What is your "oh Sh*t" moment?

[momalley81]

What a thread for my first post...

Most recent ones come to memory-

Taking off on a 1500' grass strip in a stripped down super cruiser (is there such a thing as a NICE banner plane?), field is cut out of the trees, and boardered by marsh, creeks, swamp and trees. At about 150', the engine starts missing and backfiring, but doesn't quit outright, surging, and not putting out much power though. Can't turn back, and nothing but swamp to land in, playing with the throttle, mags, carb heat, you name it. Finally got it started back up at about 20' while getting ready to flare.

Turns out one mag was firing at 23 degrees, the other at 33... hmm, no wonder it wasn't running right.

Few months later, under tow on the beach, noticing that I've been slowly adding throttle for the past couple of minutes to hold altitude. Decide to try and get home now while I can. Engine is starting to run real rough now, throttle's wide open and I'm at 400, losing 50 fpm.

Now I'm just trying to find a place to dump the brand new panel I was towing where we could recover it later. Looking around, I'm over the Atlantic Ocean, nope, we'll never see it again. The beach is out, I'd kill somebody in the process. Don't have enough altitidue to cut across the barrier island and dump it in the intercoastal waterway. Just pulled a 180, and hope I can get to the southern end of the island, clear the bridge, and dump it in the brown water.

Make the decision if I go below 100' I'm dumping the banner nomatter where I am. Trying to troubleshoot now; tried switching mags, no dice, left just about quit, same with right. Carb heat? Lost about 600 RPM, started coughing and backfiring, puffs of black smoke coming out of the stacks. Waited a few seconds, only got worse, wasn't carb ice.

Mixture? It seemed like it almost quit from being over-rich with carb heat... I cleared the bridge by about 50'. Engine slowly smoothed out with a leaner mixture, but the CHT's were WAY up there... started to pull power back now, I've got a gentle climb.

Made it home OK, all 4 bottem plugs were lead fouled, and the #4 was dripping with oil.

Cleaned the plugs, was back in the air in an hour. Started to lose power under tow again, was able to catch it earlier though, slight roughness. All that ran through my mind, not, "OH $H!T" but, "not again!"

Landed ok, pulled the jug, the piston pin had slipped somehow, and hand been rubbing against the cylinder wall. The end cap was gone, found after a brief search in the oil sump and screen, along with most of the compression and oil scavenging rings...

Plane was back in service in 2 days... <sigh>

- Mike

 

[328dude]

Losing a propeller blade over Corsicana, TX on a MU-2 for a nightly check run.

Oh "$hit" was worn out fairly quickly.

 

[HappyFlying]

I managed to spin the examiner during my private checkride. He didn't like the way I had been taught to set up for a power on stall so he made me do it his way. I ended up so nose high that I lost my visual reference. When it finally stalled, it broke hard left and went on its back. I recovered quickly but I thought I had busted the checkride. He said he would have failed me if he had to take the controls. The " oh Crap" was more from thinking I busted the checkride than the fact that I put us into the spin.

 

[navigator72]

My scary moments

1. While practicing power on stalls over the beach at 1500'. I put myself into a spin. I managed to recover to at 500'. made me rethink my training. to this day, I don't really care for stalls.

2. While on my long X-cnty for my commercial, I flew my last leg at about midnight IFR (1st time in actual by myself). The only approach at my home airport is the NDB (I busted my instrument checkride on that approach). About 10 miles out in heavy rain I was told to hold at the NDB, When I got to the NDB, I coud see the airport through a low scud layer, I cancelled IFR and started my steep spiral home, while turning base I flew right into the scud layer and went solid IFR. Without being IFR and having misplaced JAX centers frequency, I figured I would estimate when to turn final...
I turned a bit too soon, I managed to undershoot final. I am about a 3rd of the way down the runway at this point flying parallel the runway, with a big wall of clouds at the far end of the runway, I managed to side slip the plane and land on the last 3rd of the runway(the part where the runway lights are glowing bright red). I managed to lock up the brakes and not hydroplane on the wet runway too badly and stop at the very very very end of the runway. After a slow taxi back to the ramp. I went home and drank many beers. What did I learn from this: Next time I won't give in to the get home-itis and do things the right way!

 

[Clearsky]

Geez, I get scared just reading some of these posts...maybe boredom is a good thing.

 

[d328pilot]

1. Flying for a check company, we picked up a run flying urine and blood samples. I ended up blowing a cylinder off of the engine and made an emergency landing. I did not know what was worse, knowing that i might crash, or imagining how "messy" it would be if i did crash and survive.

2. Carb ice in an archer with the weather at 200 and a half. Being young and stupid, i failed to recognize it. I was on the approach and the plane ahead of me went missed. There have been other times that i have been scared, but this was the only time that i didnt think i was going to make it. I made the approach and never flew anything with a carburator again.....not really.

 

[JediNein]

*SIGH* from this last weekend...

7. Departing off a high altitude airport in cold weather, we (myself + A&P/IA advanced student pilot) used as much runway as expected, then didn't climb worth snot. The airplane doesn't climb worth snot on an average cold day at sea level, so I didn't notice the crummier performance. We threaded our way through the hills and mountains surrounding the airport, using every thermal possible to gain a few feet. We were well below any altitude required to return to the airport, so just took our sweet time climbing.

What I found most interesting was the silence of the tower. There had been three planes waiting to depart behind us, but ATC didn't let any of them go. We made it to 500' AGL about midfield downwind of our departure runway (15 MINUTES!) later and 2-3 miles away (ridge soaring), when ATC asked if we were coming back to the airport or continuing.

We let the airplane sit overnight, then diagnosed. A failed cylinder.... No possible way to detect the problem, unless I had turned the prop through twice on the preflight. No vibrations during flight, either.

Okay, rebuilt the cylinder that day, and departed at sunset. This time over mostly flat terrain and the well-lit, familiar Central Valley. The student handed over controls to me, had enough time to trim, hands off, breathe a sigh of *COUGH*. ****engine!

That was it, just one more grumble, with absolutely everything in premo shape, as far as we could tell on the ground once again. . . It didn't complain again on the rest of the trip home.

I agree with Avbug, there is no such thing as a perfectly good airplane.

Fly SAFE!
Jedi Nein

 

[antinein]

My worst oh sh!t moment is on going. If jedi nein has had so much happen to her in only 500 hrs, I get scared just thinking about her being in the same sky as me. She seems to be an "Oh sh!t" magnet. I dont quite follow most of her incoherent babble. Christ almighty! She should look for a new career, along the lines of librarian. Where you awake when these things happened? Or did you make them up as you typed them?

 

[pipers]

I was in Katana on my first solo x-counrty. I was in the pattern on downwind and the engine died at my initial power reduction because the fuel-pump wasn't working. I made it the runway and ended up landing without incident....needless to say it was an interesting introduction to aviation.

 

[JediNein]

antinein

My very own hate group. . .

*SNIFF*

I'm touched.

Charter membership is closed. The rest will have to pay membership fees. I'm sure we could set up a student rate, ex-military rate, and a youth rate.

Fly SAFE!
Jedi Nein