personal Acts of aviation stupidity, who has done one and is prepared to admit it? me

[Guest ozzie]

Yep that was the way it was. But honestly i can't see what all the the shock horror reactions are all about. i could understand it if it was a more substantial aircraft but the real trick to teaching yourself the basics is to do it in the right type of aircraft. Slow is the real key. Also having a machine that is a real dog to keep in a straight line will keep you on the ground until you learn how to handle it. IE pointing in a straight line until attaining flight speed. Not easy to do in a taildragger with no tailwheel steering and no brakes. It took long time just to get from the parking area to the start of the runway. more often than not i ended back were i started from. after lots of effort i managed to get on the runway and again it took quite a few hours to get to the other end with plenty of diversions into the grass. After working out left foot turns left not right and getting the power right, it took full power to start moving then as the speed built up and the prop unloaded needed to pull off the power to keep moving slow enough so not to race off into the weeds again. after a few days came lifting the tail again with plenty of excursions and with a bit of wind and more ground loops. took a few more days to get on top of high speed tail up runs. then came small hops if i kept it straight long enough. few times i headed off up the strip only to swing 180 deg and belt back the way i came from. the strip was long enough to do several hops in one go again if i did not end up in the weeds. after the frustration of hopping all over the place doing single flights up the strip was the order. then flight doing "S" turns remaining within the width of the strip to learn coordination of the rudder and ailerons and trying to do it smoothly. lots of practice at this. only after gaining the experience and confidence at handling the little beast at these exercises did i attempt a first circuit. I suppose you could call it a first solo.

 

Each day when i started i would go back to stage 1 and continue thru the exercises untl i got back to where i left off the previous weekend then continue with my "training" sylibus. After the first circuit it was just progression. I approached teaching myself to fly with cautious attitude, plenty of book knowledge, some advice from those who had already taught themselves and the realisation that yes this could hurt my body if i just charged into it. There were some who just blasted off and they were the ones who never should be allowed near anything mechanical. they were the ones who brought the rules down on us. Being my own instructer i did not just limit myself to what was in the BAK. i devoured every thing i could gt my hands on and still do. i have found that the majority of those who attend a flight school just read what is put in front of them and "do what monkey do" and after they get their bit of paper leave it at that. I have no limits on imput as i am after all these years and hours I'm still in "class".

 

Would i go back and change things if i had the chance? NEVER. It is one of the greatest achievments in my life. I'm proud of it and just have a quiet giggle when i hear people remark on us fools who taught themselves to fly. After all without us, ultralights LSA ect would all have VH on the tail.

 

OZZIE

 

 

[shags_j]

Guess I'm a little bit shocked because of the extreme emphasis on safety I had with all my instructors over the years. Keeping in mind I always learnt in ctaf conditions and have had no experience with RA style strips etc.

 

 

[ahlocks]

Thanks for your post Ozzie :thumb_up::thumb_up::thumb_up:

 

Your experience is worth nothing if you don't pass it on and that's what the burr up my bum is all about. Mate, you've got so much more to offer than a quick and trite reply does justice to.

 

Wasn't meant to be as personal Ozzie, although it did end up that way. You just hit a sore point of mine about an endemic problem.

 

Cheers!

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

I've been told that i must write a book on my experiences of learning to fly, skydive and hang gliding during the seventies. I was the first to learn how to HG dual in '76

 

that was a blast. i have put the book idea off as who would want to read it. But may have to now to try to top up my 'super' that seems to be falling faster than i ever did.

 

Ozzie

 

 

[motzartmerv]

I'd buy it:thumb_up:

 

 

[Guest watto]

I am pleased to see that this thread has provoked some discussion and amphasised safety and also the changes that have taken place with RA Aus in the picture, for the better of course and these forums are a great learning tool that was not available to the pioneers of the air, they really were brave men I would be interested what the wright brothers would be thinking if they could see the technology we have today????

 

They would be blown away!!

