One of Those Free Lessons I Didn't Really Want to Learn



Recently, I had one of those flights that qualifies as a learning experience. And like some learning experiences, it wasn't the most pleasant.

The aviatrixOne clear day before Christmas, I dropped my roommate off at the airport for her trip to Atlanta, and I figured that while I was there, I'd drive to the flying club, drop off some cards for the instructors and scrounge the flight schedules. Of course, with the weather being clear and pleasant on a weekend, all the aircraft were booked. As I was waffling there, the club's mechanic stopped by and found me a C172 that some guy had reserved for the entire weekend and never taken. So I had clear skies, an airplane all day, and an urge to get hundred-dollar clam chowder. There were no squawks against the airplane. Oakland Flight Service reported moderate turbulence along the way, but I was reassured that most pilots don't interpret turbulance the same way the FAA does. The renter's logbook had a note on it: "Tach broken." I took that to mean the air odometer because the pilot hadn't logged tach time.

Lesson 1: Don't take anything for granted.

While I usually fly 172s, I'd never flown this particular aircraft, and I knew it didn't have the best reputation. So I did a careful preflight, and everything seemed fine, both during inspection and runup. We made a beautiful takeoff from San Jose, and the flight went fine until we crossed the ridge of mountains and came within sight of the coast. For some reason, I couldn't hold a steady altitude (likely my fault), and I couldn't find the traffic reported to me by a harried-sounding Monterey Approach. Two other pilots, one in a Cherokee and one in some other low-wing, can't seem to understand instructions. Monterey Approach soon hands me off to Monterey Tower, who didn't respond to me until I was nearly on top of the pattern. I'd been trained to set tachometer speeds in the pattern, so on downwind, when I glanced down and found the tach needle spinning all over the gauge, it came as a shock.

Lesson 2: As long as the engine's running, don't sweat it. It's not worth the panic.

Another aircraft was coming in behind me, and that pilot had just announced his gear lights weren't on. Obviously wanting me to expedite, Monterey Tower told me to turn immediate base for Two Eight Right, and like a sheep, I did. I then found myself too close, too high and too fast. I got the plane down, but it wasn't pretty: we hit the runway about halfway down; ballooned up, came down. A little voice yelled, "Go Around!" I ignored it.

Lesson 3: When the little voice yells "Go Around!", DO IT.

WHAP! and then WHAP! again. It wasn't as bad as I'd feared, but it was ugly enough. The end of the runway was coming up fast. Tires screeching, the plane pitched to the left, nearly into the grass, and then stopped. As I tried to catch my breath, I noticed all the emergency vehicles, lights flashing, heading toward me. Cautiously, I pulled the airplane off the runway and onto the taxiway, but short of the "hold short" lines because I was worried about crossing the parallel runway. Tower had to gently remind me to get on the other side of the lines. I'm of the opinion that Monterey controllers are far mellower than their bay area counterparts--San Jose's would have ripped me a new one.

Feeling very stupid, I pulled onto the taxiway and waited for clearance to transient parking. The fire trucks were poised for the pilot with the bad gear, but he landed without incident. I parked, shut the plane down and tried to convince my legs that they weren't made of Jello. The hundred-dollar clam chowder sat like a rock in my stomach because I had another problem: After all that's happened, should I fly the plane home or leave it here and rent a car?

In months past, I had assisted my instructor with ferrying aircraft back to our home airport, usually from Livermore. I could just see my instructor recruiting another pilot to help him with a pickup that was my fault. But then again, what's a little ridicule vs. becoming a burn spot on the ground? Aww, I can fly it home now that I know what I'm dealing with, and the weather's gorgeous. But what if something else breaks? Hey, the engine's fine. But this has been a bad day--three things go wrong, stay on the ground. I've done dead gauge drills before. But... And on and on. After I paid my check, I wandered around awhile before heading back to the airplane.

After another inspection of the plane, I obtained clearance and taxied down the ramp. At the end, I called Ground repeatedly with no answer. Finally, I hear, "Aircraft with no voice, clear the ramp." Well, great, now the radio's busted. I'm no longer scared--I'm angry.

I pulled the plane around, went back to the ramp, switched radios a few times, yanked the hand mike and did a radio check. Now they heard me, loud and clear. With clearance, I taxied to the end of the runway and a confused line of aircraft waiting to depart. We waited there for quite a while, and I wondered if I've been forgotten in the backup when suddenly I heard over ground frequency:

"Stupid fuckers, trying to fucking fuck everything up. This is fucked!"

Pause. We all held our breaths, waiting for the hammer to come down.

"Um," said a man's voice. "Your mike's open."

I laughed like a loon.

On the flight home, the radio threatened to cut out more than once, but we struggled through. I got that reported "moderate turbulence": Bump. Bump. After a perfect approach, I greased that landing on the centerline, but I stayed wary until we were parked.

Some other lessons learned:




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