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Ever screw up an approach?

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JimG said:
My panel is loaded to the hilt with navaids
How many marker beacons can you put in your panel before you're weight and balance is out of omni range?
 
Quite awhile back after doing a recurrent six month captain check I decided to sit in the back and observe a relatively young first officer's initial captain ride just for kicks and thought something was up when the check airman started the cuss words, loud voice, etc. Come to find out once we got back on the ground that instead of circling to land to a different runway coming off of a VOR-A approach he landed on the wrong runway, to add insult to injury he was cleared for a low approach only in which he was suppose to shoot the missed and enter into the hold which he said he didn't get. I guess a bell should have went off in his head when we had only been up for .5 or so when all this transpired. His defense was he apparently couldn't hear both ATC and the check airman at the same time since he claimed to right side's radios were weak and distorted and thought the upgrade ride was over.

A few years later he is still a first officer, now just a more senior first officer.
 
Rogue5 said:
"Oh man, I set 200 above DH as our minimum..."

That's better than setting it 200' BELOW the DH. :)
 
In answer to the question, yes, many. One of the most glaring was on my CFII checkride. If anyone is familiar with the VOR-A approach into Danielson, CT (I forget the identifier and I'm too lazy to look it up) off of the Putnam VOR, you'll know that the approach track makes a turn over the VOR. I didn't make the turn. The examiner was being a tool the whole time, but the bust was legit. I'll never do that again.

Another more recent one, I was undergoing an IPC and we were shooting an ILS in an arrow, cieling was about 900', and I was flying. The approach was fine until I put the gear down, and I failed to get three in the green. I went missed to go figure out what the problem was. Turns out that I had turned the NAV lights on and the gear position indicators were dimmed so much that we couldn't see them in the day (this one got the instructor too--he didn't realize it either). Long story short, we turned the Nav lights off, got three in the green, landed, and didn't say much about it after that.

-Goose
 
I was flying a King Air 90 into an uncontrolled field in solid IMC (weather right at mins) to pick up a couple of our guys who had flown one of our Citations to the paint shop.

It was a VOR approach, which included a procedure turn to get established. From the time I entered the clouds descending down to the initial altitude, I was having trouble keeping the aircraft level. I kept trimming, and trimming, but never could get it to level out very well. Then I started the procedure turn inbound to the intercept and was cleared for the approach. As I started inbound I was still fighting to hold 3,000 feet, and now was crazily banking to the left and right. I would "level" the wings, only to realize I was in a 20-30 bank. I was paying so much attention to the trying to stabilize the altitude that I hadn't realized the leans had snuck up on me, and in an ugly way. I could literally level the wings, look away from the attitude indicator at the altimeter for two seconds, and look back and was in a 30+ deg bank again.

I crossed the first fix, descended to 1,800 feet, now fighting with keeping the VOR centered - which furthered agrravated the leans. Leveled off at my next altitude, and once again was crazily over banking. Didn't seem like anything I could do would right the situation. The second I got the altitude in line, I'd be in a big bank, the second the bank corrected, now my altitude was off again, and now I'm banking again, etc.. My body was screaming that the instruments had to be wrong, but I knew better, and had to just keep reminding myself "trust the instruments!"

Finally, I looked up and for the second time the airplane was going thru 45 degrees bank, and I was obviously way too far into the approach and too low to be continuing in this manner, so I just leveled off the airplane, got everythign stablized, then cranked in the power and climbed out of the clouds and went missed. I just remember before I went missed that I had the thought "if you continue this, your probably going to kill yourself..." and that was all the reasoning I needed to go missed.

I came back around and used the autopilot to shoot the approach and handflew it uneventfully the last couple miles inbound.

Never had the leans before or since, but I have an extremely healthy respect for them now, and always take a quick check of myself before handflying approaches in IMC now.
 
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A flight not too long ago going into a NE airport with ceilings 100' VV and 1800 RVR (appraoch) and 1800-0 RVR (mid)...brought us down for the first approach with nothing in sight...no lights, no ground (this was all at night, so the lights usually will help)... missed to go around and try it again. Cleared for the approach with the warning that the ILS Crit area "is not protected." Yeah, that's right, an airport down to minimums and they are not protecting the Crit area. So this appraoch goes well and at DH we are a little right of course (1/2 dot) and we get the rabbits in sight, shortly after we see the runway end lights, AND the 737 sitting right in front of us holding for the runway. I quickly put it in a bank to line up with the runway and as we touch down my co-pilot says he could have reached out and touched the 73 if we had continued any longer without that correction. So two points to this story... 1. try your damndest to keep that course centered on an approach, and 2. always make sure that the Crit area is clear if you are shooting a super low appraoch like that.

"dangdest" huh..man the censor even got that?!
 
"How many marker beacons can you put in your panel before you're weight and balance is out of omni range?"

Oops.....I guess I shouldn't have been in such a hurry to post so I could go to bed last night....



"I came back around and used the autopilot to shoot the approach and handflew it uneventfully the last couple miles inbound."

Out of curiosity, why wouldn't you have done that the first time?

As a habit, all the approaches I have flown, or flights through clouds have been with an autopilot either tracking the course, or a heading bug on the approach and me on the edge of my seat watching it.
 
JimG said:
As a habit, all the approaches I have flown, or flights through clouds have been with an autopilot either tracking the course, or a heading bug on the approach and me on the edge of my seat watching it.

Really? What's wrong with hand-flying in a little IMC?
 
Fury220 said:
Really? What's wrong with hand-flying in a little IMC?


Nothing I guess if it's "a little IMC" and there are no rocks in the clouds.

Problem is, IMC out west isn't usually "little" and the clouds all have rocks in them down low (when climbing/decending).

All of the approaches I have flown have been surrounded by rocks too, so there's not alot of room for error. Even the few along the California coast I've flown in/out of (SAN comes to mind first) are surrounded by hills.

Plus....I don't have alot of actual IMC time for the above reasons combined with ice that's usually found in clouds here from October through April.

It's a personal thing I guess. I hand fly most of the time when practicing approaches, or flying cross country (with a check pilot) under a hood, but when it's the real thing, I want all the help I can get.
 

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