Never again on PE - share your mistakes

[ksimpson]

Having done some student hours out of a Class C a few years ago and this was my first real attempt on pilot edge all I can say I think I made every mistake just like when I did it for real but I didn't have a instructor there to fix it.

It brought back so many memories and feelings back.

My lesson was don't do your first traffic pattern work at night when you have only done it during the day .

[arb65912]

Here is a good one I created totally by myself last night.

IFR from KOXR to KOKB, all went great, copied the clearance, checked ATIS, recorded it, took of , all good, heard other planes and Controller talking.

I was getting close to OCN VOR, wanted to cancel IFR and continue and then I realized something was very wrong, I was told by the Controller I am still on the Ground frequency at KOXR.

What could I do, I switched to appropriate frequency, apologized and landed at KOKB....

I was also told by the SoCal last Controller that he was trying to contact me for last half an hour...

OK, here is why it happened.

On the Saitek Radio Panel I use upper radio for COM1, last night I switched to COM2 to check the ATIS and ......... yes, I left it on COM2.

As simple and stupid as it can be.

I was very embarrassed and wanted to put hide under the chair ..

I will ALWAYS remember now to either switch back to COM1 ( upper radio) or use lower radio for COM2 and NAV.

Leason learned. Hard way. Cheers, AJ

[Nick Warren]

Beautiful flight from WHP to AVX today. 2500 southbound, picked up the mini route, then up to 4500 over the drink to Catalina. Cross ref'd the AFD, got my ASOS, field in sight, cancelled advisories, etc. etc. Head out the window, started a gradual decent with a plan to overfly midfield at 500' above TPA and enter the pattern. My goal being a left 270 to enter a right 45 for rwy 22. Anyone seeing the problem here yet (cause I didn't). Head out the window, looking at the island, made my left 270 and rolled out into a nice 45 then to downwind. Abeam the numbers, carb heat on, flaps 10, pitch down, you know the drill. Turned right base, then final, see some heli traffic and then a plane come straight at me. About the same time, I get a visual of the numbers. I am perfectly lined up at 65kts, full flaps, etc. for RWY04!!!!!! What a colossal blunder and error on my part of just losing sense of direction! Needless to say, I pulled up out of the final, turned back north, and entered a left 270 for the right downwind to the correct runway, and put it on the ground just fine. Definite facepalm!

Nick

[Cyrus]

That's a good one Nick. But at least you didn't mistake Burbank for Whiteman (with a convoy of planes following behind you, all thinking that you're heading to Whiteman).

"Ohh, THAT'S Whiteman"

[wdhurley]

A few hours ago.. Was running SBA to BUR for some fseconomy flights. Set up the flight, got airborne, and realized I left my "passengers" at the terminal... I never hit "start flight." Worst corporate pilot ever!

[Nick Warren]

That's a good one Nick. But at least you didn't mistake Burbank for Whiteman (with a convoy of planes following behind you, all thinking that you're heading to Whiteman).

"Ohh, THAT'S Whiteman"

That is a good one. At least I didn't affect anyone else (at least I don't think). Not sure if the PE AI can flip anybody off, but I'm almost sure I would have seen that gesture in the port window.

[Vincent Meier]

Just had a very interesting flight on PE.
I was flying a simple TEC route from KSNA to KSAN and was just reaching MZB flying at 5000 ft. with no troubles that I could tell. Then ATC told me they show me at 4200 ft. I checked my altimeter and it showed 5000. The controller and I confirmed that the altimeter setting is 30.05, we are both on the same page, but he is showing me 800 ft. lower than I should be!!

I started a hard scan on my instruments.
I was in some mild wind turbulence so my vertical speed and my altimeter should be fluctuating a little, but there is no movement in either instrument!!
I looked over at my airspeed, and it was showing 150 kts IAS, but my ground speed on the GPS was showing around 124!!
Everything was going wonky!

By the time I turned off the A/P and started hand flying the aircraft, I was cleared for a visual approach for 27 at KSAN and Keith was on tower.
I told him my situation and asked him to tell me when I hit pattern height (1000ft.)and to give me airspeed.
I asked him for this a few times to make sure I was within my landing configuration ranges for speed and altitude.
Keith got me down safe and it was not even that bad of a landing!!

http://assets.pilotedge.net/recordings/ ... _18011.mp3 - My call to Tower starts at the 6:43 mark.

My airspeed was still pinned at 180 IAS, my altimeter was still showing 5000 and my vertical speed was frozen at zero when I was stopped on the ground.
After I thanked Keith and sat on the Tarmac for a few minutes cleaning my shorts, I went to aircraft operations and failures and set everything back to operational. All my instruments went
back to normal.
I shut down the sim for the night, thankful that I kept the rubber side down!! Enough flying for one night!

My thanks also goes out to the approach controller who told me of the initial altitude difference, which then cranked on my flying brain two fold!!

I am not sure if I handled this as correctly as I could have, but it got me down in one piece, so I guess that is what really matters.

[arb65912]

Hi Vince,

Very interesting and scary too... it happened to me couple times in the past but it was my fault, I did not have the altimeter set correctly.

One question for you, was the cause of your problems one ore more of the instruments not working due to settings in Aircraft Failures or you just know that after setting all to operational, everything went back to normal?

Thank you for sharing, cheers, AJ

[Keith Smith]

My guess is that there was a pitot static failure within X-Plane. When weird stuff happens, after I land, prior resetting all failures on the xplane failure screen, I go through the tabs one by one to see what was broken.

[Vincent Meier]

My guess is that there was a pitot static failure within X-Plane. When weird stuff happens, after I land, prior resetting all failures on the xplane failure screen, I go through the tabs one by one to see what was broken.

Good point Keith,
I should have done that, I just took it to the nearest mechanic instead!!