Almost bent some metal, almost...

[pdknight]

A buddy of mine from McChord AFB decided that we would rent a plane to pass the time here in Meridian, MS while we are training up on King Air 350s. Both of us are mid-time C-17 pilots, with around a thousand hours in that jet and my most recent time being in the KingAir. The Meridian airport FBO has a little 152 for a good price per hour, and the weather has been absolutley beautiful lately.
We took a quick look at the sectional and decided on flying a little "triangle" route to some of the local untowered airfields. NOTAMs for one said it would be closed starting on the 18th, and nothing for the other one. Our plan was set. We set up on an extended straight-in at the first airport and made an advisory call on Unicom. A few seconds later, a woman came up on Unicom and yelled at us that the airport was closed indefinitely. I said something to the effect of "my bad, NOTAMs said the 18th. She replied that she didn't care what the NOTAMs said, and the airport was closed until she said otherwise. Fair enough, so we putzed on over to Newton country, a 3,000' paved strip about 20 minutes away. Our first landing went well, it was actually my buddy's landing, so we taxied in and looked around the airport. We decided to beat up the pattern a bit, and take turns on the apporaches. It was my turn, so I set up on a nice final, got stabilized way out, and flew it on down. Everything was good until I flared, well, I thought about flaring right as the nose wheel hit the runway first. It was quite a little jolt. We passed concerned looks, taxied back and shut down again, and looked at the gear. Everything looked ok, and I justified it with my lack of light plane experience over the past few years, and was a little POd with myself over the buffoonery. Long story for a short lesson for me: Don't try to fly a 152 when the next lightest plane you've flown in the past 6 months is a 16,000 lb 350 ER and most of your time has been in a 500,000 lb. C-17.

[SkyTruck]

Happens to a lot of people.... Move on to bigger equipment without mastering the small stuff.
Most big equipment guys try to land ten feet above the runway.
If you hit nosewheel first you were probably going to fast.
Next time go up with a flight instructor.... Those guys are pretty good

[bcdpilot]

Pretty common, people who fly big stuff let their ego get in the way of common sense. Jets are much easier to fly than small planes and people who learn in jets cant usually find their rear end hole with both hands when it comes to small planes !

[Zzz]

Pretty common, people who fly big stuff let their ego get in the way of common sense.

Sounds to me like the OP was humble enough to share the story, so perhaps an honest lesson learned. We all have something to learn from each other.

[piperpainter]

Come on now we don't fly around at 500,000lbs all the time! What Sq are you in up here? If you want you can keep it to a PM! Glad you got some time in a plane you have to really fly....I mean flare!!

[jprax]

So Skytruck and BCPilot must be some of those anonymous internet posting pilots who are perfect or perhaps never thought of posting something that might cause others to think or even worse learn from or don't have the confidence post one of their (I imagine) few goofs. That attitude should really spread the gospel of aviation.
Joe

[bcdpilot]

Well I started learning to fly at 12 and still learning evan after 14,000 hours and over 10,000 in jets, but I can assure you that learning in a champ or small tail wheel Cessna a person would have gained more knowledge about flying than someone who has flown 5,000 hours in jets and no small plane experience. Thats the only point I am making !

[courierguy]

Well I started learning to fly at 12 and still learning evan after 14,000 hours and over 10,000 in jets, but I can assure you that learning in a champ or small tail wheel Cessna a person would have gained more knowledge about flying than someone who has flown 5,000 hours in jets and no small plane experience. Thats the only point I am making !

I'll never forget the first time I saw a foot launched powered parachute demo, by an expert pilot. After the demo (at the EAA Arlington fly-in), the announcer made the point that the FLPP was the lightest and smallest "aircraft" in the world. Pretty significant as the expert flying of it was being done by a guy who's day job was pushing 747's across the Pacific! That's an impressive range of flying experience, and kind of hard for me to get my mind around.

Good report pdknight! I always like hearing about how it is flying some the size of a large home, and how it all relates to the smaller stuff.

[tcj]

PdKnight, I love watching the C17 fly over my house in Ellensburg every afternoon about 1400. Is that you once in awhile?

[crazyivan]

When I was a nugget, I pranged the nosewheel on a P-3. Those damn things just get in the way, but thank God Lockheed made 'em strong. My 100% guaranteed way of never pranging your nose wheel: fly a tailwheel

[pdknight]

Gee piper, thanks for calling me out on the weight there man... Makes for a better story that way, 10% truth rule, right? I'm assigned to the 7th, but I am doing the MC-12 gig at the moment, should be back in the area sometime next April or March.
TCJ, yeah, flying over ellensburg is pretty common when coming back from a local. Piper rides around in the back of them as self loading baggage, I mean, a loadmaster(i keed). I gotta drop into Ellensburg in a Cessna once I learn how to fly little airplanes again!

[z3skybolt]

Pretty common, people who fly big stuff let their ego get in the way of common sense. Jets are much easier to fly than small planes and people who learn in jets cant usually find their rear end hole with both hands when it comes to small planes !

