never trust bloody pilots....

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dubbleyew eight
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never trust bloody pilots....

#1 Post by dubbleyew eight » Sat Apr 02, 2016 5:10 pm

once upon a time I was deputy head poobah of one of australia's interminable alphabet aviation groups.
each year we arranged a flyin get together.
the year in question saw the flyin on the other side of the country, but not too far from where my ageing parents lived.
I spent some time with the parents and during the flyin commuted over to the scene of the flyin.
I do actually properly flight plan but found that all my last light calculations had vanished somewhere.
back then we didnt have the internet connectivity of now so recovering the lost information was impossible.
I hit on a plan.
I asked a guy from the top end of queensland whether he knew when last light was. sure did, and he gave me the hour and minutes.
later that day I asked a guy from new south wales whether he knew the time of last light. I asked whether he knew the guy from north queensland.
no he didnt know the guy but he did know the last light time. he gave me the exact same time as the guy from north queensland.
even later that day I asked a guy from south australia whether he knew either of my two previous informants.
he'd heard of them in the magazine but had never met either personally.
when I asked whether he knew the time of last light he gave me the exact same time as the other two guys.
with that certainty I worked out the flight time home and added 10 minutes and set that as my departure time.

as the time approached I prepped the aircraft and was able to takeoff bang on my predicted departure time.
flight home was quite uneventful. that is until I glanced out west toward the sun.
the disk of the sun was half way down the horizon. yoiks.

if you take the time the disk of the sun first intercepts the horizon and when it last vanishes from sight the time difference is about 20 minutes.
half way down the horizon meant just 10 minutes of remaining sunlight. I had about 50 minutes of flight time to go.
**** me! I am just over half an hour from my takeoff airstrip. so I think think think. so I cant get back there.
think think think.
there is an ultralight field somewhere near here. do an orbit and see if we can pick it out in the gloom.
not a sign of it. do another orbit and try again.
nup not a single sign of it or the town it lies beside. scratch that option. (at this stage I hadnt yet purchased a gps.)
glance over at the sun again. yep less than 10 minutes of light remaining.
looking looking looking. find a paddock to put down in and sleep under the aeroplane for the night and finish the flight in the morning.
bloody hell it is all subdivided 5 acre farmlets with horses.
find a section of road ...
bloody hell it must look wonderful from ground level. all the roads are tree lined. not a gap anywhere.
hmmmm running out of options. where is that spare magician "out" when you need it.
what to do, what to do? cant go back. cant go forward. cant see anywhere that I could possibly land.
hmmm "the air is your friend, stay in the middle of the air."

the sun is just about to vanish and I have 40 minutes to destination.
can I fly this aircraft with my eyes closed. neutrally stable in all axes, controls as sensitive as hell, can I do it?
that must be a minute now, open the eyes. did it.
what was it that richard collins wrote in his book. the world only starts to unravel after the wings leave level. keep the wings level.
my destination airstrip has a white bitumen surface and the moon rises 20 minutes after sundown. I should be able to land in the moonlight.
flick on the interior light and fly on the instruments. click ....nothing. the bulb had blown.
I dont believe it. I've been checking the plane at night using the light for the entire trip and it chooses now to fail.
somatogravic illusions are the thing. must avoid moving the head and generating illusions.
hold the hand dead still on the yolk and listen for engine note changes.
a slow look around showed that there was not a single farmlight visible anywhere.
amazing. everywhere a deep inky matte blackness. I cant even see the aeroplane around me.
slowly raise the non flying hand and move in front of my face. cant see it at all.
well boy you can do it. there are no backup plans, there are no "outs", you have to pull this off or die.

about 3 hours later, or so it seemed, I slowly turned my head to the left and what I thought was south east.
nothing but a deep impenetrable matte blackness. not a farm light to be seen anywhere. wait on what is that? it is getting lighter over there.
there it was the merest chink of light. so that is where the horizon is.
bingo! there was the faintest glimmer of moonlight and there between me and the chink of light is a reflection off the lake.
I'm exactly where I intended to be.
continue south down the valley and I should start to see the nav lights on the hill.
there they are, so make the after hours MBZ radio call.
....oh no the bloody control tower is still active. I'll never hear the last of this.
there is the white surface of the airstrip. turn slowly and make a straight in approach.
the tower have turned on the airfield lighting for me. me a totally black invisible day vfr aircraft.
a tail low wheeler to stop the grooved runway destroying the tailwheel and taxy in past the tower to the tie down area.