 

Watto

 

Watto

 

 

[icebob]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane Ozzie. That is how i leaned to fly a hang glider. To start with low sand hills just south of Woolongong and after two years of "getting the hang of it" graduated to Stan well Tops and took instruction from "Rabbit" and "Giggles" two local identities from the early 1970's and that was the start of a long and sometime bruising relationship, oh the follies of youth. On a number of flights i was successful in nose diving into the beach on landing.

 

I too taught myself to fly my self constructed VP-1 with assistance from a number of extremely patient Navy pilots and yes at HMAS Albatross I was know as the ground loop king(sometimes the ground loop ace) fond memories and not one accident or injury in 18 years of flying the VP-1.

 

Bob.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Ice Bob. Great times. Avoided the majority of running back up sand hills. But how fit were you back then?

 

I was jumping at Wilton one Sunday and met a fellow student on the way to height called Ray. He suggested after the jump to drop into Stanwell with him to check it out. when we arrived it was on and he introduced me to several of the Cohen gang. Ray had been flying since he was 15. There was some disscussion amonst the gang then i was given a harness and we clipped into a brand new Skyhook model with a bench seat to sit on. so we just simply walked off and flew around for half an hour and topped it off by landing back on top. The group of pilots came up and congratulated Ray and made a bit of a fuss. It took me a bit to catch on but it seemed that no one wanted to be the first passenger so Ray had made me the unknowing guinea pig. We were back in the air right after devouring a 'Bolga Dan's Beautiful Bolga Bacon Burger'. had my H3 rating (skipped over 1&2) within a couple of months. My two instructors were Ray Dunkerley and Arnold Cohen. Hang gliding was very much in it's infancy. It was very popular and and far too easy to buy a glider and just slip thru the system and kill yourself. i saw it happpen twice that summer. i wittnessed a lot of near misses due to design, luffing dives were on main problem for one manufacturer. a couple due to structual failure. and plenty from brain failure.I was very lucky to have always flown with very talented people for several years.

 

Again would never change anything to do it different. even the scarey bits.

 

Ozzie

 

 

[Tomo]

I'd buy it:thumb_up:

I would to:big_grin::thumb_up:

 

 

[icebob]

Yes those were the days. That was the location of my most idiotic flight attempt, the wind was so strong but youth and a lack of common sense, i took to the edge at Stanwell Tops, the next thing i remember is being inverted hanging from the harness.

 

The wind had picked me up and flipped me. Bent the glider and the harness had rashed me up something chronic. That act of stupidity cost me yards of skin and a new glider from Ray plus i was convinced to shout the boys Berger's at you know where.

 

Bob.

 

 

[BLA82]

Icebob and Ozzie,

 

Thanks for sharing your stories, this thread has been a great read, please share more:thumb_up::thumb_up:

 

 

[slartibartfast]

Bob and Oz's stories reminded me of my earliest piece of aviation stupidity.

 

In the early 80s I worked shift work. When I worked the night shift (23:30 - 07:30) I often went without sleep between shifts if something better to do came up. I was on my third day in a row of finding better things to do when a beautiful easterly came up. This meant that the Lake George escaprment was soarable for about 15 miles, with the large expanse of the lake to smooth out the air (it had water in it back then). It was like coastal flying.

 

I raced out to Geary's Gap, setup and launched my hang glider and had a wonderful flight ending up down near Bungendore (7 to 10 miles from launch) where I lost height trying to cross the road gap and had to land. The easterly had dropped off. I packed up, carried it up the hill and waited for a while. The wind came up a bit, so I tried launching again and only just survived the turbulence and landed at the bottom again.

 

Bad decision, but I got away with it. After 3 days of no sleep, you'd think this would be where I'd realise my stupidity - right? Wrong.

 

I packed up and lugged to a farmhouse. Nobody home, so I stashed the kite and walked to the road. Failed to get a lift for about 3 hours.

 

Eventually got one and got back to my car to find the cops were looking for me. They were extremely annoyed that I was alive, but got over it.

