Glad you’re safe.

Sometimes a moment should pass before hitting the “submit” button?

Just thinking out loud.

CompSciAndFly:

Thank you for the post and IMHO more importantly for having the guts to put yourself in the position to receive ‘friendly’ fire. It takes guts to make this type of post and it would be nice if everyone at least attempted to be diplomatic in their critique. I was talking to an older woman in my church one day, she said something very rude to me. I called her out. She countered with, “In our family, we call it being direct.” Since we were in church (and since I occasionally try to be nice) I didn’t tell her what we call it in our family. My mother would have said she was being a bitch…

I commend you on landing the plane in a tough situation without any serious issues. Especially not being hurt. I can tell you that I almost certainly would have tried to go around without even thinking about landing. I’m pretty sure I would not have had the skills to land without breaking myself and/or the plane. However, I don’t pretend to know if that would have been the ‘right’ decision, or even a better decision than yours was. It could have just as easily made matters worse if the issue was something different. Not knowing what the problem was and having to decide quickly without being able to troubleshoot before committing to one way or the other, I’d say you made a solid decision.

Kudos to you for being willing to put yourself out there in such a potentially toxic environment.

Chad

CompSciAndFly wrote:.....What blows my mind is that how does something like this not deserve some sort of AD. This could've killed me,
....

If they issued an AD for everything that could possibly fail, and kill you,
every airplane would have hundreds of them.

CompSciAndFly wrote:I'll try to cover your points one at a time, so you can keep up. Especially now that you're expanding on your initial thought process rather than slinging insults. .......

FWIW the only insults I saw were yours.
Microphallis and circular family tree, really?

Nope...I read the whole thing. I'll make one more attempt to help you out before I give up. It's the following statement that alarmed me.

"That wasn't the case though, I had to go off of instinct. So that's how I'm defending not taking that option in my mind."

When I was at your experience level, my instincts weren't what they are now due to lack of said experience and sometimes they still let me down. You wrote off the go around option before making this post. You should re-examine that. Good luck.

mtv wrote:Very bad choices, but with luck, a good outcome.

Have to agree there. I think if the attitude had been "man I got lucky today, listen to what happened" instead of "I earned my stripes based on skill", this thread would be full of supportive and encouraging comments about learning from our less-than-ideal experiences as a new pilot that we all go through.

Heck, you don't need a rudder ... pilots land all the time without using the rudder!
(for the sarcastically challenged, that's a joke)

Seriously though, I'm going with the positive. This is a good reminder to do an extra thorough inspection occasionally. Denny's advice to do post flight inspections is great.

The weather here in Kenai has been blustery, to say the least. Most of the day yesterday the wind was 20 gusting to 30 with whitecaps on the float pond. It's a little better today but still more than I would enjoy for pleasure flying.

Since I'm not going flying, I need something to do. I have to admit that with my airplane on floats it is easy to make preflights a little more abbreviated than they should be. I'm heading out to the float pond to spend some time looking in nooks and crannies. I'm going to pull some inspection covers and give my flashlight a workout. I hope I don't find anything bent or broken but instead end the day with peace of mind.

Happy Flying
K

TXWagon wrote:Nope...I read the whole thing. I'll make one more attempt to help you out before I give up. It's the following statement that alarmed me.

"That wasn't the case though, I had to go off of instinct. So that's how I'm defending not taking that option in my mind."

When I was at your experience level, my instincts weren't what they are now due to lack of said experience and sometimes they still let me down. You wrote off the go around option before making this post. You should re-examine that. Good luck.

You’re missing the part about:

CompSciAndFly wrote: if I had more time to think, rather than right in the middle of landing, then I probably would've went around

It’s not that I ever wrote it off, it’s that it happened so quickly, that was not the first thing in my mind. There were a million and 1 things in my mind at the time. Retroactively, being able to sit and think about it, of course it’s an option here. I never said it wasn’t. It’s all easier said and thought about from your computer chair. Had I been higher than 100 feet off the deck, not seconds away from my landing zone, with adrenaline pumping, ideally that thought might’ve screamed a little heavier.

So was it written off prior to writing the original post? I, and only myself, can tell you first hand it was not.

“that’s how I’m defending it in my mind” was my way of saying, I’m happy with the outcome of my choice regardless, weather it’s technically right or wrong. It was an answer to the problem. Nothing about that should have invited belittlement. I acted.

Ya know, I created this post for constructive feedback and the thought that someone may hopefully learn from my experiences. Instead it’s turned into belittlement and then a witch hunt for standing up for myself.

It’s not everyone, a lot of you are super nice guys who can understand where I’m coming from and have offered a lot of solid and constructive advice. For those of you, I thank you for your contributions. For the others, without an original thought of your own, you’ve made this community a toxic space to share experiences such as these. I for one won’t be turning here for such experience telling again.

I’m going to leave this thread at that.

I am glad you made the post and that the landing worked out. I am not sure what I would have done in the same situation. I don't like to think about a lot of things I have done flying, trucking, and farming that could have had a different outcome. I am sorry the discussion deteriorated but would still really like to see the video.

I agree with your choice of action in response to the control problem. I have acted similarly many times. I am also fine with comments and criticism of my choice of actions. We can learn from those. I agree with you that comments and criticisms about a pilots internal feelings and judgement is a much harder call and usually less likely to elevate or educate. Failure to go around is pretty universally called out as poor judgement in the aviation community. Yet, go around is at least part of the probable cause of many fatalities. When we do differently than the norm, we pay the social price. Standardization has value, but so does innovation. Judgement is hard to call. Anyway, we all have something to contribute to our aviation passion. Don't get discouraged.

Please keep the videos coming. I've yet to say "I wish can have THOSE 3 minutes back". Well edited, very entertaining....

Damn!

Glad you made it out of that

So the end of the rod or the C clip broke?


Arm chair BS, but I’d have kept the airspeed up, gone to altitude and did a controllability check, landed somewhere wide and open, if fuel allowed, unless you were near no energy when it went pop, in which case dont add the ramification of all the physics of going more cow bell with a busted rudder, land with what ya got.

Proof of the pudding is in the taste, and seems you did well, so can’t bitch about that, we’ll done sir!

Glad you made a safe landing, both your safety and the plane not being dinged up.

My backcountry instructor has said he was lucky more than a few times in his flying career, the saying goes “luck is when preparation meets opportunity”.

Right or wrong you survived and likely learned from the experience.

I had a massive potential bad situation happen last September in the Frank Church. I got a bit lucky, and learned a TON (yes huge emphasis) from that situation.

Keep the videos coming!

But remind me to never criticize you on here. I can't have people learning of my microphallus or circular family tree. I feel lucky to have made it out with my feelings intact after the mustache comment.

Am I the only one who had to google microphallus?

Just curious.

jaudette wrote:Am I the only one who had to google microphallus?

Just curious.

Nope.

You came here ostensibly looking for input on your adventure. You got an opinion you didn’t like and immediately went off with personal insults, and then wouldn’t let it go. I lost interest in what happened to you once you decided someone was inbred with a small dick. Wow, just wow.

How’s that movie line go? “let it go Francis”

It's all good until it isn't.

And if it isn't, then you don't have to worry about responding to any criticism, because the declaration will be handed down without your consent.