shutdown the little continental and slum back in the seat with eyes closed.
I just pulled off flying in total matte blackness with no reference to any form of visual horizon for over half an hour because there was no other bloody option.
I survived.

right get all the gear out, tie down and walk around to mums place.
mum are you still up? make a cup of tea will you. you'll never believe....

how did 3 experienced competent pilots each give me the exact same wrong time for last light? never trust a bloody pilot. the buggers nearly killed me.

Sisemen

Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#2 Post by Sisemen » Sun Apr 03, 2016 3:56 am

Very very similar. It was only my second long solo flight after getting my licence.

I was due to deliver a Cessna 172 to Gindalbie Station which is about 32 nauticals north-east of Kalgoorlie in the middle of nowhere. I had to finish some work in the office before departure from Northam so it was a lot later than I had planned. I dropped in for refuelling at Merredin and, whilst the refueller was filling it up, he asked me where I was bound. I told him. His comment was “Oh. That’s cutting a bit tight for last light isn’t it?”

That’s when I realised that there might be a problem. But, not to worry, I had a brand new, top of the range GPS (which I hadn’t really used up to that point) and duly set off on the next leg.

Some time previously I had gone along for the ride to Gindalbie when a couple of the engineers had gone out to do some maintenance. There was no GPS and navigation was “seat of the pants” stuff, albeit both the engineers/pilots had been to that location lots of times before. Nevertheless, it took a bit of searching before hitting on that lonely outback strip and this had obviously sunk into my head and, even though my GPS on this trip was unerringly indicating the direction, I was expecting to have to look for the place.

As I approached Broad Arrow I could see the beacon at Kalgoorlie very brightly against the darkening sky from the east. There wasn’t very much sun above the horizon behind me. Do I divert into Kalgoorlie? At this stage of my experience could I cope with flying into a major airport? What was the owner of the aircraft going to say? etc etc. I decided to push on. I then started to look for Gindalbie as I crossed the Goldfields Highway at Broad Arrow. I thought it was more to the right of what my GPS was telling me! No. Wander back to track and try the left. The panic was now really hitting me. I couldn’t go back to Kalgoorlie as it would have been black night. If I went on I was travelling into thousands of kilometres of empty desert. I had to find the bloody place!

And then I caught the very last bit of light reflecting off the homestead tin roof. The owner was on his strip and drove down the runway to clear off the ‘roos and giving me some headlights as a marker. As I taxied to the shed/hangar it had become fully night and the aircraft lights illuminated my way!

The log book reads Merredin - Gindalbie Station - Delivery - Late landing 2.5 hours

I certainly learnt about flying, and trusting my GPS, from that!

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Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#3 Post by dubbleyew eight » Sun Apr 03, 2016 12:12 pm

on another trip with a mate, refuelling delays meant we were running out of light.
in fact we had 45 minutes to fly with just 30 minutes of light left. we were never going to make it to ceduna.
mate gets his gps out and punches go to nearest.
it throws up penong.
change course to a direct descent into penong.
scoot low over the strip for a quick look see, pick a direction and peel off over the town losing height to make it back to the strip.
the gap in the grass is about 12 inches wider than my wheel track and the grass is tall enough to just brush the wing.
slow the aircraft and put it down dead on the centreline.
by the time we rolled to a halt the sun had set and it was like turning off a fluoro light in a room.
it was suddenly so dark we couldnt see each other.

in america pilots are taught to fly at night as part of the ppl (private pilots licence.)
australia prohibits night flight and doesnt teach it as part of the ppl.
I wonder how many pilots have been killed by australia's approach?

many of australias remote airfields are 300 miles apart. it is not hard to run out of light in australia.

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Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#4 Post by Pinky the pilot » Mon Apr 04, 2016 3:08 am

australia prohibits night flight


Not entirely correct, unless changes have been made!!

