What is your "oh Sh*t" moment?

[starvingcfi]

antinein = my hero

 

[Rumrunner]

While flying in MN last winter, decided to take my wife up in the Bonanza while I polished up my Commercial Manuevers. It was a beautiful day and we were planning on getting an early start after we stopped for breakfast at Perkins. (I had the eggs benedict...this will be important later on) After arriving at the airport and preflighting the a/c, things were looking really favorable for a quick brush-up on the manuevers and possibley a short cross country. Taxi and takeoff were normal and flying out to the practice area was non eventful except for the occassional stomach rumbling, and it wasn't because I was hungry. I flew straight and level trying to buy time hopeing my stomach would settle down, and after a few minutes it did. So now's the time I get to impress my wife with my complete mastery of the aircraft by showing how to execute the perfect lazy 8. Things were looking great, so on to the steep turns, 50 degrees of bank and what's that load factor? Oh yea this may not have been such a great idea now what? Back to straight and level hoping things settle back down and we can return to the airport. No such luck I was starting to sweat, my palms were dripping wet and I'm sure all the color was now gone from my face as I tried to maintain composure and control of the aircraft all the while trying to figure out if I was going to make it the 20 miles back to the home field. Nope not going to make it, start looking for an alternative, found one. I put the nose over, keep the power up and made probably the quickest decent and pattern entry on record followed by really quick RUN to the FBO. Now I had to explain everything to my wife and needless to say I didn't really impress her.
That was literally my "Oh Sh*t moment"

 

[ceo_of_the_sofa]

How do you deal with sh!t like this in flight? Not to 7500 the whole thread, but what if ya really got that number two rumblin' due to gas expansion and all...and there ain't a field in sight? Anyone ever hit the autopilot and do it airline style?

 

[A Squared]

TXCAP:

>>>>>>>Is your sense of well being (avition skill, flying ability, manliness...) So affected by her that you have to identify yourself as her contradiction?? Freud would have a field day with you.

Perhaps the antinein is just annoyed by her inane and disjointed ramblings and feels like poking fun at her. Like Freud said: "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"

Chunk, I got my private note from her for politely questioning her statement (on another board) that;
"You will learn more about airplanes, aviation, and business in the first year of running that school than you will in decades sitting front seat of an airliner." (genuine unedited jedinein quote)



regards

 

[Chunk]

JediNut X-High Master of the Rubber Room

Wow...now that's what I call an inflated ego! Unfortunately, she didn't make any such statement to me, but she did ask me to stop the "campaign of slurs" that just "makes [me] look bad".

From someone who normally comments on *everything*, it's awfully quiet. *crickets*

I can just see her talking to herself..."They're all just jealous. I won't respond because that will just feed them more. They are all just stupid boys who doesn't know just HOW hard it is to be the assisted shift manager of a flight school every third Sunday"

Chunk

 

[Chunk]

Jedi9's ALL over the 'net!

Here's a few excerpts from www.jetcareers.com . Jedi9 is over their quite a bit.

On how much a Private Cert. costs at her flight school:

The Chief CFI's time, 90 hours, aircraft rental of 60 hours, checkride; and pilot supplies including books, headset, flight bag, case, charts, and so on:
90 hours * $100 = $9000 (50 hours flight time, 40 hours ground instruction)
60 hours * $85 = $5100 (60 hours aircraft rental, less if flies more often, or $600 less in other aircraft)
$300 for checkride
$600 for the pilot supplies.
Total = $15,000

Use one of the other instructors, not the CCFI, and the other aircraft:
90 hours * $50 = $4500 (50 hours flight time, 40 hours ground instruction)
60 hours * $75 = $4500 (60 hours aircraft rental, less if flies more often)
$300 for checkride
$600 for the pilot supplies.
Total = $9,900

After this training, the IFR can take $8000 or more, depending the proficiency of the pilot and their private training.


