Chain of events - Behind the aircraft
Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2018 7:29 pm
I wanted to share an experience I had flying on PE. I was doing the CAT6 from BFL to MHV, which is VFR with Flight Following. When arriving MHV I was monitoring AWOS on COM2. This normally works but for some reason I was getting nothing. I double and triple checked the freq, but nothing. I even put it in COM1 and took a quick listen but got nothing. So I resolved to just advise the tower I was negative on AWOS.
However, this is where the next link of the chain came in. Because I was a little behind the aircraft I noticed I was like 5 miles from the airport and approach didn't send me to tower yet. So I called approach to say I had the airport in sight. They immediately sent me to tower. I called tower and received instructions to enter a right downwind for RWY 26. Now I was so far behind the aircraft at this point I didn't know which runway was which.
This is when the stall horn went off.
Yeah, I had been slowing and descending in anticipation of the arrival and I got "low and slow" as the saying goes. Too slow in this case. To my defense my real world training kicked in and I floored the throttle, pointed the nose down, and just flew the plane. Once out of that emergency I advised tower I was overwhelmed. He vectored me away from the airport to get things right.
Lessons learned:
1) Don't let one single thing suck your attention. Missing the AWOS started me down this path.
2) If you think the controller forgot about you then call him up.
3) I should have immediately notified the tower I was unable to comply with his instruction. Or, asked to be vectored away in the first place.
PE is such a great learning tool!
Thanks,
Vin
However, this is where the next link of the chain came in. Because I was a little behind the aircraft I noticed I was like 5 miles from the airport and approach didn't send me to tower yet. So I called approach to say I had the airport in sight. They immediately sent me to tower. I called tower and received instructions to enter a right downwind for RWY 26. Now I was so far behind the aircraft at this point I didn't know which runway was which.
This is when the stall horn went off.
Yeah, I had been slowing and descending in anticipation of the arrival and I got "low and slow" as the saying goes. Too slow in this case. To my defense my real world training kicked in and I floored the throttle, pointed the nose down, and just flew the plane. Once out of that emergency I advised tower I was overwhelmed. He vectored me away from the airport to get things right.
Lessons learned:
1) Don't let one single thing suck your attention. Missing the AWOS started me down this path.
2) If you think the controller forgot about you then call him up.
3) I should have immediately notified the tower I was unable to comply with his instruction. Or, asked to be vectored away in the first place.
PE is such a great learning tool!
Thanks,
Vin