My most scary moment in real aviation was my first solo in a conventional gear airplane. The plane was a Super Cub. I taxied out, ran up, took off and flew the pattern correctly. Even the approach was good. It's when I flared and touched down that I screwed up.For those of you that may be unaware, in a tailwheel airplane, it's extremely important to do two things when landing:1.) Keep the tail straight. This is of utmost importance. The CG is behind the mains, so if given the chance, the tail would like nothing more than to swing out in front of you.2.) Keep the stick back! In a 3-point landing, you want that tail stuck on the ground. If it's up even a little bit, your chances of groundlooping are high. On wheel landings you want the tail up, but up enough so that its in a flight attitude. Not somewhere between flight attitude and having all wheels on the ground.Anyway, when I was working up to solo, I had a nasty habit of not getting the stick the whole way back, so the tail would tend to float a couple inches to a foot off the runway. My instructor and I both thought that I had beaten the habit, however, so he let me solo.We were both wrong.As I crossed the threshold, not only was I not PERFECTLY straight, but I held the tail somewhere between doing a wheel landing and a three point. Naturally, combined with not being straight, the tail started swinging around on me. I panicked, with the thought of getting the stick back and then straightening out not even entering my mind, as the nose of the plane turned left and as it started to skid, howling, on the right main. I was heading off the left side of the runway, yelling vulgarities the whole time, when it hit me: GO AROUND. So, I shoved the throttle forward and pushed forward on the stick. About two or so seconds later, I saw the edge of the runway disappear under the nose, so I pulled back on the stick and popped up in the air. Once I saw I was airborne, I lowered the nose a bit, banked right to get back over the runway, and started letting in my flaps. Only after I was safely back in the air I told the tower I was going around (fly the airplane first, etc). The tower came back laughing acknowledging my go around. The only thing I wanted to do was fly away from the airport, and hopefully never land. Seeing as that was an impossibility, I flew the pattern, came back in, and made a normal landing. While taxiing back, my instructor waved me to the ramp where I shut down and, shakily, got out. I was extremely afraid of tailwheel's after that. I didn't even want to look at them. My instructor forced me to take the reigns again though, and we did more takeoff and landing practice. When I felt comfortable enough to try it again, I did very well.That was the dumbest thing..or most noobish thing I've done in an airplane.The second most scary thing that happened to me was on a cross country. Again, with my instructor. This time we were in a Warrior. We spent the day flying to mountain airports in Arizona. First we went to Payson, then Sedona, then Flagstaff, then Prescott and then back to Chandler. Payson and Sedona were normal. When we got to Flagstaff however, we saw that the density altitude put it somewhere in the 10's of thousands. We decided that we would do a touch and go instead of a fullstop.If any of you have ever been to Flagstaff, you will know that the airport is surrounded by pretty tail pines. We figured that the touch and go would minimize the risk of not being able to clear them. The landing was normal. We raised the flaps, and powered up. even from a rolling start, it took us about half of the remaining runway just to get to flying speed again. We stayed in ground effect as long as we could, and we still were nowhere near a comfortable climbing speed. We were out of runway however, so we eased back on the yoke and cleared the trees by about 7-8 feet. From there we had a climb rate of between 30-80fpm. Wasn't fun.Not having learned our lesson, and thinking, "Well, Prescott is around 3,000 feet lower," we headed down and did a full stop taxi back. Took off, hovered in ground effect, and started...hovering in ground effect. It just would not climb. If any of you have flown out of Prescott, you know that taking off on either of the 21's leads you over the town with rising terrain. We would have little spurts of climbing at about 100-200fpm, but then we would start sinking. As soon as we hit 400ft, we made an intermittent turn to the left to go in a valley created by a mountain and a hill. I say intermittent because when turning we would loose all our lift. And it was only a 5-10 degree bank!We made it though, obviously. Once we got some altitude, it could breath a little easier. My instructor and I both decided that day not to go north in Warriors in the summer anymore. I should also mention these were old Warriors, all with cruise props.

