Many of you guys are weathered, hard core, seat of the pants, pilots.

I'm not. I'm just a greenhorn, wet behind the ears, pilot in training.

I imagine you all have good stories to tell.

I was wondering what was the worst conditions you ever landed in.

Maybe you got caught out there when a storm blew in or the winds picked up.

What was the toughest landing you ever made? What did you learn from it?

It will make for some good dream material in between studying for my written test and check ride.

Well, i'll start with the Toughest catagory:
This was WHEN i lived in Detroit last year. About 50nm north of Detroit I was flying in my airmobile and i was chasing a Supercruiser friend of mine just having fun. He lead us over to a friends private strip and we had a fun time putting the wheels down on the grass but never commited to stopping

We'll needless to stay that night i could not stop cranium flying (hanger flying at home) over that little strip, and told myself after some practice i will land and taxi back.

So, i knew what my problem was, i was not comfortable using my 48* of flaps yet, but if i could i would surely make it!!! I was only using 40 before.

THE STRIP: about 900' of grass the both ends high and the middle real low, kind of like an archers Bow, but at the approach end directly at the starting point of the 900' were 50' power lines

I soon found a 2000' grass strip that had power lines right at the begining and started to practice with the 48* flaps and then coming to a full stop and pacing of my landing distance. when i was comfy i when back to the short strip.

Well, the day i chose to finally commit there was about 2-4" of fresh snow,
the wheels touched right at the bottom of the strip (HALF WAY) with no bounce and in an instant i thought my options through. 1.try to take off uphill (4-7* incline) in a fully stalled postion with all that snow or 2. get on the brakes dump the flaps and hope the uphill will stop you!!!

I wish i had the pictures but i chose to slam the brakes and slide for at least 200' before stopping (being careful of wheel chocking) with another 150' or so before hitting barbed fence and bushes and other shit. I hope that story was not to long.

This may not have been my worst ever, but it was mighty exciting:

In 1970, I was learning to fly Gliders at Black Forest gliderport near Colorado Springs and had gone up in the Pikes Peak wave in a Schwietzer 2-32. While I was up at 25,000 or so enjoying the view and freezing my radio battery, the ground winds had picked up just a little. When I got back to the pattern and the radio worked again they told me the winds were West at 55 gusting to 65 knots!

Since the field was mostly grass with a couple of N-S runways worn into the turf and one small paved area I elected to land directly into the wind. Duh! However, I had to fly the whole pattern at 120 knots and the downwind leg was like count to three and TURN BASE! I landed still indicating 90 kts or so instead of the normal 45, pulled the spoilers full out, stopped in 30 feet, and just sat there bouncing around holding the nose skid down with full forward stick until 6 guys came out and helped me drag the glider over to the tiedown area. I don't think I had even gotten my Private yet!

Rocky

Complete 0/0 wx in an AH-64a helicopter. We had always talked about if it could be done on symbology alone. The old / experienced Vietnam era guy's thought it couldn't. We had all tried it in the CMS "Combat Mission Simulator", a multi-million dollar three axis simulator, usually unsucessfully. You guy's that have some rotary wing time know that as you descend through effectional translational lift you lose a lot of lift, a large amount of collective is required to arrest the descent, which requires a lot of left pedal to counteract the torque from the huge increase in power. Of course the large left pedal input results in "translating tendancy", the tail rotor tries to shove the aircraft to the right as well as keep it from rotating. The nose up attitude also results in one of the vestibular illusions if I remember correctly and can result in vertigo. The trick is to get a stabalized hover about 200' AGL, hover slowly to a GPS point and descend vertically until either visual references are obtained or contact with the ground is made.
Well, it can be done, but it's not easy and was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. Surprisingly not much was said, I expected some kind of reprecussion, but nothing was done.
Moral of the story? Don't give up, fight that spin or whatever all of the way to the ground, fly the machine as far into the crash as is possible.
An old Warrant officer told me that when I was a WOJG, new pilot. I found out later that this guy had lost an engine right after T/O in an OV1 in Pyongtek Korea. The emergency procedure was to eject because at that weight and airspeed single engine flight wasn't possible. He regained control of the aircraft and shot an ILS into Camp Humphries. Oh, did I forget to tell you the WX was 100+1/4 at the time?

