I emptied a fire extinguisher into the cowl of a C172 after a student over primed and lit up the carb box!

My buddy forgot to change tanks on a long x-country. Engine quit below the rim in Hells Canyon; wife on board. She still brings it up before every flight...

Took off from Longmont with cowl plugs still in. Amazing how quickly an engine can heat up. Amazing how expensive cylinder heads are.

This happened about 45 years ago and was one of the stories my dad told. He was friends with the pilots of a corporation that had an Aero Commander and a couple of smaller planes. The chief pilot and one of the other pilots didn't really get along. One day after the Aero Commander had some maintenance done in Richmond and needed to be retrieved, those two went to get it. The chief pilot was out at the runup area ready for takeoff when the other pilot radio'd the tower and suggested they call the Aero Commander and ask him if he thought he should remove the gust locks. He had to shut down and it was a bit embarassing.

180Marty wrote:This happened about 45 years ago and was one of the stories my dad told. He was friends with the pilots of a corporation that had an Aero Commander and a couple of smaller planes. The chief pilot and one of the other pilots didn't really get along. One day after the Aero Commander had some maintenance done in Richmond and needed to be retrieved, those two went to get it. The chief pilot was out at the runup area ready for takeoff when the other pilot radio'd the tower and suggested they call the Aero Commander and ask him if he thought he should remove the gust locks. He had to shut down and it was a bit embarassing.

That's a great one Marty.

EB

As many times as I've seen a towbar merrily bouncing along in front of a taxiing Cessna, I cringe whenever I see an airplane parked (even in the hangar) with the towbar in place. If people got int the habit of ALWAYS removing the towbar except when actually being used to move the airplane, that wouldn't happen. BTW I've never seen one bounce up into the prop arc, although I don't know why not.

I have a buddy that always tells his passengers to wear clothes and a coat they will be comfortable in for all night long in the area they are going to fly over. He was working on a USFS helicopter spruce bud worm spray contract in NE Oregon that paid by the gallon sprayed. At the rate the spray was applied it ammounted to about $1,000 per minute for boom on time.

It was late June and this buddy was an observer in a helicopter watching two other helicopters spray a block of timber down in a canyon. He had not followed his own advise and didn't have a coat on, only had one of those thin military flight suits on. He noticed a snow squal a mile or so up canyon and told the others they had only a couple minutes before they would have to get out of that canyon.

The snow started to hit the bubble so he told the others "Let's get out of here!" He had been told earlier on in the project that once spray pilots take off with spray in their tanks, they spray it out. Spray pilots don't land with spray in their tanks!

The sprayers replied, We'll be right behind you, we just have a couple minutes of spray to empty the tanks and the block will be finished. He had his pilot hang just outside the snow squal while he waited for the other two helicopters. When they finally popped into view the the falling snow had blocked visibility of the ridgetops in all directions.

All three landed on a logging road down low in the canyou and shut down to wait for a truck to come fetch them. It continued to snow hard. It took two hours for the thuck to get there to pick them up and my buddy was just about froze solid.

Yeah the towbar thing always makes me shake my head.... My guy's have a rule - if there's no hand on the towbar it's not on the plane! There was a local Navajo took off with the towbar attached, had a long taxi including going over a cattle stop / grid (not sure what you guy's would call it?) as he rotated it flicked up hard enough to punch up through the floor taking out the hydraulics some wiring and bump him on the right elbow!! The towbar survived unscathed!

A very good friend and very experienced pilot fly's a C421C, recently started the takeoff roll with the control lock in....

I had an AirBP fuel agency in Aus a few years ago, refueled one of the RAAF operated Aus Gov't VIP Challenger CL-604's then watched it taxi out and rocket down the shortish strip, suddenly hard on the brakes and full reverse thrust, came to a smoking stop at the end, door opens, crew member jumps out and removes the pitot covers....

I have heard too that if you leave a tow bar attached to the nose strut of a Bonanza, when you fire up, the nose strut will compress enough to let the prop chew on said tow bar...

