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Your most boneheaded mistake as a CFI

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Airway

Reserving
Joined
Jun 19, 2004
Posts
75
We all make mistakes, even as CFIs.

I think I topped the bunch today, though! I was going up on my own to practice some ADF work, and the winds were out of the West, and we have runway 6x24.

I got cleared to taxi to 24, and since lately the winds have always been out of the North lately, I by habit taxi to 6. Ground never tells me anything. So I go to the runup area, do my run up, hold short of the runway and announce holding short at 6 for W.Bound dept, and tower says wind280/12 runway 6 clr for takeoff. So as I begin to taxi to the rwy it hits me. 280/12...rwy 6?

So I call up the tower and ask them to taxi to 24 and admit my stupidity.

Anyone done anything stupider? I was embarassed...though I wonder why they never told me. They were closing in 15 min maybe they were looking for their keys.
 
Why didn't they tell ya? Not a big deal...didn't run into anyone or cause a LOS so...why bug ya bout it, right?

I've done the same.

"N123 taxi to 32"
"Taxi to 32, N123"

Sure enough...I end up at 23 rrrrready to go...

biggest bonehead thing? hmm....

I p!$$ed off the tower controller in my Student days. I was doing touch and go's with a CFI and we were climbing out on left crosswind and the controller issued a clearance that there's NO WAY I could have complied with...but no callsign went with the clearance so I replied "Was that for N123?"

ooooh boy...that lit up some fireworks....but I wasn't a CFI thing, so I don't know if that counts....I had a CFI in the plane...do I get 1/2 a point?

-mini
 
Not a CFI, but awhile ago I spaced and forgot to verify 'flaps up' in the 172 during the 'go' part of a touch-and-go. That didn't hurt me nearly as much as how I reacted could have; out of habit (from what you usually do while still rolling on the runway) I pulled them all up 60' off the ground.

Recovered about 10' agl... it's like forgetting to verify carb heat OFF for a touch-and-go. You've done it god knows how many times before... but it's a good argument for the importance of VERIFYING the checklist items you think you've got licked.

MFR
 
minitour said:
"N123 taxi to 32"
"Taxi to 32, N123"

Sure enough...I end up at 23 rrrrready to go...
It gets worse when the controllers are the ones with the dyslexia.... fun times at OUN! :nuts:

MFR
 
Airway said:
Anyone done anything stupider?

Oh, hell yes.

Doing touch-and-go's in a Beech Sierra, with a commercial student. I made the grievous mistake of letting my attention wander from said student's right hand. Instead of flap retraction, guess what I got?

Crrrrrrunch! A propeller at T/O RPM makes a fantastic brake.

In front of a fully-crowded patio at the airport restaurant, too. My self-image has never fully recovered (but that's a good thing). IMO, most training incidents and accidents can be traced to complacency (fancy word for CFI overconfidence and/or burnout) -- it's a killer.
 
Airway said:
We all make mistakes, even as CFIs.

I think I topped the bunch today, though! I was going up on my own to practice some ADF work, and the winds were out of the West, and we have runway 6x24.

I got cleared to taxi to 24, and since lately the winds have always been out of the North lately, I by habit taxi to 6. Ground never tells me anything. So I go to the runup area, do my run up, hold short of the runway and announce holding short at 6 for W.Bound dept, and tower says wind280/12 runway 6 clr for takeoff. So as I begin to taxi to the rwy it hits me. 280/12...rwy 6?

So I call up the tower and ask them to taxi to 24 and admit my stupidity.

Anyone done anything stupider? I was embarassed...though I wonder why they never told me. They were closing in 15 min maybe they were looking for their keys.

yes, it took me .003 seconds to realize that stupider isnt a word. i guess my reaction time is getting higher with my age :)
 
These examples are ridiculously tame. Flying is all about correcting mistakes. That's all I see written above. I'll pass on contributing however. I have to go to bed in an hour and I'd need more time than that.

Mr. I.
 
Lead Sled said:
I made a mistake once... I thought that I had made a mistake. I was wrong.

'Sled

booyah!
 
