Mine was flying an unmanned aircraft in Afghanistan.  Keep in mind I wasn't flying a Pred from Nevada, I was with the Teams.  When they got shot at, I got shot at.

Our Team was pushing out on a 3 day OP and the Major decided he wanted only three of us flying the missions because of reasons.  Each shift required two operators for launch and recovery ops and one to take the handoff.  For three days straight we worked 22hr shifts with meals being delivered to us in the OPCEN.  Barely enough time to shit much less shower and sleep.

We did a lot of good work, saved some American lives, and put some bad people to bed.

And it wasn't fun until I got back stateside.

First NVG takeoffs and landings in low light and bad visibility with aircraft lighting not compatible for NVG use circa 2005 at an undisclosed location.

Low level VFR between two squalls. My uncle was flying, had 20+ years experience Marine Corp OV10 FAC, so he was a lot more sure about where the weather/wind boundries were. Was great pushing past my limits to see the wind and the rain on either side and the fresh clean air behind the storms.

As a passenger, riding in a Cessna Caravan between Dillingham Ak, and King Salmon, Ak, with rapidly lowering ceilings and wind shear. About halfway through I began seriously doubting that we'd make it. That sure was a fun couple of days though.

Recently?  I probably know your pilot.

When my F-4 blew up too far out at sea for a helicopter to come and get me.

You win.

Damn! Yup



       
October 2009. Pen Air. I spoke to the pilot after we landed, but I didn't catch his name. Apparently that plane had a reputation for taking up more runway than the others to take off.



 




 

Flying on NVGs at sustained low altitudes in the mountains during low light levels.

How dark it is naturally is amplified by looking through the HUD and having to turn up the brightness on the display with the Litening pod.  It really de-gains your goggles and makes it so you can barely tell the difference between terrain and the horizon.  You can tell that you're going to clear the terrain but higher terrain in front of larger mountains is masked and you can't see it.  It makes it really hard to fly at tactical altitudes without the radalt constantly going off and having huge altitude busts.

You're not getting away with just that.

Tell the story man!

Stories are better than mine. I had a partial engine failure in a PA-28-140 and limped her 50 miles home about 300ft off the deck.  Instrument panel shaking like an earthquake, smoke pouring out of the cowl, too low to get anyone up on the radio, scary times!  (But, I can say I landed a Cherokee with the throttle to firewall!)

(One of the valves broke, tore up a cylinder.  Good thing it was an air cooled engine!)

Flying a 182 thru a Level 2 cell east of ABQ and losing the left engine on a Twin Commander 680 in IMC coming back from Andros Island, Bahamas are the 2 that come to mind.

I don't care to repeat either one, but the experiences were definitely enlightening

Manual approach to 50' at night in a fog bank.

flying a cessna around LAS on my 17th birthday with all of the traffic making the tcas go nuts.  probably wasn't as busy as it seemed, but as a non-pilot is was invigorating.

I'd say ILS to minimums at night. I could see across the state on takeoff and by the time I got there it was one of those "look up at DH, see runway environment and continue to 100ft" moments. Tops at 500ft with orange lightning occasionally dancing over the top of the fog.

That, or the engine failure in a Mooney at 200ft on takeoff was probably something that I definitely do not want to have happen again.

NASA's reduced gravity C-9.  AKA "The Vomit Comet"  

I took a contract trip that involved me dead heading to an international airport then picking up the trip with the "chief pilot" already on location with the aircraft.
Everything about the trip had me uneasy.


As we taxi out, I'm doing mental math on fuel, BOW, passengers, and bags.


My pilot senses are telling me we are way overweight.


I bring it up and the chief says the a/c's BOW is a number lower than I've ever heard of.


Takeoff roll was painfully slow and we used alot of runway.


I was pissed.  Once in cruise, I pulled the AFM and saw the true BOW....we were WAY over gross.


The passengers saw me giving the chief a verbal rashing.


Once on the ramp at destination, they asked me what was going on.


When I explained, they fired the guy on the spot.


 

Early in my flying career I was asked to fly along with a guy in his Cessna 206.  We were going to Florida, and he wasn't completely comfortable with IFR, flying over water, and busy airports.  I said sure!