Hey all, I was flying for a flight school, the boss told me to take these three people for a scienic flight. When I met the people I told them that the weather was bad and the wind was real strong and it was bumpie. They said they had to go anyway and the boss said I was fired if I didn't go. The fellow sitting next to me in the C172 was from sweden and didn't speak english and the two in the back were a married couple. Five min. out I get a tap on the shoulder from the guy in the back telling me his wife did't feel well and we needed to turn back. I did this gladly and the tower called the wind at around 40kts 45 deg. off the rwy. We had a closed rwy on the wind line and I requested it a pilot descression . On short final (400') the woman behind me projection vomited by leaning forward and hitting me square in the back of the head. Puck flew by both sides of my head and hit the instrument pannel soo now I have nice warn puck running down my neck and also the instruments, the plane is pitching like crazy in the wind and the guy next to me is starring at me like he is going to die, but can't speak a word of english. I just smiled at him and continued land and taxied in front of the hanger to block the wind so I could shut down. But Hell I didn't get fired, the lineboy cleaned the plane and I got a big fat FIVE DOLLAR BILL tip .

Worst conditions I ever landed in? the inlaws place (had nothing to do with the landing though)

eddie wrote:On short final (400') the woman behind me projection vomited by leaning forward and hitting me square in the back of the head. Puck flew by both sides of my head and hit the instrument pannel soo now I have nice warn puck running down my neck and also the instruments, the plane is pitching like crazy in the wind and the guy next to me is starring at me like he is going to die, but can't speak a word of english.

If this doesn't win, I don't know what would.

Yeah,
How do you stifle the overwhelming urge to lose your cool? She couldn't help pukeing, but she could have determined the trajectory.

1SeventyZ wrote:

eddie wrote:On short final (400') the woman behind me projection vomited by leaning forward and hitting me square in the back of the head. Puck flew by both sides of my head and hit the instrument pannel soo now I have nice warn puck running down my neck and also the instruments, the plane is pitching like crazy in the wind and the guy next to me is starring at me like he is going to die, but can't speak a word of english.

If this doesn't win, I don't know what would.

Get's my vote. Talk about a distraction on final. My instructor used to yell about cows on the runway or some other make-believe distraction, but getting barfed on would be really high on the list.

tom

Well I don't think the chunking story will be bested

My tight a** landing was at Carson City Nevada, winds, 350, 17 gusting to 35, snowing, landing on 27. Couldn't make Minden because of snow and decided to land a Carson because it was right there!

What did I learn, well check enroute weather more often, yes you should second guess the briefer, fronts do stall.

See ya, Be safe, Bub

I imagine that runway must have been slippery and with the wind it must have wanted to weathervane you.

Did you have to crab it in?

JC wrote:I imagine that runway must have been slippery and with the wind it must have wanted to weathervane you.

Did you have to crab it in?

I crab till about 1/8 mile out then go to the wing low slip method. I was just right at the limit for rudder control. Lucky enough the runway was not snow covered, just wet. If I had been in a tail wheel plane I would have taken the taxiway and landed into the wind. There are guys out there that can land a tail wheel in those conditions, but I ain't one of them.

See ya, Bub

Did a couple float landings last Sept in the dark on a narrow, braided back-woods alaska river with my buddy standing on the shore with a flashlight. To make things exciting there was a snag in the water right next to where I needed to touch down. I had landed there plenty during the daylight so I knew what needed to happen but the darkness throws a whole new twist into things.