IA at my airport left a cotter pin out of the castle nut on the throttle linkage. Pilot lost power, due to linkage separation, the plane ditched and pilot Ok.

A buddy of mine (for real this time) was flying with a student, doing stalls, I think. After a recovery, he asked the student to reduce the throttle some, but he didn't. He asked again and the student said that the engine wasn't responding. Finally, he pulled the throttle back himself. The entire control rod and cable came out of the dash. Well, he thought, there are more than one way to control engine speed. So, he started using the mixture ton control engine power, setup a nice approach, and killed the engine once the runway was made. Before landing, he called unicom and had a tug waiting for him

Speaking of throttles, an IA overhauled an O320 and forgot the braided grounding strap from the engine block to the engine mount. The throttle linkage became the airframe to alternator ground and melted, freezing the throttle. They replace the throttle linkage 2 times before realizing the throttle was getting enough current to melt. Shocking.

8GCBC wrote:Speaking of throttles, an IA overhauled an O320 and forgot the braided grounding strap from the engine block to the engine mount. The throttle linkage became the airframe to alternator ground and melted, freezing the throttle. They replace the throttle linkage 2 times before realizing the throttle was getting enough current to melt. Shocking.

Shocking or scary, makes you wonder what else gets missed. . .

BRD wrote:I have heard too that if you leave a tow bar attached to the nose strut of a Bonanza, when you fire up, the nose strut will compress enough to let the prop chew on said tow bar...

Yup, and a Cirrus SR22 towbar will take a half inch off the tips

Got in a hurry to catch up to another plane and left a fuel cap off. Caught up and got a radio call asking what was shooting out the top of my wing occasionally, I guess the fuel does slosh alittle as it leaves the bird:(.

ping170 wrote:Got in a hurry to catch up to another plane and left a fuel cap off. Caught up and got a radio call asking what was shooting out the top of my wing occasionally, I guess the fuel does slosh alittle as it leaves the bird:(.

This is no shit!!!!! I have a buddy and he left not 1 but both caps off his bird. It flys slow enough it won't syphon. He called a buddy where he fueled. The bro walked the run way and found the caps. The next day he flew back, no caps and got his. He was safe and correct BTW. hahaha

If you haven't done a stupid pilot trick yet your day is coming!!! I had mine!!! I'll tell you by the camp fire

Hmmmm...


1) Taking off on one of two parallel runways at a Class Delta in a C172 about 12 years ago gave me quite a scare. My buddy was flying, a CFI was in the other cockpit seat, and I was lounging in the back. We were given a clearance of to fly "runway heading" (270), which was unusual at this airport, since we almost always got cleared on course for our training flights (which was normally a 360 heading from this airport). We were departing 27L, and a Learjet was departing 27R. So, my buddy, even after reading back the clearance, took off and just sort of did what he was used to doing on climb out: a turn to the north, right into the path of a departing Learjet.

The tower controller and I noticed the problem simultaneously, and my buddy learned about it a split second later... he got to "call the tower" on that one.


2) Here's a human-caused preflight issue:

Our airport hosted a National SAFECON competition when I was in college, which brought in collegiate flight teams from across the country. One of the exercises involved a preflight competition. This competition involved taking one of our Cessna trainers, grounding it, and making some "adjustments" that were supposed to be caught by a person as they preflighted the aircraft. I don't remember how many possible problems were present on the plane, but the competition involved trying to find all of them. So, I was assigned this plane for an instrument training flight a few weeks after the competition. The aircraft had been in service for some time after the event ended, and had probably been flown a dozen or more times. As I'm doing my preflight of this bird (which I hadn't flown in a while) I notice that the position lights are reversed: red on the right, green on the left.

In the grand scheme of things this was a pretty darn minor oversight, but it surprised me how unnoticed it had gone at a flight school following this competition. Oops.

coloradokevin wrote:The aircraft had been in service for some time after the event ended, and had probably been flown a dozen or more times. As I'm doing my preflight of this bird (which I hadn't flown in a while) I notice that the position lights are reversed: red on the right, green on the left.