So I arrive at the airport as he's getting the plane ready.  I've never flown a 206, but have a little (maybe 50-100 hrs of 182/182RG time) and I'm a little surprised by how much stuff he's bringing.  It looked kinda like a bush plane in Alaska.
He had a big toolbox, suitcases, two extra passengers who'd overpacked, all kinds of shit.  The third row seat's been taken out, so there's a lot of space of it all to lay flat on the floor.

Since this guy had 20 years on me, and had been flying for 5 years or so, compared to my 1 or so at the time, I naively figured he knew what he was doing.  But I still asked questions about gross weight and CG.  He assured me we were fine, and that if it would fit in the cabin, you couldn't really get it out of CG.

Finally he started loading cases of bottled water into the airplane.  Like 4-5 total.  I drew the line here and said "Woah, woah, why are we taking these?  Can't you stop and buy some at a Walmart when we get there?  Let's not have 100 pounds of weight we don't need in the very back of the baggage compartment."  

It was at this point I realized that this man was insane, and had no regard for W&B.  Didn't mind being a test pilot.  To his credit he acquiesced, and we left all the bottled water behind.  I felt good for being a safe pilot and speaking up even though it wasn't my airplane and all.
I even started working on a basic W&B, using pencil and paper and the numbers out of the book.  Unfortunately he was in a hurry and I didn't get it done before he was ready to leave.  So I got in and we taxied out and took off.

The airplane kind of rotated itself (he was flying the first leg, I was watching) and lumbered into the air eventually, meandering along in ground effect until he got it up to speed and could climb at about 120 knots.  Climbed kinda lazily too, but I figured it was hot, we were heavy (but hopefully not overweight), and I was used to a 182.

So we get into cruise (eventually) and I watched him get it all set up for cruise.  He rolls in all the trim nose forward.  After a while he asks if I wanted to take it so he could take a nap.  I said Sure!

In level flight, with all the nose down trim, I had to hold maybe a few pounds of force on the yoke to keep the nose level.  Not enough to be horribly tiring, but enough to be uncomfortable and convince me that we had a real problem with our CG.

After a while he took it back and I took the opportunity to finish my W&B.  We were approximately 500 lbs over gross (!) with the fuel we'd taken off with, and waaay outside the aft CG limit.  When one of the passengers reclined their seat or leaned over the back to get something out of their bag, I could feel it!

Needless to say, I was extremely unhappy.  Not to mention that I had a long remainder of the flight to worry about how the landing was going to be.  The owner acted like it was no big deal, he did it all the time.  He flew the approach with 20 degrees of flaps (IIRC) right at the flap extension speed, only slowing right before the threshold, and made a half-decent landing regardless.  So, while I was impressed with his stick and rudder skills, I was pretty peeved that I'd been pressured (I'd say fooled) into being part of flying an airplane way outside the CG limits.

I wound up airlining back, since I couldn't convince him to UPS some of the baggage home.  Kept thinking I didn't want to be in an NTSB report that listed the gross weight of the airplane at the time of the crash!

Sadly, I too knew a guy just like this. I would beg him, for his family's sake, to pay attention the his aircrafts limitations.
He wouldn't listen, constantly over gross, burned convenient store gas, and then one day he did it.....killed himself in his over loaded, out of CG 182.

Married father of 4.

Yup, it's a bad deal.    This guy never had any accidents to my knowledge, but Cessna should have given him an award for being a free test pilot.
Unfortunately, for every 1 guy that flies that way his whole life and survives, there's 3 others that don't, and they always take innocent people with them.  Not to mention earning us new rules and a bad image.

I really love the guys burning MoGas in engines not designed for it (and airplanes not STC'd for it) in order to save $10 an hour.  Nevermind that an engine overhaul or even an accident resulting from trash in the gas is going to cost beaucoup more.

I used to fly a little Cessna for fun, that had an STC for MoGas.  I decided to try burning it to see if it ran okay.  I found a store with 100% gas, no ethanol, and filled up one of the tanks.  I'd take off on the 100LL tank, and then switch over to the other one once I'd climbed to a safe altitude where I could return to the field if the engine died.  Then I'd switch back to 100LL before starting my descent.  I never had an issues running on it, but the second time I filled up I found so much trash in the tank (not water, just debris that had settled) from the MoGas that I swore never to use it again.  It's just not held to the same standards at all.

My father told me one time about his first experience flying an open-cockpit biplane.  He got asked to ferry an AcroSport from somewhere up in Missouri down to Texas.
The new owner and he drove up, paid for the airplane, and he did a thorough preflight and took off.  The new owner was going to drive home in the car and meet him back in Dallas.