MFRskyknight said:
It gets worse when the controllers are the ones with the dyslexia.... fun times at OUN! :nuts:

MFR

Hey, MFR Yes Fun at OUN the controllers had a hard time with 7676U hahaha Especialy the one A-hole controller that kept asking me is i was sure i wanted to taxi to airman hehehe! Or when they asked if my airplane was one of airmans new airplanes.

Then you had that one instructor & de on his Instructor ride do a Gear Up Landing!

MFR, you still in Portland? What are you doing tomorrow afternoon or evening? Weather should be fun!!! If you want in the afternoon if you pay fuel we can go burn a few holes in the sky land and have a beverage & a local strip club?
 
MFRskyknight said:
It gets worse when the controllers are the ones with the dyslexia.... fun times at OUN! :nuts:

MFR

I see a couple of people went to Airman. What a joke. My instructor was the most unmotivated person that I have ever flown with. We would be out for 45 minutes and he would say, "Allright, you've got the idea.. lets take it back in. I'll put 1.5 in your logbook and we'll call it a day" F that. Another time my instructor called to cancel on me, he said that TAF was calling for T storms in an hour and clouds were rolling in. I was inside my hotel studying (POS Days Inn) with the shades shut, so I didn't know any better. I look outside and to my surprise I am blinded by the sun, it took my 10 minutes to find any clouds. I came out of there with only my CFI-I completed (no CFIA) I could give private students instrument training but nothing else. And who could forget good ole' Dale. He could explain any concept in Aviation to a 3rd grader and they would understand completely. But that only goes so far, and neverending analogies (while entertaining) are not useful to CFI applicants. Wow, I could go on forever about that place.

Anyway most boneheaded thing I did with a student was sign him off before he was ready. I was in the tower at a class D airport watching the calamity unfold. Taxiing without a clearance after botched landings. Doing a touch and go after I told him several times not to. I even made him repeat that back. On his final landing he porpoised over and over until the plane ran out of energy. At least the guys in the tower were cool. I flew the plane back home after that.
 
Back when I was a student pilot (I’m am now a cfi) on my very first flight, my instructor called up clearance delivery and got our departure clearance and then proceeded to taxi to the run-up area. We did our run-up and he looked at the radio and said “oh ********************!” He then calls up ground only to get a ear full.

That’s about all. I just got my cfi and only have a few hours with it.:nuts: Probably in a few weeks I will have a good story though.
 
Doing manuevers in an Arrow and needed to put the gear down for one. Pull the handle down hear the motor running and feel the gear coming down. I look at the gear lights and do not see the three green. I tell my student to abort the maneuver and let's figure out what the heck is going on. I go through the checklist and still cannot get the three green lights. I call up maintenance on the company frequency and explain the situation. They give me all correction methods and nothing is working. Finally he asks me "Are the Nav lights on?" Duhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! While doing the pre-manuever checklist my student put on the NAV lights and I never noticed. Granted I was a fairly new CFI at the time. Maybe I had 50 hrs dual given. My most embarassing moment yet because I was ready to call ATC and tell them to prepare for an emergancy landing.
 
SBD said:
Doing manuevers in an Arrow and needed to put the gear down for one. Pull the handle down hear the motor running and feel the gear coming down. I look at the gear lights and do not see the three green. I tell my student to abort the maneuver and let's figure out what the heck is going on. I go through the checklist and still cannot get the three green lights. I call up maintenance on the company frequency and explain the situation. They give me all correction methods and nothing is working. Finally he asks me "Are the Nav lights on?" Duhhhhhhhhh!!!!!! While doing the pre-manuever checklist my student put on the NAV lights and I never noticed. Granted I was a fairly new CFI at the time. Maybe I had 50 hrs dual given. My most embarassing moment yet because I was ready to call ATC and tell them to prepare for an emergancy landing.

OK, you got me here.... the gear indication lights don't come on if the nav lights are on? I can't imagine that would be true, but that *seems* to be what you're saying. Or maybe I'm missing something here
 
During the day time if you turn on the nav lights the gear indicator lights are dimmed.
 

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