Diary of a Private Pilot

If you’re looking for a little reading this afternoon, we highly recommend the following:

• Head over to Krista’s blog and congratulate her on becoming a pilot.
• Read this account of how good training overcame a stuck right throttle somewhere over FL.

Not much to report here. I’ve scheduled a couple of bookings, one this week for currency, and then a weekend in April for us to go somewhere (maybe Big Bear). Also talking to Bob about getting checked out in the club’s 210 so I can take it on a trip to Albuquerque.

Was reading some aviation magazines and blogs last night, mostly about “exciting” flights or accidents and it got me thinking that despite 300 hours of flying time I am still quite the ‘fair weather’ flyer. I find it hard to understand people who fly VFR into IMC because if the weather looks anything like it would be like that I don’t go, or I file IFR. Maybe this makes me a wuss, I don’t know. It obviously means I don’t fly as much as I could (though to be honest my wallet is the main captain of that decision).

Shortly after getting my Private certificate I took a short VFR trip to Riverside Municipal airport. Visibility was 4 miles which is VFR, right?! Getting to the LA basin I was met with a wall of haze, very hard to see much of anything. I had my Anywhere Map GPS showing me the way but it was not pretty. The tower gave me “suggested headings” to find the field but I can’t believe how late I saw it; the tower was still reporting 4 mi.

There are a few small hills on the way out of Riverside back to San Diego and I decided that my GPS would keep me out of the way. So, of course, on departure the PDA that was running the software froze and that was no longer an option. Some quick dead reckoning came up with turns and times and I was soon out of the murk and my heartrate back to normal. I called FlightWatch and RAL was still reporting 4 miles.

I really can’t believe that was 4 miles or, if it truly was, then I can’t believe that VFR minimums are 3 miles because I couldn’t see much of anything useful. So one of my personal minimums is 5 miles vis if I am going VFR, less than that and its IFR.

I’m flying to England for a week and a bit tomorrow so its a slow work day today. Whilst reading about rumours of a Virgin 747 gliding into JFK this week with all 4 engines out (as you guessed, its not true) I was reminded of probably the most famous of the few 4-engine out incidents - British Airways Flight 9.

Hopefully on my (two-engine) flight across the pond tomorrow I will not be hearing the infamous words: Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. We have a small problem. All four engines have stopped. We are doing our damnedest to get them going again. I trust you are not in too much distress

Amazing to think that no one was killed in this accident in which a plane landed on top of another just as it had touched down.

Another report I read reported that the accident pilot was transmitting on the wrong frequency and so did not hear the earlier pilot announce that he was on final, also. Obviously the second plane was on a higher path than the first and, being a low wing it would have been difficult to see beneath him. Either way, its incredible to think that at no time did he see the other guy. One of the dangers of uncontrolled airfields!

My flying club has had two prop strikes in two weeks recently, both in a Beech Duchess, leaving only one of our three twin-engineed planes in service. I don’t have any of the details other than one occurred at Oshkosh and the other locally at Montgomery Field. I expected both to appear in the NTSB accident database but so far I don’t see anything. I don’t know anything about these planes so I don’t know whether they have awkward landing characteristics (like the Cardinal) or if its just an unlucky coincidence. Either way, its a club rule that you have to write about your event in the club newsletter so all will possibly be revealed later in the year.

From news in Canada:

ROME, Ga. (AP) - A plane chartered to help a man propose to his girlfriend crashed, injuring the couple and the pilot, authorities said.

Relatives holding a sheet with “Erica, will you marry me?” painted on it watched from the ground as the Cessna 127 circled low over the airport, stalled and then crashed Friday evening.

The couple, Adam Sutton and Erica Brussee, and the pilot were taken to a hospital with injuries that did not appear to be life threatening, authorities said.

Brussee suffered a broken leg, and the other two had cuts and gashes.

As Brussee was loaded into the ambulance, she said: ” ‘Tell Adam I said yes,’ ” said Joshua Willis, Sutton’s cousin.

The ring was lost in the wreckage, he said.

Went to the airport this afternoon to watch, and listen to, the pattern. I find it very instructive to hear the different radio calls and responses, I hear things I like and try to use in the future, and sometimes I hear things that I make a note not to say in the future.

But one phrase started to bother me - looking for traffic. All too often it seemed to be an automatic response with no real conviction that the pilot really cared. Now that is no doubt a little harsh but on about 3 or 4 occasions a pilot on final was to be told traffic holding in position, departing before arrival. The response - looking for traffic. I don’t know how you can’t have that traffic in sight, its right where you’re looking right now.

This week the NTSB published the premiminary report on last week’s fatal mid-air collision over San Diego. It doesn’t really reveal much other than to confirm that the two planes took off within a minute of each other, both heading to the same nearby field.

Preliminary information supplied by the Federal Aviation Administration indicates that the Cessna 172RG was issued a takeoff clearance at 1638, and was subsequently handed off to the Southern California Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) facility. The Cessna 182Q had been in the traffic pattern at Gillespie performing touch-and-go landings and takeoffs and departed the traffic pattern at 1638 southbound toward Brown Field. The airplanes collided about 2,300 feet mean sea level (msl) approximately 3 miles south of Gillespie.

At first I had surmised that the 182 simply caught up with the 172 and didn’t see it but an eyewitness report confirms that they collided head-on, instead:

A witness, a professional airline pilot, … noted two airplanes were flying at an estimated 1,800 feet msl. One airplane was flying southwest bound, the other was flying east. The airplanes were in the Gillespie Field class Delta airspace when the airplane flying eastbound impacted the airplane flying southwest bound. The eastbound airplane impacted the right side of the southwest bound airplane.

A terrible accident, no doubt about that, but a reminder that see and avoid applies at all times whether VFR or IFR. Be extra vigilant when working near busy airports. We all know it, just need to make sure we all do it.

Yesterday two planes collided near the airport from which I fly, killing all occupants of both planes. A third plane may have been involved in the accident and is missing from the airport. The accident happened over a fairly dense population area but fortunately no body was seriously injured on the ground. There is a chilling picture in the San Diego Union Tribune article showing one of the planes falling out of the sky in flames. Too early of course for the NTSB report but once again we are reminded to be extra vigilant when operating close to an airport.
Update: Re-reading the articles I’m going to speculate that the 182 caught up with the 172 after take-off and didn’t see it. When I was getting my high performance endorsement in the 182 I was shocked at just how quickly we caught the proceeding traffic and, more alarmingly, how quickly we lost sight of it in the pattern. Of course the media is notoriously crap at reporting the facts, especially in an aviation accident, so it could all change in a day or two.

In the wake of the overrun accident at Chicago’s Midway airport, I found the following interesting PowerPoint presentation about managing threat when landing. Whilst it’s focussed on commercial operations (I have a hard job stabilising the 172 at 180 kts on approach!) I still found it interesting reading.

In other news, I’m off to Laughlin today, weather looks good for the trip. Not sure if we’ll show up as the trip will be made VFR but maybe you can catch us on FlightAware.com this afternoon or tomorrow morning. Also, I’ve been playing with my GPS and GoogleEarth maps and should get my first map out of this trip.