Never again on PE - share your mistakes

BradG
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2020 5:39 pm

Unanticipated icing - lived, but still screwed up

Post by BradG »

[Copied over from Discord General chat]
Since I know there are a lot of RW pilots here, I thought I would share another stupid thing I did the other day on PE. Flight was from KONT to L35 - Big Bear. Using Zulu weather, with a cloud layer about 200' above minimums at L35. A/C was a Baron. Temp. at KONT was 53°F, with light rain, overcast 8500'. Cruise altitude was 11000'.

During the climb, OAT dropped to about 38°F at about 7000', so I turned on all anti-ice. Continued climb into clouds up to 11000. Proceeded direct to SOGGI, which is NE of L35, to put me in a position for the RNAV 26 Approach. About 35 miles from SOGGI, airspeed started to drop from 150KTS through 145KTS, and rate of airspeed drop was increasing pretty quickly. Declared an emergency, and ask for vectors and lower altitude immediately. All good so far. Of course, since I was on Zulu weather, the controller had no idea of my weather. The controller gave me an immediate decent to 10000, and a turn that would put me on an intercept for the RNAV approach at Big Bear. Makes sense.

BUT... I knew from what I saw during the climb that the temp at L35 on the ground was likely to be below freezing. So this is where I screwed up. I had filed an alternate of KAPV, Apple Valley, at a field elevation of 3,062, and a TPA of 4,062. I should have rejected the turn to the South into the mountains, and should have asked for a turn to the Northwest, where the terrain was much lower, with higher temperatures.
I knew this, but still accepted the vector to shoot the approach at L35, in freezing conditions, while continuing to pick up ice which was overwhelming the Barron's ice protection. And of course, landing with enough ice to drop the cruise speed to something like 135KTS means I had become a test pilot. How do you know what the stall speed of the aircraft is in that condition? No idea.

All turned out okay. Because of the descent, I was able to keep up airspeed. I also broke out of the hard rain as I was established on final, and stayed out of the rain all the way to the field. But it was a serious bone-head move, and IRL, it was a really serious encounter.

So there you go. I gave up my role as Pilot In Command to a controller who had no idea what I was dealing with, and accepted what he thought was the best alternative for me, but which actually could have gotten me killed. What is particularly frustrating for me is that I knew there was a much better alternative, but stayed quiet. Just dang.
Delighted to share another story showing just how ignorant I am. Sigh.

KevinMToday at 10:32 AM
As for your point about giving up your PIC roll to ATC- this is a GREAT point and it’s something that controllers and pilots need to understand. There’s a common misconception that controllers know a lot about flying and that couldn’t be further from the truth. Sure, there are some controllers who are also pilots, but there are plenty of radar controllers who, visually, don’t know a 737 from a citation (not joking).
There have been a good amount of accidents in the past due to the pilot assuming too much knowledge from the controller. A great example is a pilot reporting their pitot tube is iced over. The controller should hopefully ask if he/she doesn’t understand the effect of that, but they might not...and because of that they might give you an instruction that’s not safe for your situation.

As a pilot, you need to be OVERLY communicative as to what your problem is and what you need. Use basic English: for instance, instead of “my pitot tune is iced over” say “I’ve lost my airspeed indicator and have no idea how fast im going” Because at the end of the day, you’d hate to leave information on the table that could have saved your life

BradGToday at 10:33 AM
Thanks @KevinM. I had a very good friend who was an F-106 pilot and later accrued about 25,000 hours flying for Eastern Airlines. He is actually the one who taught me to fly (I am so honored that he would take the time to teach me.). One point he drilled into me over and over was to make use of absolutely every resource you have available to fly the aircraft, especially in an emergency. It is very easy to forget that ATC is one of those resources, but as you point out very well, they can't help you if you first don't take command of your situation, and second, if you don't give them the information they need in order to help you.
For example, in this icing encounter, the controller knew instantly what the minimum altitudes were for any direction I wanted to fly. Since I was over mountains, but the terrain fell away rapidly to the North, if I had said, I need to get below 6000' ASAP, the controller could have given me a vector in a few seconds. But of course, I did not do that.

KevinMToday at 10:42 AM
Absolutely! And adding to my common misconception point, it goes both ways. ATC needs to remember that the pilot generally has no clue what ATC does and what they can and cannot see. This is especially prevalent with weather. For instance, controllers only see precipitation. They won’t see mean looking clouds, strong wind gusts, etc... further, a center controllers only depicts a minimum of moderate precipitation on the radar, so anything less than moderate will look like a beautiful day on the center controller’s radar. Finally, the weather data can be up to 7 minutes old on the controller’s radar. For all of those reasons, never rely on ATC alone to tell you where the weather is, how we they’ll usually have a better overall picture than you might

BradGToday at 10:47 AM
@KevinM the one thing I will say I did right in this scenario, and that I would encourage others to remember, is that I declared an emergency early. Once I saw the speed had dropped to 145KTS, I was already double-checking that ice protection was on and working (check your ammeter, etc.). As soon as I saw everything was on and working, I called the emergency. Don't wait. One problem I have heard about is waiting to call an emergency thinking that somehow things are going to get better. Usually they won't, and asking for help doesn't come with any negative consequences.
RonCraighead
Posts: 62
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2015 11:23 am
Location: San Diego, CA

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by RonCraighead »

Okay... Mea Culpa time.