 

Drove back to get the kite, went back to Geary's to find a brand new seabreeze had come up. Woohoo went my tired brain. Let's fly again.

 

I took off and scratched for lift on the ridge. I was certainly in no condition to make good decisions, so I made a bad one. I hung in too long, got one wing in the wind shadow of a tree, spun around the front of the tree and hit the hill. Luckily I got back into the wind before I ran out on non-ground bits and hit with minimal force, but enough to bang my knee and bend the A-frame.

 

Just one of those lessons of youth where only luck allowed me the luxury of learning from it instead of dying from it. There were plenty of others, but after this one I mostly confined them to non-aviation lessons.

 

 

[Guest Michael Coates]

Note Michael Coates has been banned from this site

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

I wonder how many times we stood at Stanwell within earshot of each other.

 

12 seconds off the sandhills you must have had a high performance machine.

 

 

[Guest Michael Coates]

Note Michael Coates has been banned from this site

 

 

[Guest Elk McPherson]

You guys are awesome

 

This is great - I was always told the AUF was about you guys but I didn't believe it.

 

When I was doing my PPL training in the early 1990's I wandered out of the training area towards a winery (just over the river from Luskintyre - there you go, you know who I am now) bearing the family name.

 

It perhaps illustrates my ignorance that I didn't even know there was an airfield nearby. I decided that, as I knew better than the rule makers, I should do a little contour flying along the Hunter river at about 100' past Wyndham Estate, hook around the bend in the river (the bank on the bend is about 150' high) and so on.

 

The great thing bout this, I thought, was the fact that I could look up at the 150' river bank off my right wingtip.

 

That was when I saw the single-strand powerline I was flying under. :hittinghead:

 

 

[Guest watto]

Thanks for sharing Elk

 

 

[bushpilot]

Its real interesting how many of us have gone thru the hang-gliding phase.. and learned a lot about the flying fundamentals, the hard way...

 

For me it started in Adelaide - self taught, then instructing based on what I thought was right, and comp. flying for the then local hang-glider manufacturer "Freeflight".

 

One comp. at Mt Buffalo in Vic. - took off in light conditions, scratched back and forward along the cliff face for awhile; wind dropped even more; got in closer to the face - right wing tip (38' wingspan "Jaguar") dragged on the cliff face; glider turned 90o and nose plate hit the cliff; bounced back a bit and pancaked 200' down into canopy of gum-trees.. Took the recovery team about an hour to get down there and pull me and rearranged glider out of tree.. Happy ending, apart from dislocated shoulder.

 

But the positive thing about this type of experience is I think I understand the first principles of flying and meteorology fairly well.. I sometimes cringe now as a passenger in someone else's RAA a/c when they fly low into situations where I know there will be some rotor or turbulence; you tend to inherently read the terrain and wind direction / speed... which has to be a good thing.. Likewise when flying near 'active' clouds..

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Hey Elk you were pretty lucky that day. there is not just one single wire there are three all starting from the top and running over the river. i live just behind that ridge.

 

often go for walks along the ridge. if it was not for those stupid lines it would be a good place to take off from.

 

ozzie

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

Can relate to Motzartmerv on almost hitting that damn wire, that's one of the reasons I won't fly low down rivers, even though I really want to sometimes.

 

Had a friends' SS4 Storch once for about a week, for maintenance. Had done about 2 hours in it, and felt pretty comfortable with the aircraft. Figured I'd show it off a bit round the valley, and decided to land at a friends short grass strip, where several ULs were hangared. Normally I landed at this place in my Drifter. The turn off to the hangars was only about 100 mts past the low fence at the threshold of the strip, and I decided it was well within the capabilities of the Storch with full flap, to drop on, brake, and easily turn off at the hangars. That should impress them.

 

Hell, I had even done it in the Drifter when the wind was right !.

