!!  lol  I remember he kept rambling on about something to do with the GPS or something because he didn't like the order of how I did things.  


So.... anyone else wanna share a few things? lol

[Nexus]

Got lost in VOR flying, nothing really funny, more sloppy  :) For some reason I didn't fly the intended 120 radial, but the 170...don't ask me how the heck that happened  :(

QDM saved me  ;D

[Mobius]

I was flying once on a solo cross-country and I thought I kept hearing a whistling noise, but everything was reading in the green and averything looked good.  So a little later I was flying over a checkpoint that was a VOR so I decided to find the VOR building on the ground to see how close I was to being on course.  I leaned over to look out the right window to see the VOR and the whistling got louder, so I looked down to see the building and I noticed the right door was open!  It doesn't sound too bad but to a newly soloed pilot on his first solo cross-country, looking down a slightly opened door to the ground 4500 ft below was somewhat startling.  So, if you've ever had to close the door in a car while going down the road at 30 mph, think about doing it at 130 mph almost a mile up.

Another time I accidentally flew a right-hand pattern at a controlled airport (KOSH) where the controller told me to fly a left-hand pattern, but I already wrote about that one.  Oops.

[beefhole]

Ugh, this one is emberrasing...

Once, probably on about my fifth lesson, we had the plane in it's proper position for shutdown and pushback into it's parking spot.  For some reason, my mind was just else where.  When Zack said "alright, shut 'er down", I did something very dumb.  Instead of following the shutdown checklist, I just reached for the key and turned it to off (insert distorted, uncomfortable face from reader here ).  Zack quickly said "NO! You'll ruin the cylinders!" in time for me to move it back to start, then both.  The engine was fine, but man did I feel dumb. :-/

[Mobius]

I've heard that some people actually use the ignition to turn their engine off instead of leaning the mixture, but I've never done that and I have always leaned it myself.  I know what you're talking about, those days when you just feel like your head is somewhere else (not in the clouds unfortunately ).   I hate that feeling.

[chomp_rock]

I once broke the flap control handle of a Cessna 150, I was on the ground though.

I also left a door partway open for most of a flight and in the process my handheld com radio fell out. I was at 6,000ft and over the beach when it happened, I often wonder what became of my HT and wonder if a swimmer or diver will ever find it...

[Hagar]

Many years ago when everyone had gone home after the local air display I had to taxi our club aircraft back to the hangar right across the other side of the airfield. I did this every day & was so used to it I got a tad careless. It's impossible to see over the the nose of the Tiger Moth while on the ground so you're supposed to weave from side to side to look where you're going. I got half-way across the grass field when I felt a bump & the stick jumped over to hard right, Then before I realised what had happened I felt a bump on the tail. I then realised that I'd run over a large plastic bag full of rubbish. On looking over my shoulder I saw what looked like a multi-coloured tornado of waste paper, ice cream wrappers & all sorts of stuff making its way across the airfield in my prop wash.

Fortunately the airport was closed at the time & after careful inspection the aircraft was found to be completely undamaged. Strangely enough, nobody ever mentioned it but this taught me a valuable lesson.

PS. I've done a few other daft things in my time but this is the only one I'm prepared to admit to in public.

[beaky]

Hmmm... I've forgotten to raise flaps my share of times,and have whacked my head during preflight, too-  always good for a laugh... but the dumbest thing I think I ever did occured at TEB when I was on a solo training flight, and made such a wonderful short landing that I was able to exit onto the first taxiway (which was, conveniently, the nearest one to the FBO's ramp). I was so pleased with myself that instead of waiting for the tower to tell me where to get off (no pun intended), I just started to turn, for some reason not noticing another plane taxiing on the same (narrow) taxiway towards the runway!! "What are you doing?!" the controller hollered. I sheepishly apologized and turned back onto the runway (fortunately, nobody was on final). He then directed me to the next taxiway, which goes the other way, creating a long detour. He probably would've sent me even farther down if he wasn't about to clear the other guy for takeoff...

[dan741749]

on the flight before my ppl checkride my CFI was telling me that they will try to distract me to see how I fly under pressure like that, well, he did a good job of simulating that. Tower was talking to me and trying to tell me to extend my downwind leg but I missed the call, the first 3 times.  I heard the controller talking and I heard what he was saying and I was wondering why that aircraft wasn't responding. I look over at my CFI and he's staring at me. Not sure what I was thinking (or what I wasn't) but I got chewed a new one for that.

[Rocket_Bird]

I was walking in a hanger full of King Air's... acting like i was in heaven (ill admit it, its my favorite plane), I tripped over a tow bar...  Thats probably the funniest dumbest thing..

In the flying aspect... ive talked over people in Class C airspace before 5 minutes later, after not hearing a response, I realized that my radio volume was too low for the range... doh!

[ozzy72]

Flying with my wheels pointed to the ground at some point other than take-off and landing

[N556EP]

For all You PT6 guys. I was dispatching and watched a line service guy pull the GPU form the aircraft then went to marshall it out then all of a sudden white smoke was pouring out of the engine. I found it was a traingin flight and after talking with the captian he told me that hes student was taxing out and went to pull the throttle into ground fine put pulled the condition lever to cut off and after realzing he pulled the wrong one, he quickly pushed it mack foward, but it dosnt work like that once you pull the condition lever to cutoff it cuts off the fuel. and with out an igition source he was just dumping fuel into the engine and it was burning up. I though it was pretty funny. But not for him
 

[Rocket_Bird]

[quote]For all You PT6 guys. I was dispatching and watched a line service guy pull the GPU form the aircraft then went to marshall it out then all of a sudden white smoke was pouring out of the engine. I found it was a traingin flight and after talking with the captian he told me that hes student was taxing out and went to pull the throttle into ground fine put pulled the condition lever to cut off and after realzing he pulled the wrong one, he quickly pushed it mack foward, but it dosnt work like that once you pull the condition lever to cutoff it cuts off the fuel. and with out an igition source he was just dumping fuel into the engine and it was burning up. I though it was pretty funny. But not for him

[N556EP]

Not to worry, They motored it, twice in fact. Then let it cool and did a run up and all systems were go.

[RitterKreuz]

Rocket bird i did something similar to your tow bar trip.

I was following my CFI through a hanger... he wasnt doing any sight seeing and i WAS. so in looking around at all the jets and king airs etc in this huge hangar my next foot step landed right in an OIL PAN!!!  ::)

just as my left foot was coming up off the ground to take a step i realized what happened and i was on one foot for a split second... and that one foot was in 1/4 inch of oil and here i stand trying like hell to keep balanced. My CFI heard the commotion and looked around but i had already freed myself from the pan of oil. "What was that?" he said

Looking around... my reply was

"Hmm i dunno"

hahahahahaha

had quite a bit of cleaning off of the shoe to take care of though.