Easier to fly????

....well you have the experience that qualifies your opinion. So you are welcome to yours. I disagree however. I'd not say easier. I'd say different....certainlly more complex. Plus those of us who have had the priviledge of flying jets and heavy metal recieve the best training in the world before we fly them.....either military or airline training. That training gives our performance a big boost once we step into the cockpit. Perhaps if everyone recieved equivalent qualtiy training before they flew a C-150 or a Maule....they might think that flying small airplanes was easier.

Lets put it this way.....who is less likely to bust his ass, doing touch and go landings: a guy with 20 hours total lifetime flight experience....exclusively in a C-152 or the guy who has 20 hours in a B-777 as their exclusive and total flight esperience? That should give an indication as to which is "easier." My experience tells me the guy with 20 hours total flight experience couldn't even get that 777 around the patch if he had never flown anything at all before.

We are all aviators. Just as the heavy metal guy will have a heck of a time with a light airplane at first....so will the light airplane pilot when dealing with the complexity, speed, weight, inertia, etc. etc. should they sit down in a large jet and try to fly it..... without training.....day one.

I listened to the general aviation, military, airline pilot superiority argument for 30,000 flt.hours. As I used to tell my ex-military copilots....."the U.S. Military pilots are the best in the world at what they do....U.S. Airline pilots are the best in the world at what we do....and the Alaskan Bush Pilot is the best in the world at what they do." "Most of us could handle any of the missions: military, airline, bush flying with time and training....so forget this superior airman bullshit!"

I had the good fortune of coming up through general avaition into corportate aviation and on to a 35 year airline career. Along the way I never stopped flying light airplanes and have owned three different ones since 1984. My comfort level was the same in a 767 or a Pitts. Not everyone has had the opportunity to stay so involved.

Everyone fly safe now.... and enjoy the privilege that is ours. Let's be supportive of one another. If we don't.....who is going to look out for us?

Bob

[SkyTruck]

Phew, got some thin skin here ladies!
I get the fact that PD and his buddy are big iron guys. He made that clear in the beginning of his post.
PD's Long Story Short comment at the end of his post suggests it might have been foolish renting a "Small" plane without having flown one for six months.
My post simply points out the value of Flight Instructors... You know like the Instructors teaching them the King Air 350.

I am impressed that they checked NOTAMs though.
I arrived at KTRK once with a load of passengers and there was an Air Show going on.....
A little bit of Charm, and I landed

Fraser
'80 A185F

[Zzz]

Phew, got some thin skin here ladies!

Please, do share some of your own gaffs so that we may heckle them with appropriate courtesy.

[Hottshot]

We set up on an extended straight-in

First off thanks for sharing and don't take this like I am beating you up but at a unfamiliar airport or any airport unless towered and instructed to do so DON'T do straight in's!! Please..... it can get you in a heap of trouble. We had a UL on the ground the other day that had a gear failure and some wise guy decided to do a straight in and didn't announce (I had radio in back pocket) and almost caused a pretty serous FUBAR, had he come in (even un-announced) and entered the pattern proper like it would have saved us all a little pucker factor.

[pdknight]

I suppose what I was really going for is that currency does not equal proficiency. Was I legal to fly the 152? Sure. Was it a wise choice? Probably not, and that is the real lesson I learned from this experience.
On the big vs. small argument, I will add my cent and a half. When it comes to energy management, mission management, systems, etc, I would say that the big stuff is pretty difficult. With all of the computerized systems, the actual sitck and rudder skill required to fly them doesn't have to be that high. An understanding of systems and the basic physics of flying can be more help than being a genuinely good pilot. With the smaller stuff, where those stick and rudder skills really matter, the difficulty level is there, and it is a different kind of difficulty. Flying the big stuff, in my experience, kind of erodes those fundamental flying skills that we all learn, whether it is at military primary or the local FBO. I would say the Cessna is much less forgiving of having those rusty skills than a C-17 would be.

[nealkas]

Anybody can bend anything at anytime.

Isn't there an old saw that says a 150 is just enough of an airplane to kill you!

[hicountry]

Anybody can bend anything at anytime.

Isn't there an old saw that says a 150 is just enough of an airplane to kill you!

I think they were talking about a Cub.......

[OregonMaule]

Two kinds of pilots. Those who have bent one, and those who are in line to bend one.

Good day

[z3skybolt]

One obvious way.....

....to prevent the heavy iron flying from eroding one's stick and rudder skill is....(drum roll here)...fly the darn thing manually. Turn off the autothrottles, autopilot, flight director and fly the airplane. Use raw data as much as possible. Yeah I know....won't hone your skills enroute....but make every approach and landing manually flown unless weather requires otherwise. My airline allowed hand flown CAT-I and CAT-II approaches and so I hand flew all of them. There were very few CAT-III mandatory auto flight/auto land occurances. Managed to hand fly and manually land 99.9% of my approach and landings.

"A pilot is a mere technician." "An aviator is an artist in love with flight" quote Ernie G.

Blue skies,

Bob