 

Problem is, the mains on a Drifter are about 2 feet below your XXXX, whereas on a Storch they would be a good 6-7 feet below you in flight. I set up the familiar approach as I always had, and prepared to snick it over the fence and put it on. (can you see where this is going ?) About fifteen feet out from the fence it dawned on me that I was in a Storch, and not a Drifter. Don't know to this day how I didn't catch the gear on that fence, it had to be down to inches. Anyway got pulled up, taxied in, and everyone thought I was a very talented Storch pilot...except me !.

 

 

[Guest watto]

I can imagine what a power cable would do to an aircraft, cut it open like bread roll Maj:rotary:

 

 

[Guest Brett Campany]

Ahhh fellas, it's good to see you can still have a yarn about these stories and the fact that it's not coming from someone else because you're 6 feet under is also a relief.

 

I'm glad you can sit back and have a bit (just a little bit) of a chuckle about it now. Serious lessons learned and from my point of view after only just doing a TIF last Saturday, I'll take some of these stories away with me and keep them in the back of my mind in the event that little voice one day might say "go on, give it a shot".

 

 

[Yenn]

I did low flying training years ago as a student pilot in C150 and have read a bit of theory about it.

 

Some time ago one of my ultralight pilot friends said he was going to low fly, around the mangroves and mud flats. Highly illegal as we all know. He had a passenger, also a pilot who was going to manipulate the video camera.

 

I said I would watch from on high, but I could see the pattern developing as they went around the same area a couple of times, so I was tempted into getting down there with them, timing my arrival just as they turned right and hopped over some mangroves, I overtook them at about 1.5 times their speed, or rather I undertook them as I went underneath them, passing from their right to left at about 45 degrees.

 

Absolutely stupid and all 3 of us learned from it. It was all over so quickly that they never got me on film, which is all to the good as to get me I think I would have had to crash.

 

 

[Guest watto]

Wow that was a bold move Ian, one that could certaily have had another outcome if someone zigged when they should have zagged you could all be ash!!

 

Looks like many of us have done a few things in which hind sight was a wonderful thing.

 

When you see these accidents at some of the international air shows you realise that even sometimes events can be beyond the best of training and experience and when you push the boundaties as often as those guys then your chances of incident increase signifigantly, spectaclular to watch though and I am sure a real rush of blood for the pilots as well, I know from younger days riding high powered motorcycles when you push the machine to the limit and maintain control it was a good feeling however very dangerous now that I think back.

 

Off to Bundy tomorrow for lessons and will camp over night for more flying lessons on Wednesday as well, I'll roll the swag out somewhere.

 

Watto

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

In the Seventies Skydiving was pretty much a self taught sport. Even tho you had an instructor you were out there doing it by yourself. The instruction bit back then was more a prejump brief. When your load came up you get given some state of the art WW2 gear, strap it on, clip on the lunch box front mounted reserve and head for the aircraft. The instructor would stroll on over and procede to adjust and check your gear. "ok what you doing on this jump?" "Ahh, 360deg turn" from 6,500ft." "well thats pretty easy, hold the hard arch for 5 secs then ease into your 'frog', when you get to terminal pick a point on the horizon and push down with your right shoulder and look to the right and you will start to turn right. when you start to come up on your point ease up and maybe a little push left to stop. if ya get into a flat spin do a delta like you learnt on the last jump.OK got that.?'" "ah yep" 'by the way don't forget to pull by two five, in ya get'. So off you go when we get to height the instructor spots and on 'power off brakes on' you climb out and stand on the wheel holding on to the strut with both hands. On the go it's a big push off and into the hard arch ease into the frog position and a few seconds later into terminal. Ok push and look and it's around and around and around winding up into the dreaded spin. work out how to stop and then pull and wait for the big round canopy to open. a couple a minutes later thump down somewhere on the dropzone, maybe. debrief was about as involved as the prejump one with a mention that only one turn was necessary to pass. move on to next stage. "yahooo".

 

Real different to todays modern student. two instructors, video for debrief, auto opener for those who really should be playing chess. comfy lightweight gear all colour co ordinated. bunch bloody girly skirts..

 

Ozzie