Tristan
Well-Known Member
Hi fellow JCers.
Today I had quite a scary experience. I had a lesson which was emergency circuit procedures in a Cessna 150. I'm a few lessons away from first solo. Anyways, I take off as per normal circuit operations, and first two circuits were go round procedures. The next two circuits were EFATO procedure, then my instructor decided we'll do one more circuit which was to be another EFATO simulation. So at about 300AAL the instructor pulls the throttle to idle, and I follow the set procedure. But when climbing out, the engine starts rough running, the instructor took immediate control, trying to revive the engine. We were maintaing 300AAL then the engine died, and he swung the aircraft right and picked a paddock to land on in the vacinity (the aerodrome is mostly surrounded by paddock farm land).
At this stage I was thinking: "this is the real deal, we're actually going in". We made a maday distress call and we were approaching a selected farm area, but it looked like we were gonna hit the fence/trees, so the instructor decideded to stretch the gluide to the next paddock. We cleared the trees (cant remember how close), but the stall warning whistled. I was calm, but I could hear myself breathing heavily through the headset. The instructor put the aircraft down safely in the paddock (which was actually a smooth landing), we were ok and aircraft wasn't damaged.
The first reaction my instructor and I had was to laugh about it, I told him: "well I think were gonna be in the next issue of flight safety magazine". And he said: "well thats how you carry out EFATO landing". But we were both pretty shaken. The fire, ambo, and police arrived on scene. The ambos checked if we were in shock, but we were ok. The media also arrived on scene, but we managed to avoid them by jumping a few fences and make it to the highway to get picked up, and taken back to the flying school. While getting driven back the owner says to me: "you can have this lesson on the house mate", which I was pleased.
Several thoughts have passed though my mind since the incident (7 hours ago). For me it was an unpleasant and scary experience, and I even thought that it could have been the end. After landing safely, I was also thinking: "ah •..this is gonna be stuck to my name when applying for flying jobs in the future" (airlines are very good at finding out whether you've been involved in any incidents). But I guess my biggest concern is how this event will impact on me mentally for future flight training. I have been enjoying flying immensly and I want to continue to do so. I'm going up again in the next couple of days to do the same emergency simulations, but I guess that incident is still fresh in my memory.
Sorry for the long post, if you've read this far I thank you and just want to ask anyone whether you have had any hair raising experiences. If so, did it affect you later on with your flying?
Cheers
Today I had quite a scary experience. I had a lesson which was emergency circuit procedures in a Cessna 150. I'm a few lessons away from first solo. Anyways, I take off as per normal circuit operations, and first two circuits were go round procedures. The next two circuits were EFATO procedure, then my instructor decided we'll do one more circuit which was to be another EFATO simulation. So at about 300AAL the instructor pulls the throttle to idle, and I follow the set procedure. But when climbing out, the engine starts rough running, the instructor took immediate control, trying to revive the engine. We were maintaing 300AAL then the engine died, and he swung the aircraft right and picked a paddock to land on in the vacinity (the aerodrome is mostly surrounded by paddock farm land).
At this stage I was thinking: "this is the real deal, we're actually going in". We made a maday distress call and we were approaching a selected farm area, but it looked like we were gonna hit the fence/trees, so the instructor decideded to stretch the gluide to the next paddock. We cleared the trees (cant remember how close), but the stall warning whistled. I was calm, but I could hear myself breathing heavily through the headset. The instructor put the aircraft down safely in the paddock (which was actually a smooth landing), we were ok and aircraft wasn't damaged.
The first reaction my instructor and I had was to laugh about it, I told him: "well I think were gonna be in the next issue of flight safety magazine". And he said: "well thats how you carry out EFATO landing". But we were both pretty shaken. The fire, ambo, and police arrived on scene. The ambos checked if we were in shock, but we were ok. The media also arrived on scene, but we managed to avoid them by jumping a few fences and make it to the highway to get picked up, and taken back to the flying school. While getting driven back the owner says to me: "you can have this lesson on the house mate", which I was pleased.
Several thoughts have passed though my mind since the incident (7 hours ago). For me it was an unpleasant and scary experience, and I even thought that it could have been the end. After landing safely, I was also thinking: "ah •..this is gonna be stuck to my name when applying for flying jobs in the future" (airlines are very good at finding out whether you've been involved in any incidents). But I guess my biggest concern is how this event will impact on me mentally for future flight training. I have been enjoying flying immensly and I want to continue to do so. I'm going up again in the next couple of days to do the same emergency simulations, but I guess that incident is still fresh in my memory.
Sorry for the long post, if you've read this far I thank you and just want to ask anyone whether you have had any hair raising experiences. If so, did it affect you later on with your flying?
Cheers