It's difficult to explain the "why" behind the prices on-line or in phone conversations. This is a different kind of flight school. I know for a fact that the training I received through this school has saved the lives of three people, including mine, during a flight where there was very little time to think (measured in nanoseconds), and the first decision had to be the right decision

******************************************

OK! Sooooooo, 15 large for a Private, 8 for an instrument. But there's a reason it's so much....it saved her life! Well, someone asked about the "saved my life" bit so she then spouts:


Some personal background to this story… When the Chief Instructor for the American Bonanza Society crashed in IMC after a vacuum failure, I stopped flying IFR. If this instructor that WROTE the IFR training program for their refresher clinics couldn’t survive gyro failure, how could I?

Here goes:

At the time of this incident, the instructor had given less than nine hours of training over the previous four months towards my regaining IFR currency and proficiency. I had almost one hour in the right seat working on the CFII.

Ten thousand plus hour pilot in left seat. Flown in all sorts of conditions including a 3 hour hard IMC flight the previous week. I’m riding right seat for the fun of it. Pilot is taking aircraft owner’s son to summer camp. The son is not a pilot and sitting back seat. We are in IMC and the pilot, also an aircraft maintenance technician, is evaluating the autopilot’s function. He finds the autopilot will not couple to the nav, but will hold heading and altitude. A while into the clouds, I notice we are rolling into a medium right bank for no apparent reason. The pilot complains about the autopilot not coupling again, but we were in heading hold mode.

I had less than three seconds to figure out which, if any, flight instruments were telling me the truth looking at them from the right seat. This process is not in any book. In fact, the only way to get this process is attend one of our WINGS Seminars (free) or obtain training at this flight school. Then I had to battle for the controls as the pilot was completely disorientated and who knew what trim the autopilot had left us.

When I recovered the aircraft, we were about to exceed red line airspeed, over 60 degrees of bank, over 10 degrees pitch down, and the VSI was pegged down. The autopilot had disconnected during this so the aircraft was very much out of trim. Passing through 500 feet below our assigned altitude, my hearing returned to ATC screaming at us to climb. The passenger didn’t know a thing as the pilot had the intercom on “crew isolate.” A few more seconds and the NTSB would be investigating P210 confetti from the inflight breakup.

I logged that flight as dual given. I figured I’d earned it.

*******************************************

My personal favorite is the line "In fact, the only way to get this process is attend one of our WINGS Seminars (free) or obtain training at this flight school. "

BWAHAHAHAHA!

Go check out www.jetcareers.com for more! Plus, it's a really good site run by a Delta pilot who puts a lot of personal time and effort into it.


Now, I'm not trying to beat up on her, but this story is beyond the pale! She spouts her BS stories on every board and I've tried to be nice, but antinein has inspired me to speak out!

Chunk


PS---Here's another quote from jedinein:


It's a serious question. I can usually figure out a pilot by the time we're taxiing. Other instructors tell me as I gain experience, I'll be able to figure 'em out by the time we've walked to the airplane.

*********************

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ms. Cleo.

 

[starvingcfi]

am i the only one that's confused? could just be lack of sleep. who is sticking up for jedi and who is making fun of her? jesus. you guys are so hard to read. again, i'm sure my lack of sleep plays some role. let's have a show of hands. who's siding with who? oh, and by the way, why are we siding? haha. i'm gonna close my eyes and think about this one for 7-8 hours or so.

sleepingcfi

 

[TurboS7]