It's a beautiful day, this is back before GPS and all the fancy stuff, so he's flying with his Sectional and magnetic compass, classic VFR navigation the way God intended.  Unfortunately he wasn't fully equipped for open cockpit, and so he doesn't have a kneeboard or anything.  So he's having to hold the map down in his lap with one hand or keep it folded.  Nor does he have the classic WWI skullcap that always seems to accompany Biplane pilots, for good reason.

At some point, he looked over his shoulder or something, and his David Clark headset blew off his head.  It's now flapping in the slipstream, hanging by the (decidedly stout!) cord.  In his efforts to retrieve his headset by reeling in the cord, his Sectional chart(s) also departed the airplane.

He said he completed the rest of the trip following the interstate the same way he'd driven up the day before, occasionally reading water towers for town names.

Even better, at one point he got a little unsure (Old School pilots never got lost, they were just temporarily unsure) of his exact location, and the direction to his next fuel stop.  So he found a water tower next to a small town, but couldn't quite read the name.
He circled it and got a little lower, still couldn't make it out.  Finally he descended as low as he thought he could without someone calling in his N# and getting him arrested.

The water tower said "Rural Water District #4" or something to that effect.  

Not my story, but I would have loved to get to do that, back in the day when we didn't worry about TFRs and such.

I was flying a Cherokee into Sussex Airport and I made a beautiful final. I sticked the landing - right on the threshold, no squeal from the tires, no change in attitude because I flared so perfectly. I was the best pilot ever.



And then my instructor referred to the wrench he carried in his flight bag and said, "If you ever come in that low again, I'll cave in your skull."

Not to mention there are other properties about MoGas that are not ideal for aviation. I don't know a whole lot about fuels and perhaps someone here can elaborate, but I have seen that things like boiling points appear to be significantly different and assume that can affect things like vapor lock and high altitude performance.

Pilots should mind their T's and I's when it comes to aviation. Even if something is not our fault (which it never is), we will be under scrutiny when involved in an incident. The first things that the FSDO asked me for after my engine failure were my certificate number, medical and BFR information. With that said, I believe that the FAA routinely issues ferry permits for aircraft at 115% of max gross, with greater requiring some sort of engineering review. It also appears that FAR §91.323 allows aircraft under 12,500lbs operating under 121/135 in Alaska to operate at 115% of max gross.

LOL but no, both flight docs held me down so I wasn't just bouncing about like some vomit powered missile and I made sure to get it all in the bag. The worst was once I settled down I was buckled back into the seats and then I could see out the cockpit window... sky/ocean ....sky/ocean...sky/ocean... and that made it way worse since then had a point of reference of the horizon and I realized that we were diving.


But I did get get to throw up in 0G, -G,+G, Lunar gravity, and Martian Gravity so I got that going for me!

I built my RV to use mogas and have had zero problems w/it - in fact, the plugs are cleaner than when using 100LL (not that I care - a new set of plugs gets installed every year anyway).   I always, always, always fill via a Mr. Filter funnel however that traps stuff including water for primarily the reason you mention.   I check for ethanol periodically as well (haven't found any yet).

I probably go beyond most in that I also build a rig to test vapor pressure and tested pure 100LL, pure mogas (summer blend), and various ratio mixes.   I found that there is a lot of information around this particular topic that doesn't agree with the data I collected.  

I had an engine fail as my hand was coming off the thrust levers at V1 on a Lear 25. Right at MTOW on 4L at MDW.  Of course as soon as the gear came up, it started climbing at probably 1200fpm.  Not a big deal, other than the initial shock of it caused some seat cushion sucking.

Ice.

Tail plane flutter.

TCAS.

Windshear.

UH-1 doing a circle at 70AGL next to the Memorial Bridge in DC to avoid landing traffic at DCA, in formation.
...Or an NVG brownout go-around, beginning at 96% power applied.

Struck by lightning, twice, right after takeoff with 12hrs of fuel, from a cell 4 miles away... only a couple of little holes in the wings, beers were had after

And I'll second wanting the F-4 story!

All in the same flight?!  

Yep. Then swapped planes and went back through it. The ice was bad.

I had a flight with 5 TCAS RAs, once.

