Never again on PE - share your mistakes

[AngNov68]

Well it has been a long time since I have been on PilotEdge and made many mistakes. I called for a landing on 21 but landed on 3. I didn't have things set correctly on the sim and could not hear the radio calls clear enough to understand what I was being said over the cockpit noise (fixed it now). I chose a small empty airport to get back into the swing of things, good thing! The helicopter was hard to fly with the wind and I lost track of what I was doing fighting the aircraft, good lesson for real life never forget what you are told to do no matter what is going on.

Note turn off the power saving settings so your screens don't shut off mid flight!

[Nick Warren]

First airspace bust today. Left downwind departure to the north out of Whiteman heading to Santa Clarita to work on some stalls, slow flight, turns, etc. Focused so much on navigating the Newhall Pass and getting up to 4500 that I shot through the Burbank C floor like a gopher that tunneled into a steam geyser. Realized it too late and was kindly and professionally reminded of it right after I started to correct.

Nick

[lingo480]

OK, so where do I start with this one?

KSAN to KSNA in my shiny new PMDG JS41 and today is my first day back on PE in quite some time. I did this same flight this a.m. and while shaky, it didn't go too bad. Along with being new to the JS41, I'm also learning FS2Crew. I'm still working out how to keep my 'co-pilot' from acting on my ATC calls so I was struggling with that throughout most of the flight. But the biggest mistake I made was changing up the realism settings in FSX from 'easy' to full realism without having done a test flight. I blissfully checked off 'aircraft stress causes damage' too!

Long story short; I came in to land at John Wayne rwy 19R and promptly did a 'face-plant'! Of course, FSX immediately resets so no opportunity to grovel in front of ATC and beg forgiveness. Think I'll go change those setting back and move them ever so gradually next time!

Laurie I

[twharrell]

Departed KSBA in my trusty MilViz C310. Everything was set up on the G1000, as I was prepared to fly the KWANG5 SID (NAV mode, FS, all set). Right after rotation, which seemed a lot harder than it should have been, my airplane banks hard left and I can't stop it. It was like riding a wild bull. I then realized the Autopilot was somehow enabled. Oops. Put that on the pre-takeoff checklist next time. Keith was my controller and I'm pretty sure he was wondering what in the wide,wide world of sports I was doing. Thank you, Keith for not saying anything. Or maybe you were too elated I didn't end up a virtual casualty. Watch those autopilots, folks. They have a mind of their own sometimes.

Todd

[canox]

Died and killed all my passengers on PE tonight, how embarrassing. Getting the runway numbers reversed on a single runway airport got me killed.

Smooth flight from El Monte to Ramona but got mixed up on my approach. Flustered 180 turn to line up with the right runway, flaps overspeed, spin and nosedive from 1000agl

[arb65912]

Hi Canox,

Sad news.... what simulator and plane you used? Cheers, AJ

[canox]

Hey arb

Yea what a tragedy... First PE flight in my new Cessna 340 for Xplane.

[Keith Smith]

Canox, thanks for posting. Hopefully this reinforces the notion of "fly the airplane" as the #1 priority any time the chips are down. It once took me about 5x longer to brief an ILS approach in the airplane than it would've taken if sitting in a comfy chair doing nothing but looking at the plate, simply because I was hand flying the airplane in some fairly challenging conditions? Guess what I was telling myself every 30 secs or so? "Fly....the...airplane." Briefing the approach was a lower priority.

[arb65912]

C340 is a very nice plane. I consider flying it on PE sometime. I just wish it was more time.

Keith, BTW, last night I was disconnected only one during the whole BUR-LAS flight, I hope it stays. Cheers, AJ

[Mooniac]

It seems like every flight has been a "never again" for me lately. I got my instrument rating in 2000 from an instructor who was a great guy, but a rural seat-of-the-pants type of pilot who really didn't really discuss IFR in busy airspace (and of course I didn't have GPS then). But I let it lapse after about a year. I brought it current about three years ago with the same guy who basically had me shoot a couple of approaches before signing me off. Now I'm trying to get current again with a much tougher instructor. Between that and practicing on PE, I had no idea how much I never learned about instrument flying. It feels like I'm going for the rating all over again.

Last nights mistake was on a flight filed from KLGB to KBFL. I was given the ANAHM3 departure with the LHS transition. After a quick look at the charts, I thought -- ok, I'll go to SLI and then turn to 319 degrees to LHS. As I was making that turn, Keith called me up and calmly let me know that the radial isn't a flyable route. *DOH* <forehead slap>.

I'm just SO glad that I get to make these mistakes on PE rather than in real life. This is the most incredible service ever!!! I really appreciate the patience and understanding of the controllers and all the training resources on the home site. I feel like I'll finally be able to REALLY learn how to fly IFR and have the confidence to use the rating and keep it current.