You Copter pilots are friggin nuts! Admire the hell out of you but screw that!

Stopping a 750K airplane in less than 4,000 feet from 130+ KIAS at a field with PA of over 5,000' - that was expensive.

Taking on 100K of fuel - at night, in the weather with icing to the point the anti-ice on the center windscreen couldn't keep up after the tanker arrived at the wrong end of the track.

Shutting down an engine on climb out over a field in SWA with a temp of 117F.  

Struck by lightning on the nose of the aircraft on final - pencil sized hole through the radome but we never found the exit hole.

Best story...

Alaska in a C185 on floats.  Flying out of a lake with my Uncle and his friend to go look at a construction job they were bidding on.  Fly into the small lake, set down uneventfully.  Taxi to the shore, get a piggyback ride from my Uncle since he's wearing hip waders.  Tie off the airplane to the dumpster in the pull off area.  Return in the afternoon to a hotter day than expected.  Taxi out into the middle of the lake where the pilot looks around and says, "looks like the wind is coming from that direction" as he adds power.  Get about 100 yards from the shore and the plane is not ready to takeoff and he pulls power - the plane settles back into the water and we coast toward shore.  Pilot decides the wind is coming from the opposite direction and we start the dance over again and still can't get off the water.  Next solution - kill the engine, open the doors and make sure we pump all the water out of the floats but there wasn't much water.  Pilot decides weight and balance isn't quite right and shuffles a can of avgas from one float to the other.  By this time there is a crowd gathering at the pull off to watch the festivities.  We get close to the shore and attempt to takeoff in the initial direction with much the same result, however, instead of pulling power we decide to start a 180 degree turn while doing 30 knots or so.  As we get turned around we pick up speed and are almost off as the pilot yells to me in the back seat to lean forward and finally the airplane gets airborne...  Fun times...

Unless someone from Apollo 13 chimes in.....

There was also my check ride which happened again on a low ceiling, ~3,500 ft., and high turbulence day. Was demonstrating my landings at a non-towered airport and was coming in for the x-wind landing with an actual 15 kt. x-wind gusting to 25 kt.

Was at around 250-300 ft coming in on final, crossed over a tree line, lost 150 ft almost instantly! Threw the throttle forward while announcing a go around at the same time and climbed out.

The FAA examiner was quite for a moment then said, "Very good decision. Very good decision. That's your go around landing. Why don't we go back and to LZU and you can demonstrate your x-wind landing there and we'll call it a day. Very good decision."

I think he said "Very good decision," about 3 more times on the 15 mi. trip back to the home airport. When I told my instructor about it he told me that's was the point where I passed my check ride.

Today, I still wouldn't go up in that kind of weather. I barely did maintain my altitude it was so bumpy and was afraid I was going to get busted. But I'm glad I made an impression on that FAA examiner like I did…but don't want to do that again!

Not my flight, but I bet this was memorable:


Facebook link, but you shouldn't need an account to view.




Fun times

Back again with a manned story this time.

We were doing some training in the warning areas off the coast, about 125nm out to sea well after the sun went down as a three ship formation.  As luck would have it we were also dancing around a line of significant weather.  We performed some of the tasking and then moved to rejoin but by that point the weather had gone to shit SFC-FL450.  The poor newbie control got all kinds of confused on who was who and where they were and started vectoring us around the weather and other traffic, so he thought.  

It didn't take us long to figure out that we were not going to be unable to turn around due to the weather, we had to go north before we could go south or west.  We kept telling the controller where we were but he kept using our callsign to direct the other traffic, and vise versa.  Before we know it we're seeing a tanker and chicks pass off our left, far too close for comfort.  I started inquiring about the marshal stack which further confused the controller since he thought we were the airplane that went south and around, not north.  He just kept telling us the stack was behind us which didn't jive with our TACAN.

Shortly thereafter, we're in it and through it, luckily didn't swap any paint but it must have been close. The newbie controller was replaced with someone who must have a head of grey hair and cool as ice.  He took a second to sort out who was who by lat/long and vectored us safely away from everything.  He hands us off to a civilian center controller who starts working us home which sounded great at the time.  As we're descending we start getting back into some nasty weather but our SatWX and our radar are helping us pick our way through.  We break out in what only can be described as a valley surrounded by Thor's collection of hammers ready to pounce on any usurper like us.  Lightning as far as we can see in any direction extending deep into the milky way leaving the poor guy I was flying with scared to death, that brown man turned white.

10 minutes of fighting and one brutal ILS later we found ourselves on the ground safe and sound.  

That was exactly zero fun at the time and still isn't.

I was a young CW2 PIC of a UH-1 on my second rotation down to Honduras in '89 with the 101st.

Being my second tour down there, having some experience in the mountains and having undergone the quals twice, I thought I knew what I was doing.

I didn't.

I managed to fly into a mountain wave when I creeped a little too close to the leeward side of a range trying to shave a few minutes off my flight.

I was about 1500' agl and cruising at 100 kias when the hand of God threw me at the Earth.  I could see no sky, just trees.  I have no idea what my rate of descent was.  I don't know if the armpit full of collective or full aft cyclic I applied had any appreciable effect.  I sincerely doubt it did. I don't know how long it actually lasted.  It seemed like forever but was likely well less than 10 seconds when God decided that I'd had enough and 200' agl was close enough for that day.

I was too scared to poop my pants.

Very short flight.  About 30'.  From the door of an HH43B to the ground.  They tell me I was flapping my arms.

Helio, Tree, Rotor. That is all. Dam Lucky..even landed on skids.
Helio, Sudden weight shift, sideways, rotor darn near vertical to ground, 30 feet off the ground. Pucker right up.
Commercial flight- Zero visibility, 200' severe thunder storm. Micro Burst = wild ride.
Private flight- Coming in from Bahamas. All the tricity stopped...un nerving !
Happens !

Post above got me thinking about my checkride.  Mind you this day started out with crap weather and a 100 mile flight to see the examiner.  An examiner that is know for being "interesting" at time.  I arrive at my destination, kill the engine and promptly fall out of the airplane because I somehow had the seatbelt wrapped about my foot.  



So examiner grills me about anything and everything until he found something I didn't know.  Happy I wouldn't kill us off we go flying.  Airwork stuff all going pretty well except he kept nagging me about little things.  Finally about 4,000 feet his says "You just lost your engine."  Fair enough, trim airplane for best descent and start a turn to get a better look at the field below me.  I happen to glance up and see an untowered airport not too far away.  I tell him I am aborting field and headed towards airport.  He gives me a and "You sure about that?".  Quickly get a distance and run the numbers in my head and off we go.  Pull into pattern at 45 degrees and 900 feet, flew a semi circle pattern to the runway, perfect crosswind correction and a perfect landing.  Roll off the runway at the first exit.  He looks and me and says "I can't believe you just did that.  I can't believe you made that landing.  And very nice short field technique too."  Then immediately says "You really shouldn't have dropped the nose so much in the pattern and preserved the altitude."



A quick short field takeoff and another trip around the pattern then off for more air work.  The whole time keeps saying he couldn't believe I pulled that off.  Looking back I should have just done the approach to field to 500 feet and abort thing.  Then he nagged everything about my flying the whole time.



Finally we do unusual attitudes under the hood, no problem.  I ask if I can take if off.  "Nope, leave it on and fly me back to the airport.  Fly until I tell you to take off the hood."  Flew to about 2 miles north of the airport on a GPS runway track then setup on the VOR.  While on final he tells me to take off the hood.  



After shutdown he tells me "I can't believe you made that landing.  But you are not ready for your instrument checkride yet."  

Well, I'd imagine you're the only Husky crew chief on the board.