Not a pilot but I've been on two AC that were struck.  First one wasn't too crazy.  Second one had the lady next to me crying that she would never see her children again.  In fairness, that was an exceptionally bad flight ATL->CLT.  We waited out the bad WX in ATL then freakin tried to land in it in Charlotte.    

Speaking of F4s, my dad has some stories.  Besides the two ejections, one of the more interesting ones was a bad case of vertigo while looking for a tanker in bad WX.   I guess they don't call those things an Aluminum Horizon for nothing.  

I lost ALL electrical about five seconds after lifting off in 300/1/2 at Houston Hobby in our B36TC. Fun times ensued. Flight lasted appx. 41 seconds. I was looking up at hangar roofs out one window and counting weeds out of the other. SWA was slamming planes on the crossing runway. No radio, no nothing. In a 90 degree bank about 30 feet off the ground when the plane starts shaking and the stall warning goes off YOU GIVE IT SOME GAS. Truly a miracle we made it down safely. FAA showed up and after a debriefing the man said "I`d have done the same thing". I felt vindicated in my actions. I only shut down half the airport for several hours.

When the gear started coming up the wife said she heard a sound like a "fart". I didn`t hear anything and by the time the sound came the electricity left. The gear motor chose that exact time to fail which caused a massive current draw which shit the battery and the alternator at the same time. Gear was about half way up which meant that I landed on the fairings which are about the size of an ice skate blade. Most exciting 41 seconds of my life. I`ve ridden bulls, scored touchdowns, had seventy employees,raised two sons but nothing ever got my attention like this did.

Where is TYCOM?

https://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=1&f=147&t=1808416

Got zapped departing IAH.  About 5 freet in front of my face, on the nose.  Sounded like someone took a sledgehammer to a tin roof.

If you don't mind me asking, what was electrically powered and what was vacuum powered in your airplane?
I'm not understanding why you went into a 90 degree bank at 30'.  Not picking on you or being an ass, just trying to get the picture of what happened.

Sounds like you made a tight turn to return to the departure runway, which in low IMC and an electrical failure (meaning no radio, no nav, no ILS capability) sounds like an excellent call.  I take it you didn't have enough runway to pull power and set down on the remainder?
Glad you made it safely, hope the airplane wasn't badly damaged.

I wouldn't say "that was neat", but way back when, as very young freight dog, flying a Cessna 402 without radar, I managed to punch through a developed thunderstorm.  At least I was at low altitude.  I somehow managed to follow the advise my father (who cut his IFR teeth without onboard WX radar) had given me for just such an occasion.  I slowed way down, turned up all the lights, and just tried to keep the wings level.  The most terrifying couple of minutes in my aviation career.  When mother nature spit me out the backside, it would have required Joe Patroni, and his entire crew of mechanics to remove the seat cushion from my ass.

A close second would be the time I landed with about 10 gallons of fuel remaining (in the same 402) after I had to divert, on a "no alternate required" day.  I still remember the sound of the engines "pinging" as they cooled, because my legs were shaking too bad for me to try and get out of the airplane through the crew door.  

Que the "old pilots, and bold pilots" saying here.

First was in AFG as contract air, we were doing an emergency food resupply for a base way out of our normal AO.  I wasn't scheduled to fly that day, but decided to be a crew member so I could do some photos over some amazing terrain.  We had two ships, two pilots each, and two crew members each.


We took off, loaded with 5 pallets each of food, and made our way over some of the most amazing mountains I had ever seen. Eventually made into the vicinity of the base, and one of the pilots called us inbound and asked for status. Well, the base was under fire at the time, so we circled.  Eventually, we got to the point that if we continued to circle, we would just have to abort the mission, and head elsewhere and get fuel.  We didn't have secure coms, so when one pilot reported that we were about to abort and that we were their emergency food supply, he broadcast it in the open for the Taliban to hear as well.  Sure enough, a couple minutes go by and the Taliban stops shooting, to see if we were dumb enough to land.


We were.


Myself and our crew chief got out to start unloading the other ship with their crew and the forklift. We were on our 2nd kicker when the first round of IDF hit, just off the LZ.  Forklift driver tears off, leaving us wondering if we should try to unload, or get out as well. For once we were smart enough to get the hell out of there.  We take off in the first ship, 2nd takes off.  No sooner does he clear the LZ, an IDF round hits right where they had been.


On departure, we are going out through a valley, between two ridges.  On the ridge on our left we start to see smoke, dust clouds, and small fires starting to kick up.  Right after, we see the same on the right.  


Turns out the Taliban was on the hill to the right, shooting at us and missing, tearing up the hill on the left.  The troops on the base were trying to defend us, and were tearing up the Taliban on the hill to the right.  We were just like R2-D2 just cruising through the crossfire.  


We landed at Jbad, and as directed by the unit that controlled us, we were going to leave the food there, and .mil air could figure how to get it back where it was going.  But while we were refueling, some young Capt. decided to "order" us to go back and try again.  Crew chief relayed, with much sarcasm, about the Capt.'s order.  I laughed.  We were civilians, not subject to orders.  


But somehow, the good idea fairy visited the pilots up front (who were our base managers at the time).  Neither was willing to show fear to the other.  


So we went again.  Similar results, but we did manage to offload everything the 2nd time.  

Was turning up the lights to help prevent distraction from what's going on outside, or was it to keep you from being completely blind after a flash of lightning?

The theory is to keep from getting flash blinded by the lightning.  All the transport airplanes I've flown have a "storm" light switch, that turns up all the dome/flood and other lights with the flip of one switch.

Whoa. That's country club aviator equipment, right there.

 Now that I think about it, I don't think the Shorts had storm lights, but I'm pretty sure al the others did.

I once landed in a 10kt crosswind!

In flight training I was doing my long solo cross country, KCRP to KMFE to KBKS and back to KCRP.  Normal spring day in Corpus, winds were 25kts with gusts to about 35kts.  



Coming into KBKS I call AWOS and check weather direction.  I happen to notice the Navy was using the alternate runway instead of the logical one based on AWOS.  



As I pulled into the flair on runway 14 I was adding more and more rudder to compensate for the crosswind.  That's when I hit the rudder stop and was still drifting.  I have never pressed on a rudder pedal so hard in my life.  The 60' wide runway was suddenly very narrow.  



About the time the wheel touched down I was initiating the go around.  I called it close enough for a landing.  



As I was departing I listed to the new updated AWOS, and sure enough the wind had shifted 90 degrees.  

Nice!  I've had to do the same thing flying a 182 in my first job.  Unfortunately I didn't have another runway, but my second attempt was successful since the winds died down a bit.  Knowing your limitations and when to swallow pride and firewall the throttle is key to being a safe pilot.

I've also run out of rudder on the Citation during an especially windy day, but had the advantage of being able to split the throttles and still made a good crosswind landing.  Nothing like setting it down with the rudder pinned!

Landing an AH64D under FLIR to a blacked out single spot Navy ship 100 NM out in the North Arabian Gulf on the darkest night of my life. Never thought I would do that as an Army Aviator, it took every ounce of skill that I had, but made me a better pilot because of it.

Fuck that.


Going IIMC due to a dust storm while in an extremely tall, narrow mountain range in Afg. Luckily I had my ground track recorded on the way in, just followed that shit back out at the same altitude, deconflicting with my wingman using alt and we were good.

Fortunately for me the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me (so far) was my first cross country solo. Went into the flight school at O-dark thirty and kind of figured my instructor was going to say it was a no go because bad weather was coming in. He was always on the cautious side so I trusted him.

"Oh, you'll be back 3 hours before that even gets close. Go ahead go on. You'll be fine."

Long story short, coming back on my third leg out of Anderson, SC, over half way back ceilings dropped to around a 2,000 ft. and very bad turbulence. One bump was so bad it knocked my headsets down around my neck and my sunglasses that were perched on top of my head went flying all the way back to the cargo area of the Archer. Talk about white knuckles and sweating palms!

Thought about turning around and heading back to Anderson, SC but quick check of the weather there revealed it had gotten worse, as well as every other airport around. Figure the hell with it. If I was going to crash the damn thing might as well crash it close to home.

Landed on Runway 25 at LZU with 17 kt x-winds gusting to 25 kts from 300. Actually wasn't a bad landing.

Had just got the cover on the plane when my instructor came taxiing in and I walked past him as he was getting out of the other plane.

"You mad at me?"

Wouldn't even talk to him. Laughed about it the next day but damn I was mad! Got some good experience though for a first time x-country solo but my instructor said he'd never would have let me go up had he known it was going to get that bad that soon. Well duh!