Jump to content

Close Calls


Recommended Posts

L3driver:

What you actually gained was experience, not to do that again. Nobody could have advised you not to do that, you had to find out for yourself.

No amount of advise can save you from arse tighting happenings, do it once, learn from it (if your still alive), don't do it again and chalk it up to experience.

To gain experience, right or wrong, you have to live it.

The main thing is to stay alive.

Cheers, Don

 

 

I do agree that experience is the ultimate teacher but I think you missed the point of the thread. Transport Canada releases there Aviation Safety Publication to help other pilots learn from pilots mistakes. I don't think the thread was started for the OLD TIMERS on here that know it all to learn. But maybe to help the newer guys/girls learn from peoples mistakes. I have seen lowtimers firsthand that talk about the Do's & Dont's, differnet techniques and the ones that figure they have it all figured out ususally don't progress as fast..........

 

I am sure L3 thought there was a slim chance of this thread taking off on this forum. But good try.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 52
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

Ok here is a simple one, years ago i was flying a 206 working on power line construction up on the James Bay project, we were flying 10 to 12 hrs a day every day hot fueling etc. After a while I would get cramps in my legs by sitting there in that nice 206 seat. What I would do during the day is exercise my legs while flying to get the blood going, simply jam the pedals with one foot (boosted pedals you just don't let them go) and move the other leg up and down 5 or 6 times and repeat the same maneuver with the other leg.

So one day mid afternoon legs are tired I start moving them, pull back on one leg back and forth looking a the country side nothing else to do and at one point I felt this restriction pushing my leg back on the pedal but it went anyway I king of look there to see what was the restraint and realized that my flight suit had grabbed the fuel valve in front the cyclic (no guard back then) and shut it off. Well I can tell you something It was the fastest hand play you have ever seen to snap that thing back on.

Then I got ready for a flame out (no auto-relight back then either) I picked up a spot right away which would have been in a lake (shoreline), I was in between the slash and the camp but to my amazement the engine never quit.

 

Came back to camp shut it down went for a walk while the eng was refueling, needed a smoke.

It would have been hard to explain that one to the Company.

Couple of days later I told the story to my engineer and he said you must have been really quick to turn that thing back on.

 

JD

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I do agree that experience is the ultimate teacher but I think you missed the point of the thread. Transport Canada releases there Aviation Safety Publication to help other pilots learn from pilots mistakes. I don't think the thread was started for the OLD TIMERS on here that know it all to learn. But maybe to help the newer guys/girls learn from peoples mistakes. I have seen lowtimers firsthand that talk about the Do's & Dont's, differnet techniques and the ones that figure they have it all figured out ususally don't progress as fast..........

 

I am sure L3 thought there was a slim chance of this thread taking off on this forum. But good try.

 

You can harp on the old guys having been there and done that, but remember as Black Mike also stated 15,000 + as am I, you get there mostly by using what you have learned to date. Everybody starts at zero hours. You are taught a whole bunch of theory, don't understand half of it and sent out to solo and are amazed at how well you did a circuit and came back in one piece. As you gain confidence and experience you tend to try different maneuvers. In doing these maneuvers should you apply in your mind that you have a 80% chance with your experience of accomplishing this task, go for it. NEVER APPLY A 50/50 CHANCE.

 

Know what you are doing at any stage or suffer the consequences, that applies to all pilots.

 

Accidents are 98% caused by exceeding your own capabilities or the helicopters.

 

If you read L3's post again he was exceeding his own capabilities and had options prior to getting in the situation. REMEMBER YOU GET PAID BY THE HOUR BY MOST COMPANIES and they like their equipment returned in one piece.

 

Long story Short: Always be 80% sure of what you are doing and the odds will be with you.

 

And that all I have to say about that.

 

Cheers, Don

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Years back I was flying a 206. I hadn't flown it solo for many a hour. THe engineer asked me if I could do a compass swing and I agreed. Did a quick DI and off I went. Chose what I thought was a nice grassy area and started with North. No Biggy right? Wrong. In my DI I negated to check the cargo hold which was loaded with pump, ops gear and the survival kit. My lack of recent solo flying caught me off guard because of the distinct attitude change. I came down and touched the ground with my back skids, but well before I anticipated. This caused me to pause as I looked out the chin bubble. THe mirror was set up for long lining so no view of the skids to help me notice I was touching the ground. In this brief time frame, the 206 started bouncing from right skit to left skid. By the time the 2nd bound cycle came, the engineer was running away.

