Howard Winter wrote: >Lee, > >On Fri, 24 Sep 2004 02:24:24 -0700, Lee Jones wrote: > > > >>ASRS is the Aviation Safety Reporting System. Excellent resource. >> >> > >Indeed - the CAA here has CHIRP (Confidential Human-factors Incident Reporting System). Highlights are >published every month, and make very good reading - unless you're a nervous passenger, of course! Seeing what >other people did wrong is a very good way to equip yourself not to do the same things. > > Hopefully, yes! >"Pilot" magazine here has an item each month entitled "I learned about flying from that" which is a story of >something that went wrong, contributed by readers. I did wonder about writing in with my own story - my log >book shows "Heavy takeoff!" and the thing I learned is that when you are the pilot, you devote all the >brainpower it needs to do that job properly, and ignore any banter that's going on between passengers, however >interesting it is to join in. I *very* nearly put the aircraft into some crops (about 3' high) that were >growing beside the runway... > > My personal "I learned from that" story is the day there were thunderstorms building 20 miles or more away. My instructor and I were doing what you guys call "circuits and bumps" heh... I love that phrase... "touch and goes" over here. Anyway, to make a long story short, as we're turning final I notice I'm very high and fast and didn't expect to be, so I pull the power off smoothly and apply carb heat. Instructor also sees the sight picture is wrong and starts asking me to pull the power, which I've already done. He reaches over and pulls on my wrist (my hand is already pulling on the throttle) and confirms I'm already at idle. We look over and see a flagpole near the end of the runway has a flag pointed straight at us and fully extended... okay, wind came up and it's "straight down the runway". (Straight down was the only accurate part of that assumption... read on.) I get the nose up and get us slowed up a bit more and kinda get the aircraft to sink a bit in a nose-high attitude with lots of flaps and a small slip to help get rid of all this altitude... and then it hits... 1000 FPM - 1500 FPM down and the airspeed indicator moving very quickly toward the bottom peg, stall horn squeaks and I stuff the nose over to keep her flying... and of course get rid of the cross-correction immediately. And of course now I'm slowly (shouldn't have been slow...) feeding the power back in. Now instructor is paying attention! All of a sudden I see him have a flash of realization and the call comes - "I've got the airplane, you stay on the controls, I want you to feel what's happening here." He holds the nose in a slightly high attitude and pushes the power all the way up. At this point we're 300 feet in the air and headed down in a real hurry, even with full power and 20 degress of flaps. We arrived (I wouldn't call it a landing) at 1200 FPM down. Instructor flew an attitude instead of a speed with that full-power setting, knowing that the aircraft we were flying would "hang on the prop" fairly well with plenty of air being blasted over the wing by the prop, or we'd have hit a lot harder. Squiiiiish. Thank goodness for spring-steel landing gear. We look down to the other end of the runway and the windsock is sticking straight out, pointed directly AWAY from us. At this point, my brain is swimming, so we taxi off and watch as gusty little dust devils and puffs of strong wind rock everything for another minute or so and then calm returns with light breezes directly down the runway again. Taxiing in was a challenge, big gusts rocking the aircraft. What happened? Well... let's just say thank goodness my instructor also flew for a major air carrier and had been through microburst training. We flew directly into a 1500 FPM or stronger downdraft that was located directly over the approach end of the runway. The windsock and the flag just happened to be in the right places to "see" it. They're at opposite ends of that particular runway, and they both stayed straight out pointing OPPOSITE directions while we taxied in and after we parked and just watched with awe. It was like turning on a garden hose and pointing it at the ground... the wind goes out in all directions away from it. So at first, you're flying high and fast and the air is coming directly at you... as you pass into the center you're in the downdraft and then on the opposite side the airspeed and altitude all run out at the same time, which we all know as pilots to be a "Bad Thing(TM)". Flying through it during an approach in a jet (like the Delta flight in Dallas) can be deadly because right at the time you need the power the turbines are spun down -- you were high and fast and you pulled the power and then you can't regain it quick enough in the middle of the microburst. The microburst training I mentioned is, of course, now standard for line crews -- deviations of airspeed greater than 20-30 knots on approach trigger an immediate reaction from the pilots to begin thinking about microburst/windshear activity today. But did I ever think I'd see it in a small aircraft? Nope. Sure was a surprise. So that day I learned a number of things, but probably the most important ones were: - Every approach is a new one, no matter how long you've been going around the pattern. Pay attention to the conditions, the weather, and of course, other aircraft. - If the sight picture and what the aircraft are doing don't make sense... ask why. If there's two pilots on board, ask why out loud. The first time we actually communicated out loud that something was wrong with the approach was when he made the "I've got it" call. That's crappy cockpit resource management. - Cessnas fly pretty well in nose-up full power conditions, even when being pushed down hard by outside forces. (GRIN) - If there's more than one windsock, look at ALL of them. - Sometimes aggressive use of power and or pitch is REQUIRED. Don't be lulled into always trying to fly "smooth". When the situation calls for it... that throttle better go forward QUICKLY. Nate _______________________________________________ http://www.piclist.com View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist