N546RV
Well Known Member
This is a somewhat old story, one that, for the longest time, I kept between myself and the other two occupants of the plane. Mostly that was out of shame, looking back at the series of stupid decisions that stacked up on me. As of late, I've been more open about the story, and I might as well go ahead and share it here.
To set the stage, I'd had my private for about 14 months at the time. Two friends and I decided to take a week-long trip to the Florida Keys, and mindful of the 14-hour drive, I proposed we fly down, a proposal that was welcomed. The flight down was totally uneventful; one fuel stop about halfway down, a bit of a diversion due to clouds in the peninsula, nothing to it.
Our original plan was to fly back home the following Saturday, but as the day approached, the weather forecast wasn't shaping up well. In the face of potential storms across most of the Southeast, I elected to postpone the homeward flight to Sunday. Sunday morning dawned bright and lovely; the forecast now called for only isolated/scattered storms in southern Florida. Figuring I could circumvent these, and keep nearby airports in mind in case I had to put down, I decided to go.
The forecast turned out to be somewhat erroneous; about 45 minutes into the flight, there was a solid-looking wall of ominous dark clouds ahead. I turned west, thinking that perhaps I could do an end run, but there was no way out. So I decided to backtrack to the nearest airport in Homestead.
(Side note: the folks at Homestead were GREAT. When I landed, I was a sweaty, nervous semi-wreck. Weather diversions/delays like this were new to me, and I was worried about getting home. As soon as I walked in the door, the lady practically threw a bottle of water at me. Later, they cooked us hot dogs while we waited out the storm.)
Two and a half hours later, the storms had rolled through and everything looked peachy the rest of the way home. At this point, I was feeling significant (self-imposed) pressure to get us home. It didn't help that I wasn't night current.
In retrospect, I was setting up for a classic case of get-there-itis.
The next factor came in the form of fuel. I figured I might as well get gas while I was on the ground, but the line guy filled the tanks to the top instead of just to the tabs as I requested. That put us slightly overweight, but also opened the possibility of maybe making it home without another fuel stop. The pressure tinged my judgment, and I took off with full fuel.
Now came another problem; even though the storms were gone, significant cloud cover remained. At first, I stayed under the clouds...a safer option, but it was hot and bumpy down there. For a while, I climbed above the clouds into smoother air, but eventually I started getting nervous about getting stuck on top with no way down, so somewhere around the GA border I went back down under.
Then, another dumb mistake: Since I still was holding on to the possibility of making it to PDK on the fuel on board, I started eyeballing the fuel gauges. Rationally, I knew that counting on those probably wasn't smart, but in the moment, I convinced myself I could find a way to do it. Eventually, I formed a plan to make my go/no-go decision on a fuel stop: I'd leave one tank about a quarter full (by the gauge), then fly on the other until it ran dry. If I was "close" to home, I'd proceed, otherwise, I'd have to stop. In the meantime, I'd keep a close track on nearby airports with gas available.
(A particular bit of self-criticism: "Close" does not cut it for a decision point. Looking back, I was basically giving myself an excuse to press on if I wanted to, rather than having to make a hard and fast decision.)
Somewhere in the vicinity of Milledgeville, GA, it happened. I thought I detected a bit of roughness in the engine, but thinking only of milking every last drop out of that left tank, I didn't switch. Maybe a minute or so later, I abruptly lost power. OK, time to switch! This was when things went horribly awry, and I got an object lesson in how a mostly tolerable situation can become extremely intolerable by the addition of one small, additional factor.
For those who haven't flown Archers, the fuel selector is down by your left shin, so you have to lean forward to reach down and switch. Well, when I went for the selector to switch to the good tank, my shoulder harness decided it would be a great time to lock. I backed off and tried leaning again. Still locked. In that moment, every shred of rationality departed my brain. It would have been simple to reach to my waist and unhook the shoulder harness, but all I did was keep trying to lean forward, continually banging against the harness.
Out the front of the plane, we'd of course pitched down with the power loss. There was mostly a faceful of ground, which didn't help my calmness at all. I was still banging against the harness repeatedly when I saw my friend's arm snake across in front of me and turn the selector. He'd been paying attention to me switching tanks, for reasons he can't quite explain.
Whatever his reasons, they quite likely saved us from an emergency landing. We were at maybe 1500' AGL when the power loss happened. It's possible that, after a bit, I would have stopped panicking, unhooked the harness, and switched the tank, but that's nothing but conjecture. If I hadn't calmed down, it probably wouldn't have boded well for my ability to land the plan off-airport.
I turned towards the airport at Milledgeville. There, on the ramp, I got one final, sobering shock. The left tank was of course pretty much dry, but the right tank, in which I'd supposedly been saving a good fuel reserve, there were maybe 2-3 gallons.
The rest of the flight was uneventful; we made it back to PDK just after sunset. It was great to be home. It was also great to have landed on pavement instead of grass.
I suspect that most of these stories are similar. We all get taught about the dangers of making decision under stress, the dangers of get-there-itis and so forth. Yet some of still fall victim to that very phenomenon. It's, of course, easy to sit at home and proudly say "I'd never make a decision like that!" I'm sure I did that during my training, but a year later, there I was, within 20 minutes of gliding a rented plane into a grass field somewhere.
Under that pressure, I convinced myself that I was still using (mostly) sound judgment. I knew I was taking additional risks, but in the moment each decision seemed like only a small amount of increased risk. Taken as a whole, they came really, really close to biting me.