I keep my sim running for extended periods. It's a dedicated sim.

I had connected to the network, got called away... Then hopped in to fly. Not on the network, just tinkering with some settings.

Took off from KSEE, and saw some traffic. I thought, "What's he doing up here?". Then it hit me. I quickly disconnected.

OOPS.

Sorry guys!

Cheers

Ron
Ron Craighead
VFR and IFR Pilot, High Performance and Complex Endorsement (AT-6 Texan), Tailwheel Endorsement (Cessna 170), Spin Endorsement (Great Lakes) and survived some acro!
FAA Advanced Ground Instructor, Instrument Ground Instructor.
billh1
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2021 11:09 pm

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by billh1 »

Newbie here, SIM pilot (not real manned aircraft), and brand new to PE. I got scolded already - for making my traffic calls on the Guard frequency.

Now I check the frequency every time, and make sure I have the right radio selected, before pressing the Talk button. :oops:
Keith Smith
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Keith Smith »

I promise that you're not the first pilot to ever hear "you're on Guard!"

To make life easy, I tend to only use COM2 for RX COM1 for TX/RX. That way, guard and ATIS generally go on COM2 with that flow. The few times I've "gotten smart" and tried to set up a more complex sequence with COM1 and COM2, I invariably end up xmitting on the wrong radio.
arb65912
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by arb65912 »

I am just copying it here from PE Discord.

Total embarrassment last night. I logged into PE as N212BM and then (what a dummy) filed as N272BM and Flew L88-KSBP. I have a hearing problem and I was thinking that N272BM would be easier to alert me while ATC calls so that is why I changed that. I contact Tower, say my edited callsign and the problem and embarrassment starts... I am expecting to be cleared to RWY29 and Controller tells me about wrong callsign (I listed to recordings after I logged off the network). Unfortunately I am so panicked that I do not hear what I expected that totally miss what Controller says. I respond about traffic... total mess and I want to just disappear. I do not want to sound stupid again so I finally decide to disconnect.

Moral of the story: Always use the callsign you logged into the PE network with!
arb65912
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by arb65912 »

billh1 wrote:Newbie here, SIM pilot (not real manned aircraft), and brand new to PE. I got scolded already - for making my traffic calls on the Guard frequency.

Now I check the frequency every time, and make sure I have the right radio selected, before pressing the Talk button. :oops:
I keep Guard frequency on COM2 radio set for RX, the COM2 standby I have for ATS, AWOS or ATC if I want to hear them at particular facility. Since COM1 radio is the one I transmit on as well I just mute COM2 when do not want to hear it
tasev1
Posts: 18
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2020 7:23 pm

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by tasev1 »

I make it a policy not to fly tired....I know how I am, and certainly prone to mistakes flying after a long day of work (when I flew privately). In preparation for the I-11 rating, I did a dry run of the procedure and flew the VOR-DME approach to 17 at Victorville on Sunday. The procedure went perfectly and I knew exactly what I needed to do.

So today....I was on the ground in the Baron thinking "crap, I don't really want to do this today. I'm feeling tired. I should cancel IFR and return to the ramp saying it's a bad mag!". In real life, I would have cancelled my IFR clearance without question. But being a sim and having nothing else to do at home....I just went for it. From my sloppy talking on the radio and asking a silly request....I should have known what I was in for. I was 2 seconds away from Keying the mic button to tell Joshua Approach that this thing was a bust and I was lost, when he called me to say I was 14 miles off track and I-11 failed!!! BAAAAAHAHAHAHA!!! "Most people just follow the GPS course around the arc" he said. Yeah....I don't think so! There's a reason I filed /A!! I really wanted to do it all manually without 'cheating'.

And I honestly still don't know where I made the mistake!! I was waiting for PDZ 32 DME to start my descent to APLES at 42 DME. But when I tuned the VCV VOR, I wasn't anywhere near the track I should have been, at 20-something DME instead! I thought I may have swapped frequencies, but my needle was still centered on the 012 radial outbound, and the timing was pretty close to what I expected.

