Never again on PE - share your mistakes

arb65912
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by arb65912 »

I think, I know what I want for Christmas beside X-Plane Version 10... :D . Thank you, Steve.
Steven Winslow
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Steven Winslow »

There's a Chinese proverb that says, "When in a hurry, dress slowly." I think it applies to flight prep as well. I was excited to join in the Coastal Caper this afternoon and was already an hour late in starting. I decided to fly our Alaskan Air Service DHC-6 Twin Otter from SMO down to SAN. I filed my flight plan, which was not the assigned route. I was pleased with myself for selecting a departure procedure that fit the general route that Keith had posted, but it was not to be what ATC assigned. The first mistake I made this afternoon was using the wrong call sign. I had entered my Air Northwest call sign when I logged on, but when I called for clearance, I used the tail number of the plane. Ugh! Once we got that straightened out, I was given the clearance and I was so flustered I had to have the controller read it again. I had already entered my flight plan into my GPS and was surprised, and irritated, that ATC assigned me something other than what I had filed. It took me several minutes looking at my Low En Route charts to figure out what I had been instructed. Once I got over my irritation at the change in route, I went about readying my radios and preparing for departure. I set my OBS to the appropriate LAX radial, called for taxi and departure and finally got into the air. It felt good to be on my way and things were going great, but not for long. As I successfully intercepted the LAX radial and made my turn from runway heading, shortly thereafter, I was cleared direct SLI. I quickly adjusted my HSI and turned to what it told me was SLI. (I had ditched the thought of using GPS before departure) I was tooling along for a minute or so, quite pleased that I had successfully departed MSO as cleared, when ATC came on and asked me to verify I was heading direct SLI. I replied I was and said my heading indicator said I was. As the controller stated it looked like I was going in the opposite direction, I remembered that the "TO" and "FROM" flags are different in this plane and realized I was indeed going the exact opposite direction! Ugh...again! Embarrassingly, I turned to head SLI direct. From that point on, the flight was uneventful, other than the weather. I was happy to be on the ground at SAN after the crosswind landing in the Twin Otter. Now that I've had a chance to consider the events of earlier today and replenished myself with a Big Mac (hadn't had one in 10 years or so) I think I'm ready to head back to SMO. This time I will not get flustered, flabbergasted, vexed, stymied, peeved, irked, chafed, exasperated, nettled or rattled if, or when, I am handed a different clearance than filed. This time I will be familiar with my aircraft and all of it's controls, gauges and instruments. Thanks to the controllers who showed me patience and respect when I probably didn't deserve either one. It was yet another learning experience on PilotEdge.
Steven Winslow
CEO/Owner - Air Northwest Virtual Airlines • http://www.airnorthwest.org
People should get what they want when they want it once in a while. Keeps them optimisitic.
Keith Smith
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Keith Smith »

Hi Steve,

What did you file, and what were you cleared for? We are issuing standard routes during this event, based on aircraft type. Either ATC made a mistake when interpreting the aircraft type or there was a misunderstanding on your end regarding the routes. Let's see if we can work out what happened so we can fix it either way.

Regarding the TO/FROM on the VOR, it's a good idea to have a rough picture of where you are in relation to the place that you're heading (ie, SLI). If you were near SMO with the intention of heading to SLI, and you were on anything other than a southeasterly-heading heading to SLI, then it's likely that there's an issue and it should raise a red flag.
Steven Winslow
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Steven Winslow »

As we discussed, it was my error in not understanding that we were dealing with TEC routes. Had I understood that, I would not have proposed my own flight plans. I guess I was just trying to be different and spice things up by filing my own plan. That won't happen again now that I understand the whole purpose behind TEC routes. It all came together on the last flight of the night. I learned a lot tonight....again!
Steven Winslow
CEO/Owner - Air Northwest Virtual Airlines • http://www.airnorthwest.org
People should get what they want when they want it once in a while. Keeps them optimisitic.
Keith Smith
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Keith Smith »

Hi Steve,

Sorry for the overlap there, we had our chat on a discrete radio frequency not long after my post here. One thing I didn't mention is that the I3 and I4 ratings are also good reminders about the TEC routes. The TEC route system is very well developed in the Socal area. Pretty much anything linking the Socal, Point Mugu and Santa Barabara TRACONs are going to covered by TEC routes, and therefore, will be the routing that you get while you're on the ground.

That said, we will look into SID usage out of SAN as the PEBLE SID, for example, actually mimics one of the TEC routes out of there.
curtis008
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by curtis008 »

lessons learned from the Costal Caper,flying a CRJ-200
1: make sure there is enough runway, KSMO was to short for the take off run needed.
2: when the animations for control services do not agree with the flight yoke (RED FLAG) in the joystick calibration menu. The control surfaces worked correctly.
3: I had an issue with the flight plan after the controller changed it from the one I had filled. ( spent 20 min trying to understand it. With his help I finally got the plan worked out.
Then I taxi and was cleared for take off, I ran out of runway getting Vr at 140 knots and was unable at the end of the runway to lift off.
which at that point is to late to apply reverse thrust and brake before going off the end of the runway.

NTSB files point to Pilot Error
Keith Smith
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Keith Smith »

Curtis,

Some good stuff there :)

From the event page:
Use jets and turboprops in/out of LAX. Use pistons, turboprops or bizjets in/out of SMO.
Your routing out of LAX would've been LAXX6 MZB and you would've been on your way with very little hassle :)

The event contained all the necessary preferred routes. The published jet routing out of SMO was:
SXC V208 LAX188R CARDI MZB320R MZB (turbojets) (11k)

What did you file?
Charan Kumar
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Charan Kumar »

curtis008 wrote:1: make sure there is enough runway, KSMO was to short for the take off run needed.
Major lesson!! You should've seen the look on my face when Keith asked me if I was sure I wanted to fly out of KSMO in the CONC as I hadn't realized the rwy length till then :lol: (but those are the days when 4 afterburners come in handy, apologies to the virtual community behind the KSMO airport fence outside rwy 21)

KNOW YOUR AIRCRAFT (even the default) My second lesson came when I took out the DC3 on my return trip. The RMI has to be manually rotated...I seemed to be heading in all possible cardinal directions except the one that I intended or filed for, fortunately I figured it out and headed in approximate directions.

Are you sure you are sure that's the field...I checked in with approach that I had the field in sight tuned to twr and the twr just cleared another acft to land, but I didn't see that acft, turns out I called the wrong field in sight. Thanks to the default GPS, I quickly found out my field...use NAVAIDS to verify your field especially in the LAX area, there are so many damn airports...unless of course there is a better way, I will be all ears
arb65912
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by arb65912 »

Are you sure you are sure that's the field...I checked in with approach that I had the field in sight tuned to twr and the twr just cleared another acft to land, but I didn't see that acft, turns out I called the wrong field in sight. Thanks to the default GPS, I quickly found out my field...use NAVAIDS to verify your field especially in the LAX area, there are so many damn airports...unless of course there is a better way, I will be all ears
Did you contact the tower or just listened to the transmission and found your way to the airport before contacting tower?
It happened to me also but I used GPS and corrected the heading to the proper airport.
Charan Kumar
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Charan Kumar »

That was before I contacted tower. I realized my mistake as soon as I tuned to his freq and heard his transmission, pulled up the default GPS to find the airport.
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