When I first saw this thread I avoided it as we have all had a lot of 'ol'sh9t" experiences. I have found that when you relate them most pilots just "shoot holes all in what happened" and what you want to teach just turn into a mudsling fest. So I guess I share a few stupid moment so my life. These were all times that I thought I was going to meet my Creator within the next seconds, but somehow I am still here. Maybe this will save some of you guys hides someday.
The first was flying checks out of MDW somewhere around 1984. Most check flying is hustle, hustle, I was flying an Aztec on a check run that was designed for a C-310 or Baron. Time was a real problem but I found that I could keep the schedule by using the "short-field" aspects of the Aztec to get in and out of MDW in a hurry. I loaded my checks and went to the intersection of the active and took off. I was on my way to STL, but I was VFR, to save time. I leveled at 1500 feet and set the power at 25X25. Suddenly I heard a racket outside the airplane, I was horrified to see the "co-pilot" seat-belt outside the door smashing up my beautiful paint-job(the Aztec was newly acquired and had a beautiful new paint job) So I put the auto-pilot on and released my seatbelt and opened the cabin door to retrieve the seatbelt. I was not ready for what happened. The door riped out of my hands and went all the way to the stops, at the same time the aircraft went into a 60 degree dive towards the ground. I disconnected the A/P and pulled back for all I was worth, nothing happened, down we went. I grabbed the door with one hand and pulled it shut but couldn't get it latched, but the elevator started flying and we leveled off at 900 feet MSL. I returned to MDW and landed with one hand holding the door and flying with the other. I latched the door and took off for STL. I will never forget what I thought as I was hurling toward mother earth. They will never figure why this one crashed. .... Part I. I have 2 more stories that I will put up but I have found if the thread get too long that they get too hard to manage.

 

[saabtrash]

I was working on my private, haden't even soloed yet. My instructor was demonstrating a short field landing, coming over a 50 ft obstacle at the threshold. He stalled the plane and dropped a wing when we were about 50 ft off the ground. Somehow he recovered (not with skill) at about ten feet, unfortunately there was an airshow going on at the same time, when he stalled the plane and dropped the wing, we started heading for a set of bleachers filled with people. Probably ended up missing them by a good 100 ft, but we were heading right at them for a second or two. Scared the crap out of all of them, unfortunately the owner of the FBO was in the audience. He wasn't too happy with him. Unfortunately my instructor lied to me and said it was caused by windshear. Being a brand new student pilot, I believed him. It wasn't until a few years later that I found out he was a compulsive liar, and that he had stalled the plane. 100% ture, I swear.

 

[TurboS7]

Part II- This time I am in another part of the world. Since the MDW incident I have quit my Part 135 moved to FLL, flown for one year with MAF's DC-3 and 402 program. It has been shut down, EAL has come and gone and I am out on the street trying to make a living for my at the time 5 kids. I am flying for a local 402 operation. The night before we all were loading the aircraft and getting it ready for the cargo flight the next morning. I was to be flying the flight. In our converstion we were talking about a crash of a C-402 that crashed going into a local island airstrip killing all on board. We all knew the pilot and he was very cautious and careful, yet he died. It was found that the cable that holds the flap down had broken and the NTSB felt that was a cause of the accident. Our discussion covered what we would have done, what the aircraft would have done ,etc.
I took off at 0530 the next morning with the 402 on a non-stop flight to PAP, I was to drop off some cargo and go to CAP, with the balance of the cargo. At CAP I would reinstall the seats(I have an A+P) and try and pick up some pax back to the states. I landed at PAP right on time got a quick turn and flew VFR through the mountains up to CAP. I buzzed right past the Citidel ( a castle) and started on my decent to land at CAP. I was cleared to land when I was 20 miles out. I was going about 190 kts and I know I was going to have to slow the bird down. 4 miles out went with one notch of flaps and dropped the gear. I was waiting for the flap extention speed,at about 100 feet. Right at the speed I extended the flaps, just then I heard a POP, just like the sound of a .45 pistol. Because of the discussion the night before I knew what had happened. At the same time I was looking at a cow through the upper part of the windshield. I put the flaps up and went to full power on the lower engine combined with full airleron and rudder. The roll stopped at about 240 degrees and I brought it back leveling off at 30 feet and landed. I remember thinking just before the roll stopped, "So this is why that 402 crashed"......... I ferried the airplane home for maint.
Note:I messed up and put Part III on the forum, if you are interested you can find it there. Dave