BOOZENEWS
I LOVE being on top!!
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2005
- Posts
- 136
On Monday night my CFI and I flew to Farmingdale. I was under the hood and was given a 220 hdg to intercept the NDB rwy 1 final approach outbound and then reported PT inbound. We were about 8NM offshore and descended to 1100ft as published once established inbound. I told my CFI that I wanted stay at 2000 because we were over water at night with not even a lifejacket with us. He talked me into descending lower as per the app plate since the engine was running perfectly normally from the start. For about 5 minutes we were clearly beyond gliding distance from shore, if the engine had suddenly quit we certainly would have been killed from hypothermia, 10 min later! Going into FRG I knew being offshore might be a possibility but in a moment of weakness I accepted the huge, albiet slight risk for 5 min of the flight. In hindsight I used very bad judgement IMHO since there was a CERTAINTY of us being killed if we had to ditch for any reason. I take full responsibility for my judgement lapse and blame no one else including ATC and my CFI. I didn't want to do the visual app but rather fly an NDB which led me into this. I should have been assertive w/ATC and since my CFI had more faith in the engine than i did. I just went with the flow and had the "only this one time" attitude. FYI the C-172 that i flew that night has regular maintnance including 50 hr oil changes, oil analysis every oil change, compressions in the mid 70's for all 4 cyls, 1qt every 8 hrs or so and 100 hr inspections since its a rental. Also, how likely is it really for a healthy engine like this with so sign of trouble to just suddenly with no warning give up? Gotta think its slim, but again the consequences of a failure here were more dire than over the Rockies at night in solid IMC!!! I am new to this site so please no flame bait!
How many of you see this being as risky as I do? How many of you would have skimpped and done this as I did? Just how much risk is too much? Again I do take full responsibility for this and have learned not to do it again.
How many of you see this being as risky as I do? How many of you would have skimpped and done this as I did? Just how much risk is too much? Again I do take full responsibility for this and have learned not to do it again.