 

All the time I was trying to figure out why a 206 was getting ground resonance while it was still in the air. Reason returned, I pulled collective slightly and lifted it back into the air. Not sure how close I was to a roll over, but I am sure it was close. Number of good lessons learned there. I still look in the trunk and normally relocate the survival kit to the co-pilot seat or floor. :D

 

Koala

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll ask a few of my buddies with over 20,000 hrs if they have any good stories :D:lol::P as blackmac said....learn from your mistakes....whats the old saying that you don't want to hear....hey watch this!!!

 

No, no, no..........It's "hold my beer, and watch this" !!!! :rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You can harp on the old guys having been there and done that, but remember as Black Mike also stated 15,000 + as am I, you get there mostly by using what you have learned to date. Everybody starts at zero hours. You are taught a whole bunch of theory, don't understand half of it and sent out to solo and are amazed at how well you did a circuit and came back in one piece. As you gain confidence and experience you tend to try different maneuvers. In doing these maneuvers should you apply in your mind that you have a 80% chance with your experience of accomplishing this task, go for it. NEVER APPLY A 50/50 CHANCE.

 

Know what you are doing at any stage or suffer the consequences, that applies to all pilots.

 

Accidents are 98% caused by exceeding your own capabilities or the helicopters.

 

If you read L3's post again he was exceeding his own capabilities and had options prior to getting in the situation. REMEMBER YOU GET PAID BY THE HOUR BY MOST COMPANIES and they like their equipment returned in one piece.

 

Long story Short: Always be 80% sure of what you are doing and the odds will be with you.

 

And that all I have to say about that.

 

Cheers, Don

 

No "harping" intended Don. It is the more experienced pilots which have made this industry into what it is today. And without these experienced pilots passing down there knowledge where would we be. Learing form peoples mistakes is a good way of learning which might even save ones a$$ one day. But no subsitute for experience. So with over 10 times the amount of hours as myself, you must have a couple stories to contirbute to the thread......

Link to comment
Share on other sites

HEy there Helilog 56...I was trying to be politically correct so I took the booze out of the equation...all right...one bad day years ago...may have told this story already...was flying a jetbox on a fire..10-12 hrs a day...had a new forestry guy on board...very gungho...you all know the type...he figuired pilots never need food,rest..the usuall ...anyways...the weather is starting to look bad of to the west and I say well maybe we should call it a day...NO WAy he says..we got one more camp to haul water out to...so okay I say...but If it starts looking bad I am going to turn around...sure he says....he loads up the ship with all the water we can carry...we are HEAVY...lift off...almost no wind...heading west...sky out that way is black...I say...don't look good...he says yeah BUT its only 10 minutes to the camp...5 minutes out and we hit a wall of wind..airspeed was 120...ground speed was 60...I start turning around...ground speed is screaming...I got the stick back...airspeed is 60....ground speed is over 120 plus we now are in decending air....85% torque and we are heading for the ground...I tell buddy boy to make sure his seatbell is on tight as we are going in...he starts screaming...I see a muskeg swam come at us and fiqure when I get to about 100 feet I will do another 180 to get into wind and hope that I can land with something resembling normal in the swam...at least getting the airspeed near 0 before hitting the ground...just when I was about to turn into wind we got out of the decending air and as I pulled 95-100% we shoot up like a rocket..we both hit the roof with our heads...buddy stops screaming as he can see we are flying again...we are heading back to the airstrip that we had taken off from..its a dirt strip and the wind blowing down it made us both think that a large plan must be taking off from it as the dust was at least 100 feet above the surface...just the 60+ mph wind blowing...I tell him I will try to land behind the only hangar at the strip to get out of the wind so I can try to shut down...slowing up behind the building I get very close to the ground and sneak up to hangar knowing the wind coming over that building will not be fun...and it was not fun...get old betsy on the ground...shut her off...still had to use arm power to get the blades to stop....was the last time for that .... when I say NO...it means NO...and so the story goes... was that.....just another day...live and learn... :rolleyes:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...