Anyway, that's my story! This was N881AT on Feb 2, 2021 between 1700-1830 PST if you want to hear my ridiculousness (and quite a few new pilots testing controller patience!! Not sure if they were laughing or actually angry).
Image
arb65912
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Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by arb65912 »

Great story! Unfortunately I do not fly IRL (only several training lessons) but I can relate a bit as well. If I have a hard day at my day job and I try to fly on PE after all house chores etc. I can tell hiw being tired affects my overall performance.
Ross Farquharson
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jul 13, 2021 4:12 am

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by Ross Farquharson »

G'day,

I'm new to the PilotEdge community. Had a look through and signed up for a trial account, especially with the Simventure event coming up, so I wanted to do a test flight from San Diego to Hawthorne. Gassed up the TBM930, filed a very basic flight plan and logged on as N930TB.
Had issues connecting initially only because I didn't run the client as Administrator. After that was sorted, I connected and started to listen in on the radio chatter.
I requested clearance from SOCAL APP. Mistake number 1. Tune into Clearance Delivery first.
Mistake Number 2. Wrong cruise altitude entered. For northbound flights, it should have been EVEN +500. I had filed for 5000 feet (VFR)
Mistake Number 3. Entering a taxyway without clearance at Hawthorne. I was on frequency, however I rushed exiting the runway as I heard, or thought that I heard, that another aircraft was on final for Runway 25. Exit off the runway, but STOP once past the holding point to change to ground frequency. The controller was not happy with the fact that I had continued without due regard.

I am very used to the VATSIM environments where you have to expedite your exit from the active runway, then tune to ground frequency. I didn't even have the ground frequency set. My COM1 and COM2 radios were also giving me a hard time, and were unnecessarily distracting me from the flight I was trying to do.

In hindsight, I should have revised VFR flight operations, especially the proximity to Class B airspace, or at least plan my route a bit better so that there was no Class B airspace infringement. I wished Navigraph provided VFR Terminal Area Charts that I can track my aircraft through. I tried to use a third party app that connects to SkyVector, but that just crashed FS2020.

I just hope my flight for SimVenture goes a little better, however armed with the knowledge of the mistakes I have made, I should perform better. The above flight was my first on PilotEdge. I thought that I had the confidence to perform it well. I liked how it turned into a knowledge "wake-up-call". Even though the flight was a short one, it was full of lessons to be learnt, and learning from the mistakes made. I have certainly learnt on that flight, even more so than learning the easy way on VATSIM.
Look out for me, I'll be in a default TBM930 (FS2020) with the callsign N930RF at SimVenture.

Thanks for reading, and I would also like to thank the Controllers who did a superb job.

Cheers!

Rossco
neilends
Posts: 1
Joined: Tue Jul 20, 2021 8:52 am

Re: Never again on PE - share your mistakes

Post by neilends »

Enjoying and learning from reading about mistakes here, so I thought I'd contribute a couple of mine. I'm a pre-solo PPL student in RL, finished all the CAT ratings just a couple of weeks ago. I've taken a few flight lessons but done zero radio work so far IRL.

#1. I didn't really understand how Flight Following and frequency changes worked at the time. So while on FF as I approached a Class D airport for landing, I asked Approach to let me change frequency, well in advance of actually needing to. Approach actually pushed back, giving me a learning moment. He asked, "How will that help you?" I had no good answer. He then gave me a good 5 second primer on the point of FF and ATC handoffs, which made it all click for me. In short, I just didn't understand that handoffs generally occur automatically without the pilot having to ask for them, although the pilot can go ahead and ask for any number of reasons.

#2. A favorite bonehead error of mine was calling up SoCal Approach but mistakenly referring to him as "John Wayne Tower." Not exactly catastrophic but hearing Approach respond with an emphasized *SoCal Approach* to point out the mistaken identity was a little embarrassing. It happens.

Editing to add #3: I was part of a community group flight with other PilotEdge users, something I highly recommend for anyone btw. With 2 other pilots approaching an untowered airport, I was closest to the runway so I started making the appropriate radio calls. Just one problem: I was mistaken about directions. I forget the exact runway numbers now but just for the sake of explaining, let's say I was supposed to be landing at runway 35. In fact, I was oriented for landing at runway 17. With 2 planes behind me and trying to figure out how to safely land--which is the point of these group flights--I was calling out my directions for entering the downwind, entering base, etc., for runway 35, when in fact I was flying the pattern for 17. The moment my serious error here occurred to me was thanks to the radio calls of the other pilots. I was seeing them declare that they were in the pattern for 35, but within my sim I could visually see that they were not where I was expecting them to be.

We all debriefed about this later, and are able to laugh about it because it's just a sim. But the RL implications of an error like that are staying with me. If I can screw that up in a sim, I can definitely screw it up IRL. Educational moment for me and for the other two pilots. Double check your own orientation. And don't assume that radio calls by other pilots are necessarily true and accurate.
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