Years ago there was a requirement to hold what was then called a Night VMC if one wished to hold a CPL. It is now called the Night VFR and surprisingly is no longer a CPL requirement! :-o

I should think that there is nothing stopping you from doing a Night VFR
dubbleyew eight.
I knew of several PPl holders who all held the Night rating, albeit this was a few years back.
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Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#5 Post by A Lutra Continua » Mon Apr 04, 2016 9:00 am

GPS eh? Now there's an expensive high tech way to bite yourself in the arse.

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Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#6 Post by Ex-Ascot » Mon Apr 04, 2016 9:46 am

ALC, no, a 'cheap' hi tech way. This is the problem. Give me Decca any day!

Night landings; in a nutshell flying a Shorts Skyvan out of Cranfield for a sunset para display somewhere oop north. Authorised to land back on after the airfield had closed using just landing lights. It was a wreck of an aircraft; G-BKMD. The lights had worked on the walk around but they sure as hell didn't when I needed them. Just had to aim it at the darkest part of the airfield hoping it was the runway and decend very slowly onto it.

I was never happy with that aircraft. My conversion onto it was a few circuits and bumps with a check captain who himself was a crazy parachutist. After two touch and goes he asked if I was happy. I implied sort of, so then he jumps out and leaves me with the heap of sh1t.
'Yes, Madam, I am drunk, but in the morning I shall be sober and you will still be ugly.' Sir Winston Churchill.

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Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#7 Post by dubbleyew eight » Tue Apr 05, 2016 12:10 pm

pinky what I was getting at is that australia sees night flight as something special.
in america it is expected that a standard PPL is capable of night flight.
yes other people have night ratings but those were done after the PPL.
my original published story actually prompted a few of those.

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Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#8 Post by Slasher » Tue Oct 04, 2016 8:17 pm

Oz Night VMC over highly lit populated places like Victoria and NSW are one thing, over the middle of the Tanami or Great Sandy (aka the GAFA) on a moonless night is another. I had an attack of the leans something fierce in my youth in a 206 charter all the way from ASP to Hooker Creek at 1am.

Not to mention clock and compass praying!

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Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#9 Post by 500N » Tue Oct 04, 2016 8:31 pm

Slasher wrote:Oz Night VMC over highly lit populated places like Victoria and NSW are one thing, over the middle of the Tanami or Great Sandy (aka the GAFA) on a moonless night is another. I had an attack of the leans something fierce in my youth in a 206 charter all the way from ASP to Hooker Creek at 1am.

Not to mention clock and compass praying!


It bloody dark out there, isn't it :D

I remember a C-130 Landed at some very remote airstrip, no lights, nothing. We had walked from
the Woomera Rocket range to the airstrip and you couldn't tell a C-130 was on the runway until
you were so close to it, within 100 - 200 yards.

Slasher

Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#10 Post by Slasher » Tue Oct 04, 2016 8:46 pm

Darker than the inside of a black billygoat's arse in a coal mine at midnight.

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Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#11 Post by ExSp33db1rd » Tue Oct 04, 2016 11:05 pm

NATO training in Canada, Harvards, French student built out of the solid, ex-3rd Mate off some tanker outfit in Marseilles before learning to fly, night navigation exercise, Temporarily Uncertain Of His Position, decides to bail out, gingerly climbs out of the cockpit and maintains level flight by still holding the stick - he said - looks down at the snow covered, deserted terrain, climbs back in. He said. Eventually Establishes His Approximate Position and locates the airfield.
No witness, but we believed him.

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Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#12 Post by 500N » Tue Oct 04, 2016 11:13 pm

Ex

LOL :D , that is very good.

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Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#13 Post by Chuks » Mon Jan 23, 2017 12:11 pm

My father told me about another Navy pilot who was ferrying a clapped-out Douglas SBD Dauntless, somewhere out over Kansas, I think it was. Anyway, it was getting on for dark when this fellow realized that he'd left the nav chart with the radio range information in the back, where the radioman/gunner had his office, a chart he needed to navigate in the dark.