In fact, it took a non-pilot passenger to save my bacon when the chips were down. That in itself is a humbling admission.
To set the stage, I'd had my private for about 14 months at the time. Two friends and I decided to take a week-long trip to the Florida Keys, and mindful of the 14-hour drive, I proposed we fly down, a proposal that was welcomed. The flight down was totally uneventful; one fuel stop about halfway down, a bit of a diversion due to clouds in the peninsula, nothing to it.
Our original plan was to fly back home the following Saturday, but as the day approached, the weather forecast wasn't shaping up well. In the face of potential storms across most of the Southeast, I elected to postpone the homeward flight to Sunday. Sunday morning dawned bright and lovely; the forecast now called for only isolated/scattered storms in southern Florida. Figuring I could circumvent these, and keep nearby airports in mind in case I had to put down, I decided to go.
The forecast turned out to be somewhat erroneous; about 45 minutes into the flight, there was a solid-looking wall of ominous dark clouds ahead. I turned west, thinking that perhaps I could do an end run, but there was no way out. So I decided to backtrack to the nearest airport in Homestead.
(Side note: the folks at Homestead were GREAT. When I landed, I was a sweaty, nervous semi-wreck. Weather diversions/delays like this were new to me, and I was worried about getting home. As soon as I walked in the door, the lady practically threw a bottle of water at me. Later, they cooked us hot dogs while we waited out the storm.)
Two and a half hours later, the storms had rolled through and everything looked peachy the rest of the way home. At this point, I was feeling significant (self-imposed) pressure to get us home. It didn't help that I wasn't night current.
In retrospect, I was setting up for a classic case of get-there-itis.
The next factor came in the form of fuel. I figured I might as well get gas while I was on the ground, but the line guy filled the tanks to the top instead of just to the tabs as I requested. That put us slightly overweight, but also opened the possibility of maybe making it home without another fuel stop. The pressure tinged my judgment, and I took off with full fuel.
Now came another problem; even though the storms were gone, significant cloud cover remained. At first, I stayed under the clouds...a safer option, but it was hot and bumpy down there. For a while, I climbed above the clouds into smoother air, but eventually I started getting nervous about getting stuck on top with no way down, so somewhere around the GA border I went back down under.
Then, another dumb mistake: Since I still was holding on to the possibility of making it to PDK on the fuel on board, I started eyeballing the fuel gauges. Rationally, I knew that counting on those probably wasn't smart, but in the moment, I convinced myself I could find a way to do it. Eventually, I formed a plan to make my go/no-go decision on a fuel stop: I'd leave one tank about a quarter full (by the gauge), then fly on the other until it ran dry. If I was "close" to home, I'd proceed, otherwise, I'd have to stop. In the meantime, I'd keep a close track on nearby airports with gas available.
(A particular bit of self-criticism: "Close" does not cut it for a decision point. Looking back, I was basically giving myself an excuse to press on if I wanted to, rather than having to make a hard and fast decision.)
Somewhere in the vicinity of Milledgeville, GA, it happened. I thought I detected a bit of roughness in the engine, but thinking only of milking every last drop out of that left tank, I didn't switch. Maybe a minute or so later, I abruptly lost power. OK, time to switch! This was when things went horribly awry, and I got an object lesson in how a mostly tolerable situation can become extremely intolerable by the addition of one small, additional factor.
For those who haven't flown Archers, the fuel selector is down by your left shin, so you have to lean forward to reach down and switch. Well, when I went for the selector to switch to the good tank, my shoulder harness decided it would be a great time to lock. I backed off and tried leaning again. Still locked. In that moment, every shred of rationality departed my brain. It would have been simple to reach to my waist and unhook the shoulder harness, but all I did was keep trying to lean forward, continually banging against the harness.
Out the front of the plane, we'd of course pitched down with the power loss. There was mostly a faceful of ground, which didn't help my calmness at all. I was still banging against the harness repeatedly when I saw my friend's arm snake across in front of me and turn the selector. He'd been paying attention to me switching tanks, for reasons he can't quite explain.
Whatever his reasons, they quite likely saved us from an emergency landing. We were at maybe 1500' AGL when the power loss happened. It's possible that, after a bit, I would have stopped panicking, unhooked the harness, and switched the tank, but that's nothing but conjecture. If I hadn't calmed down, it probably wouldn't have boded well for my ability to land the plan off-airport.
I turned towards the airport at Milledgeville. There, on the ramp, I got one final, sobering shock. The left tank was of course pretty much dry, but the right tank, in which I'd supposedly been saving a good fuel reserve, there were maybe 2-3 gallons.
The rest of the flight was uneventful; we made it back to PDK just after sunset. It was great to be home. It was also great to have landed on pavement instead of grass.
I suspect that most of these stories are similar. We all get taught about the dangers of making decision under stress, the dangers of get-there-itis and so forth. Yet some of still fall victim to that very phenomenon. It's, of course, easy to sit at home and proudly say "I'd never make a decision like that!" I'm sure I did that during my training, but a year later, there I was, within 20 minutes of gliding a rented plane into a grass field somewhere.
Under that pressure, I convinced myself that I was still using (mostly) sound judgment. I knew I was taking additional risks, but in the moment each decision seemed like only a small amount of increased risk. Taken as a whole, they came really, really close to biting me.
In fact, it took a non-pilot passenger to save my bacon when the chips were down. That in itself is a humbling admission.
. But I know the point you are making. 
