Mon Jan 20, 2020 8:38 am
#1741876
In the interests of being honest and offering lessons from which people can learn.
Here's my tale of how get-home-itis and stress piling up can ruin a day.
I took a passenger up to a medium-sized international airport about 40 minutes away from where our club's C172 is based.
We were marshalled in, and they even gave us a lift back to the security building - through which you exit the airport, if you didn't arrive by airliner. All was perfect.
Trouble began on the way back.
I knew I had to be on the ground at our home base by 1600. Two reasons: the plane was booked by somebody else from 1600 to 1800 for some night training. And sunset was at 1625. I'm not night-rated, so, by law the latest I could fly was 1655 - but I thought that would be unwise.
So we walked up to the airfield gate at 1445, with an hour and a quarter to spare.
The lovely man at security checked my licence and photo id and then turned to my passenger: "Can I see your photo ID, please, Sir?"
Now, for the Americans on here. By law, nobody in England is required to have an ID. This requirement for a photo ID to go through the airport gate as a passenger is not in any of the flght guides for that particular airport. And I had certainly never encountered this before in all my flying.
"The only thing I have on me is my driving licence", my passenger said.
"Oh, that's more than enough", answered the security man, then looked at the document - and his expression suddenly became very stern.
"Do you know, Sir, that it's out of date by just over a week? I'm afraid I can't let you through", he said.
My options at this stage were: to either leave the passenger where we were, expecting him to make his own way back to our field where his car was parked (two trains and a bus ride), or to nag. I chose to nag.
The nagging - and the resulting frantic calls from security to management and back to security - took well over an hour.
By the time the issue was resolved ("You can go, but we'll have to escort you to the plane an watch you leave"), it was 1555.
As I said, the next booking for the plane was 1600, the sunset was 1625, and I had a 40 minute flight to get back.
So I rushed through pre-take off checks ("nothing's fallen off, we've got enough fuel and oil, all surfaces move"), rushed through departure (rolling takeoff, steep turn on course immediately after noise abatement), rushed through everything imaginable, and flew the poor 172 at 120 knots all the way.
I was so stressed and goal-oriented that I actually had a brain freeze when ATC asked me to turn to a heading before leaving their area - I sat there and tried to figure out whether I should be turning left or right!
In hindsight, I broke a number of rules which I vouched never to break:
No get-home-itis,
Always pre-flight the aeroplane properly,
Do not fly if stressed
By the time we got back, it was still OK in terms of light, and I was still very, very legal, with at least 20 minutes to spare.
But ATC at my field threw me another curveball and asked for an approach which would be "tight and as quick as you can, please". Which was fine, but looking back at the video my passenger shot, I can see I was lower than I should have been, in an ideal world, and landed somewhat to the left of the centerline. This is not normally my style, - more signs of stress and task saturation?
What would you have done? And what do you think the lessons from this should be?
Here's my tale of how get-home-itis and stress piling up can ruin a day.
I took a passenger up to a medium-sized international airport about 40 minutes away from where our club's C172 is based.
We were marshalled in, and they even gave us a lift back to the security building - through which you exit the airport, if you didn't arrive by airliner. All was perfect.
Trouble began on the way back.
I knew I had to be on the ground at our home base by 1600. Two reasons: the plane was booked by somebody else from 1600 to 1800 for some night training. And sunset was at 1625. I'm not night-rated, so, by law the latest I could fly was 1655 - but I thought that would be unwise.
So we walked up to the airfield gate at 1445, with an hour and a quarter to spare.
The lovely man at security checked my licence and photo id and then turned to my passenger: "Can I see your photo ID, please, Sir?"
Now, for the Americans on here. By law, nobody in England is required to have an ID. This requirement for a photo ID to go through the airport gate as a passenger is not in any of the flght guides for that particular airport. And I had certainly never encountered this before in all my flying.
"The only thing I have on me is my driving licence", my passenger said.
"Oh, that's more than enough", answered the security man, then looked at the document - and his expression suddenly became very stern.
"Do you know, Sir, that it's out of date by just over a week? I'm afraid I can't let you through", he said.
My options at this stage were: to either leave the passenger where we were, expecting him to make his own way back to our field where his car was parked (two trains and a bus ride), or to nag. I chose to nag.
The nagging - and the resulting frantic calls from security to management and back to security - took well over an hour.
By the time the issue was resolved ("You can go, but we'll have to escort you to the plane an watch you leave"), it was 1555.
As I said, the next booking for the plane was 1600, the sunset was 1625, and I had a 40 minute flight to get back.
So I rushed through pre-take off checks ("nothing's fallen off, we've got enough fuel and oil, all surfaces move"), rushed through departure (rolling takeoff, steep turn on course immediately after noise abatement), rushed through everything imaginable, and flew the poor 172 at 120 knots all the way.
I was so stressed and goal-oriented that I actually had a brain freeze when ATC asked me to turn to a heading before leaving their area - I sat there and tried to figure out whether I should be turning left or right!
In hindsight, I broke a number of rules which I vouched never to break:
No get-home-itis,
Always pre-flight the aeroplane properly,
Do not fly if stressed
By the time we got back, it was still OK in terms of light, and I was still very, very legal, with at least 20 minutes to spare.
But ATC at my field threw me another curveball and asked for an approach which would be "tight and as quick as you can, please". Which was fine, but looking back at the video my passenger shot, I can see I was lower than I should have been, in an ideal world, and landed somewhat to the left of the centerline. This is not normally my style, - more signs of stress and task saturation?
What would you have done? And what do you think the lessons from this should be?
Last edited by agfoxx on Mon Jan 20, 2020 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.