Never again on PE - share your mistakes

[NM Doug]

I thought I'd try a VFR transition of ONT's C airspace, so I took off from Cable (KCCB) on runway 6, made a slight left turn to stay out of the C airspace, and made the call. I was initially told to remain clear of the Charlie, but after being radar identified, I was cleared for the transition SE-bound at my requested altitude of 3500 (I was heading to Perris Valley).

After landing and disconnecting, I took a look at my path on PEAware, and it looks like I may well have clipped the edge of the ONT C - http://peaware.pilotedge.net/flight.cfm?id=8587

I know I was dedicating a little too much attention to planning my radio call, when I should've been navigating! I could have flown just a few more degrees north without any trouble, and that would have given me a better margin to stay outside the C.

- Doug

[ruddy122]

Hi Everyone,

One of the most embarassing but also can become one of the most dangerous mistakes you can do is forgetting to set up your HSI for an ILS approach.

Primarily either:
A) putting the ILS Frequency on Standby instead of the Active Frequency
B) Forget to put the HSI on the correct radio source. Common mistake found in business jets and heavy aircraft.
C) Completely forgetting to put the ILS frequency but since you have a NAVAID located at the field, you assume the ILS frequency is active.

I've done that flying virtually yesterday when I flew into KTOA. But I've done that during pilot training and flying the KC-10, luckily the weather conditions were VFR and I was able to recognize it or my copilot recognized it before we got ourselves into a more dire situation.

Moral of the story, Always make sure you are all setup for the approach you are about to shoot.

Thanks,

Rudy

[Steven Winslow]

Our maintenance crew at Air Northwest just finished a ground up rework of our Ford Tri-Motor so I had to take her for a spin this evening before she's released to our pilots. She handled perfectly and everything was going smoothly until I was cleared visual into SBD. When I entered the tower frequency into my standby radio, I absent mindedly clicked the switch and unwittingly went to tower. I was waiting and waiting for Center to tell me to switch when SBD tower came on and asked if I was on frequency. Doh!!! Of course, I realized my mistake even before he told me Center was wondering where I had gone and I was red-faced and embarrassed, knowing I know better than that! Sorry for my mistake tonight, Center.

[arb65912]

Yesterday I made mistakes again ...
Most of it was because of my hearing problem but some would still apply even without it.

I took off from San Louis, VFR with Flight Following.
Everything was fine but weather started to deteriorate, I started seeing some semi transparent clouds but I did not want to take chances and requested IFR pop-up clearance.
Controller told me to fly directly to SHAFTER EHF VOR and then BEATTY BTY VOR.
I had BTY on my VFR flight Plan and had no problem finding it but in the heat of switching to IFR, I could not locate EHF, actually I could not hear properly.
I asked for the EHF frequency, THEN I have found it but I felt so embarrassed not being able to read back the instructions to EHF.

I could easily avoid that by switching to Low Enroute Charts overlay on Foreflight running on my Ipad and take a moment to look at the chart before requesting pop-up IFR.

The rest of the flight went quite uneventful.

When I was told to switch to Nellis Control, I looked up on the Ipad and it said Nellis Approach.
Just a question on a side, can Control and Approach can be both used in case of Nellis facility?
I read back "contact Nellis Approach " and was corrected that the facility is Nellis Control.

I feel very embarrassed about that but I decided to share it with you so it does not happen to anybody else.

Summarizing, another great lesson ( by making mistakes ...) on Pilot Edge.

[Alex Stjepanovic]

Nellis is one of those interesting ones. By and large, the term 'control' appears to be used for various military 'advisory' positions(SUA airspace stuff). However in the case of Nellis, because it acts like a mini center in some ways, it also needed a callsign for sectors aside from the literal "approach control", which lie in the viscinity of LSV and VGT. Since they aren't an ARTCC as such, the callsign 'Control' appears to have been appended to them.

On a side note, 'Control', is the generic ICAO term for Area Control(ie Center), however as each country can stray away as needed, in the US the actual callsign is 'Center', while 'Control' is more of a military thing.

That's as best as I have it figured out at least

[arb65912]

Thank you very much, Alex. Cheers, Andrzej

[Keith Smith]

Take your time when picking up the IFR clearance. If you are not familiar with the name of the VOR, simply ask for the identifier. If you don't hear it the first time, ask for it again, no big deal.

No need to study charts in advance. Unless you plan on memorizing it, I don't see an advantage. I would simply call for the clearance and deal with the actual route you are given.

[arb65912]

Thank you very much, Keith.
I just realized that in that particular case, all I needed to do was to look on the chart for a minute and get familiar where the nearby VOR stations are...
I liked the idea to ask for an identifier, it would be spelled for me in phonetic alphabet and I would definitely find out what VOR Controller referred to.
I might actually simulate that again for practice.

[Keith Smith]

Controllers will often give the identifier for all VORs in a pop-up IFR clearance since they're issuing a route for which the pilot hasn't filed a flight plan and therefore, the route will be coming as news. Did that not happen in this case?

[arb65912]

Keith, you know I can not hear well and since it was the first time I requested pop-up IFR clearance, I was all nervous and might not hear the identifier that was almost given for me for sure...I just wish I could hear and most of the problems I am having would be gone...