Instead of making a forced landing in some pasture he decided to just inch his way along the wing and get the chart from the rear before returning to the cockpit to continue his flight with nobody the wiser about his embarrassing oversight. It went okay until he lost his grip and fell off the wing, when the SBD went on its way without him. He explained this by claiming that the engine cut or something, which the Navy bought because nobody cared much about a clapped-out SBD that ended up crashed in some field in the middle of Kansas without causing any harm to anyone.

According to my father this guy enjoyed the descent by parachute so much more than flying the clapped-out SBD that he did one more jump from another SBD, when the Navy then assigned him to other duties.

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Re: never trust bloody pilots....

#14 Post by Cacophonix » Tue Jan 31, 2017 5:35 am

Instead of making a forced landing in some pasture he decided to just inch his way along the wing and get the chart from the rear before returning to the cockpit to continue his flight with nobody the wiser about his embarrassing oversight.


A good story akin (in the sense of walking the port plank) to the one about Sir Patrick Gordon Taylor who crept out onto the wing of Kingford Smith's Fokker to pour oil into an overheating engine...

When I first read of this feat of daring do many years ago I was apt to poo-poo it but Gordon Taylor won a George Cross for his travails so it must be true...

Sir Charles Kingsford Smith (Smithy) has been a household name in Australia for setting aviation records. He was seen as a daredevil pilot and the public adored him. In 1935 he took off from Sydney in the Southern Cross, which he nicked named ‘The Old Bus’, to fly a special airmail flight carrying 30,000 letters in 21 mail bags to New Zealand celebrating the King’s jubilee. (The first airmail had been carried to New Zealand only the year before by fellow Australian aviator, Charles Ulm). On board with Smithy was Captain P.G. (Bill) Taylor as navigator and John Stannage, the radio operator. The Old Bus carried a radio, not terribly common in those days, and Smithy had planned to speak to his fans on radio station 2CH while flying over the Tasman Sea. But things didn’t go to plan…’The Sydney Morning Herald’ of 16 May 1935 tells us…

The first intimation that anything was amiss was a noise like a pistol shot. A portion of the metal on the exhaust manifold of the centre engine had become detached and the speed of the ‘plane hurled it towards the starboard propeller. It struck one of the blades, splintering the blade and breaking off a portion of the end.

This put the starboard engine out of use so Smithy decided it was too risky to continue on to New Zealand with over 1400 km to go. However…
the extra strain on the other two engines caused them to labour, and when the oil of the port engine showed indications of giving trouble Captain Taylor decided to take the great risk of draining the sump of the dead starboard engine. To reach it he had to climb out of the small window of the cockpit against a wind so strong that he risked being blown into the sea. He climbed perilously along a narrow strut leading to the starboard engine. Clinging to the strut with one hand, he removed one of the plates of the engine cowling, and then leaned into the engine until he was able to unscrew the cap of the oil drain pipe.

Before leaving the cockpit he broke the top off a thermos flask in which coffee was carried for the trip. With the thermos flask in his pocket of his flying coat and a suitcase clamped under his arm, he was able to drain the oil from the sump first into the thermos flask and then into the suit case. Then climbing back along the strut he manoeuvred his way through the cramped cabin by scrambling over the shoulders of Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, who was at the controls. It was necessary to stop the port engine while he climbed along the strut to replenish its oil supply and in this way the ‘plane lost both altitude and speed.

Each time the ‘plane was within 50 feet of the sea Captain Taylor climbed back into the cockpit and Sir Charles Kingsford Smith gave the port engine full throttle to regain speed and height again. It was necessary for Captain Taylor to repeat these perilous climbs from the starboard engine to the port engine several times, as the bottom of the suitcase would carry only a small quantity of oil…meanwhile the huge monoplane was labouring on, gradually shortening the distance between it and Sydney. Stannage sent wireless messages every half-hour, giving news of their progress. Many times it seemed that the Southern Cross would plunge into the sea. All ships along the coast and on the Tasman Sea, as well as the wireless stations, picked up the dramatic messages.


https://maas.museum/inside-the-collecti ... ern-cross/

Later poor old Kingsford Smith eventually drank himself into a growing stupor and then finally landed in the drink somewhere in the Andaman sea. Despite all that he was ultimately a very good pilot and a very brave gentleman.

Caco

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