In the grand scheme of things this was a pretty darn minor oversight, but it surprised me how unnoticed it had gone at a flight school following this competition. Oops.

Several years ago I was heading out in one of the Cherokee's on the first night flight of the fall season. After firing up and hitting the lights I noticed that there was a most decidedly green glow under each wingtip. Apparently the left red lens was changed mistakenly with green at some point during maintenance and I had probably been flying it that way for quite a while that summer, it just didn't jump out at me until it was time to turn them on. At least the green lights matched the paintjob.

Yesterday "my buddy" decided to fly over to Llano to work on his landings since his 185 had been out of commission for a month and a half while getting the new panels installed.

Well his first landing was a nice three point. He decided to try a slip to landing next, something he had yet to do in his 185. Was beautiful and precise, and wheel landed it to boot, something he usually doesn't do. Well after two such great landings some time in the rocking chair was warranted, enjoying the newly arrived fall weather.

Now unknown to "my buddy" a friend of his had flown over earlier in his RV. After praising "my buddy" on such good landings, he shared the story of his flight over. Seems after he took off the plane wasn't developing the power he expected. All he could achieve was 2350 rpm when he expected 2700 rpm. Oil pressure and temp was fine, and the engine sound and felt fine. He decided to leave everything as is and head for 6,000 feet to give himself additional options should the engine quit.

By the time he'd gone through all the mental analysis, and the climb, he was closer to Llano then his home airport, so chose to land there. He left throttle and mixture as they were until he knew he could make the airport and landed a little high and a little long "just in case". No problems occurred and he taxied to parking. Once parked he put the flaps all the way down, seems RV pilots do this to keep people from stepping on the flaps when stepping onto the wing. The flaps were already all the way down.

A laugh was had by "my buddy" and his friend. About that time a 172 called on approach, and then proceeded to fly the largest pattern "my buddy" and his friend had ever seen. The guess was a student pilot. More laughing took place. After what seemed like an hour in the pattern, the 172 landed at the far end of the runway and then taxied the next 3,000 feet. "My buddy" and his friend shared smiles remembering their training days.

As the 172 finally reached the end of the runway, after taxiing past a taxiway exit about midfield, it excited the runway and proceeded to taxi to parking. Now there were only two aircraft at parking, "my buddy's" 185 and the RV. Even so the 172 taxied right on the yellow line. Once parked the instructor and student excited and sat down in the rocking chairs to enjoy the day as well.

Shortly "my buddy" and his friend decided to head back home, but not before "my buddy" practiced a few more landings while displaying expertise in pattern dimensions.

"My buddy's" first landing ended in a slight bounce. As he took off again he forgot to lock the tailwheel and experienced a little shimmy. Second landing was a stall down, but apparently it had been so long since he practiced this that he didn't arrest enough speed, and bounced her back into the air, tried to catch it with power but under corrected and bounced her again. Not to be deterred "my buddy" went back up to try again. This time he would try a slip to landing and wheel land her. Well the slip was fine all except being offline, which is a neat trick on a 300' wide grass strip. In the process of getting lined back up "my buddy" ran out of altitude so wheeled her on at a faster speed then normal and went and went and went down the grass until he was out of view. And once again "my buddy" forgot to lock the tailwheel and experienced quite significant shimmy, as though the 185 was wagging her finger angrily at "my buddy".

"My buddy" decided it was time to abandon the landing practice and head home, apologizing to his 185 the entire way.

Lesson learned.......Again.

Someone I know took the oil cap off of a c-90 and left it off to the side while adding oil. A friend came over and was talking. Them my buddy took the empty oil jug out, closed the cowl, and took off. Shortly after takeoff there was a slight smell Of burnt oil and someone else said the plane was smoking. Soon after oil was covering the whole side of the fuselage and clear door. He landed, oil cap was still there, put it on and only lost a quart of oil.

P.s. One quart makes a giant mess of the plane, all the way to the tail wheel.

Moral of the story, don't let anyone talk to you during your pre flight. And don't put anything on finger tight or not at all