KLB
Well-Known Member
Don't speak so soon. I almost got popped by lightning from a pop up thunder bumper going from EMT to MYF. I requested a heading a got the heck out from around that one.
[thread hijack]
That had to be the weirdest day since I've been flying for AMF. I waited over twenty minutes trying to get out of MYF because of all of the traffic. There had to be about twenty aircraft inbound for the aircport at the same time. There were about 8 to 10 aircraft lined up to depart both runways. And with all of that traffic, there were still some training flights asking to practice approaches.:insane: Weekend warriors were out there making every mistake in the book. The poor controllers got so busy that they created a seperate frequency to handle departures while the other tower frequency handled arrivals.
I was cleared for a right base to land into EMT and there was this traffic watch guy at my 12 o'clock on a left base. He was instructed to pass behind for the visual to the same runway. I haven't figured how he could possibly past behind me if he's at my 12 o'clock and he was confused by it also . I watched him edge within a 1/4 of a mile from me before he decided to turn away from the airport and pass me off of my left side. The controller did not like this and asked him to contact the tower when he landed. (They apparently were going to try to nail this guy to the wall. The next day Tower called my ACP requesting that I call them and explain how it looked from my point of view. I did so and defended the traffic watch guy whole heartedly. I found the towers instructions to him unclear myself. So I told the tower supervisor that I believed the guy did the best possible thing in that senerio.)
On my way back to MYF was when the lightning incident occured. About ten miles out, I was cleared to land #2 behind a life guard metroliner and was instructed to follow it in. I began aligning myself up behind the metroliner as it veered further and further away from the airport. At first I figured it was just extending downwind to make more room to land. But it continued going a good 10 miles east of the airport. As I was about to key up the mike to make sure I had contact with the right aircraft, tower keyed up and asked them what were there intentions. They were setting up to land at the wrong airport. (I only figured rookies made mistakes like that, especially since this airport has a localizer to the runway that they were cleared to land on. I've flown into the same airport for two weeks straight and even I use a localizer, NBD, or something to make sure everything is where it should be.)
I get cleared to land #1 now and hear tower ask another aircraft how
much fuel and soles are on board this aircraft. As I land I see a lot of fire rescue trucks waiting out on the ramp. Apperently there was a C-172RG that was having gear up problems. Now the controllers were having it really bad. The airport is still busy, there is an aircraft that has declared an emergency, there are atleast three aircraft that can not find the airport, people are being asked to stay outside of the airspace and still are busting in anyway, and there is an approaching thunderstorm.
After I land, tower is overly saturated and didn't really have time to tell me to contact ground. I monitored ground and they are trying to coordinate with fire and rescue, which isn't going too great. I sit off one runway and holding short of another runway for maybe ten minutes. I finally got my clearance to taxi and shutdown. I hopped out the plane contacted dispatch to let them know that everyone there might be late getting out because of emergency and the approaching T'storm.
After hanging up with dispatch, I make it out in front of the FBO just in time to witness my first live gear up landing. The guys did a really good job of it. One of the mains were down (which collapsed on impact) and the nose and the other main was up. They had the doors cracked and were out of there as soon as the plane came to a rest. You know the rest.... fire crews were rushed out there and etc...
Everything pretty much went to normal after that. That had to be the most chaotic three hours of my flying career thus far.
I was going to make my own seperate thread about this, but with all of the Regional vs. Freight arguements going on around here lately....I didn't want seem as though I was beating my chest. OOTSK!
[sorry for the hijack]