I trained for my PPL in my '41 Taylorcraft, with the help of a couple different instructors who would volunteer to go up with me in the evenings after work. Great guys, who I'm grateful to every time I fly. But being a pretty informal arrangement, some stuff got overlooked. Like wheel landings. So with less than 100 hours TT, most of it dual, I loaded up the T-Crate to fly from Alaska to New Hampshire, because my wife had gone down to begin grad school. Well, the prairie provinces were one hell of a crash-course in dealing with wind for a very green pilot. Fortunately there are a lot of airports out there (as compared with home) so I could usually find one aligned with the wind and make the best of it. There were plenty of afternoons, and consecutive whole days, where I'd just stay on the ground and think of that aviation adage- "Better to be on the ground wishing you were flying than to be flying, wishing you were on the ground." Anyway, coming into Minnesota turned into one of those days where the trucks were definitely lapping me down below on the highway. I'm sure I could have throttled back and tracked backwards over the ground if I'd been inclined to try. Mostly, I was just wishing I was on the ground instead of flying. Happily, Wheaton (ETH) had a runway that was pretty much aligned with the prevailing wind, which was ugly, gusting uglier. The 65 Hp T-Cart handled just like a kite, getting knocked all over the place all the way down to the runway. I remember being fairly gobsmacked at the difference between the airspeed on the clocks and the groundspeed on the 196. I had to keep full throttle just to make the threshold, it seemed. Then, suddenly, there was no more altitude above the runway, the wheels made contact with the pavement, and it dawned on me that I was still in a flying attitude, sitting pretty much stationary, on the runway. About half my log book entries now are wheel landings, but none quite as memorable as that first one. I know this isn't going to be the wildest story in this thread by a long shot, but since JC was asking about lessons learned, mine is: don't let an instructor sign off your TW endorsement without covering wheelies.

Flying at 3500 ft. doin steep turns and m.c.a. to get ready for my prvt.
Just turned south after a slow flight turning stall,and the engine hicups.
We all know when something is amiss,and this was one of those times.
I had set the plane up for the best glide speed,and started the emergency check list. The nearest airport was about 10mi. away,so I had a good idea that I might make it,but being new,had no confidence in the outcome.I had some time,so I went through the check list from the p.o.h. this time
I was trying to figure out what was wrong and tried retarding the throttle,to no avail,so full throttle was it, but all I can get was about 1100rpm.
Aproaching the aiport and knowing that the outcome would most likely be good,I did a normal approach to landing with a safe,poweroff landing.
The planes problem was a valve that had turned around in the cylinder.
The funny thing was that my bud had picked me up after and after a fairly bouncy landing back home,had said sorry for scaring me on HIS landing.
That was 10 years ago,and I remember it like yesterday.
BE safe in 08,C.

The worst conditions I ever landed in were a 5 m.p.h. breeze DOWN the runway, 90 miles visibility, and high cirrus, all during the DAY!
BUT I was ferrying an unknown airplane for a friend and as I pulled up to the pumps and hopped out I came to find out that this happened to be the day that the Feds were visiting this particular airport (it wasn't in the NOTAMS or I'd have gone around to the next!) to have a look see. So three hours later after an extremely fragile time making phone calls and running the FBO out of fax paper, I left with a warning.
All the crosswinds, 0-0 landings while flying VFR, driving rain, icy roads, single engine (while I should have two) landings, and visibility impairing spidered windshields don't even freakin' compare.

Warm Puke down the back of the neck

vs

The Feds hot breath down the back of the neck,

have to think about this a bit.

I don't have to think about it, Puke washes off.

I don't have to think about it, Puke washes off.

Your right, and the puker did tip him $5.

You won't get any monetary tips from the feds.

Last month I learned that an aircraft brake will go from working just fine to not working at all without any of the mushy transition you usually get in a car... Oddly enough, what probably saved me was the 10 knot direct x-wind I had to land in...by landing with the working break on the leeward side everything worked out.

I suppose I owe my airplane to BCP...I was never taught to check the brakes prior to landing, but someone here mentioned it and I thought it made sense. Had I not done so I'd have landed from the opposite direction, unaware that the brake I needed to keep the plane on the runway was no longer with me.