Hmmm, the blunders....* using too much flap for the approach and gross weight (or lack thereof);* forgetting to turn on my landing lights before entering the active for take-off;* forgetting to turn on my landing lights before landing;* keeping the nose too high and speed too low on final in the Dreamwings Q400;* forgetting to watch my flare and ground effect in the Q (Easy to do) and neglecting forward pressure on the yoke to 'stick it';* forgetting to set flaps for take-off;* forgetting to set the barometer on the altimeter;* forgetting to turn off the autopilot by the middle marker.* Continuing my blind-faith approach with Saitek regarding their attitude towards FS2004.That's about it.

I was just wondering what you would consider to be the funniest, most embarrassing 'newbie mistakes'.

Years ago, when I first started flying jets with autoland capabilities, I couldn't figure out why my aircraft never seemed to land on the intended runway. Approach would begin, the jet would start on its descent, but it just wouldn't be lined up to the proper runway. Sometimes, it wasn't lined up to any runway! :-)Finally figured out that both NAV 1 and NAV 2 had to be tuned to the ILS frequency. D'oh!

Years ago, when I first started flying jets with autoland capabilities, I couldn't figure out why my aircraft never seemed to land on the intended runway. Approach would begin, the jet would start on its descent, but it just wouldn't be lined up to the proper runway. Sometimes, it wasn't lined up to any runway! :-)Finally figured out that both NAV 1 and NAV 2 had to be tuned to the ILS frequency. D'oh!

Wait a sec....to use AutoLand, you need both NAV radios keyed to the same ILS frequency of a given runway? I've never used AutoLand and always used only the NAV1 radio for the ILS...both the beam and glideslope. Seems to work for me...how does this work for you? I'm all ears.

They forget to land, then they crash.They also forget to read the manual.

Wait a sec....to use AutoLand, you need both NAV radios keyed to the same ILS frequency of a given runway? I've never used AutoLand and always used only the NAV1 radio for the ILS...both the beam and glideslope. Seems to work for me...how does this work for you? I'm all ears.

I believe it was the forerunner of the LDS 767 (for FS2002), or maybe it was the Aerowinx 747 ...Hmmm. Just had a thought: Maybe it was the autopilot ... both needed to be set.In any case, I ensure that everything is set up properly now, and I've had no problems.How does that work for you? I'm all ears now. :-)

Real world...second solo. Beginning to feel like I'm Chuck Yeager in a Cessna 150. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?Returned to the airport and decided to do a few touch and go's. First two were fine. Third one I did a simulated short field landing. Full 40-degree flaps. No problem landing. Cranked the trim back to takeoff setting and pushed the throttle to full power.Abruptly "departed" the runway feeing like I was in an elevator going straight up. Airspeed hovering at 55 mph (yeah...it was that many years ago, when the airspeed guage was calibrated in mph), and I'm pushing the yoke towards the panel as hard as a can to keep the nose down and the airspeed up. Nose of aircraft will NOT go below level horizon, regardless of how far forward the yoke is. Stall horn is ######in' at me like there is no tomorrow. Had a rate of climb of over 1000 FPM in a Cessna 150. Hmmm...something's not right! Took about 5 seconds for me to realize I just took off with full flaps. I swear the view out the windshild was horizon level...no nose pitch up or down at all, and I can't push the yoke any farther forward to get the nose down to increase airspeed. My first thought was reduce power...but something in the back of my brain said, "That may not be a good idea, seeing as you are only a couple mph above stall speed already and only a few hundred feet above the ground". So, I figured the only thing to do was retract flaps. The Cessna 150 I was in had the electronic flap "toggle" switch. Thankfully, my foggy brain also said, "Don't retract them all at once. The loss of lift might be rather bad right now!"I nursed all 40-degree of flaps back to zero about 1-degree at a time, I think. Each time I hit the switch, I got a little more airspeed and the yoke became more responsive. But by the time I was done, I was sweating bullets.

Sim: Forgetting to lower the landing gear! Didn't get this right until I started flying for real.IRL: Lots of mistakes in the early days. Flying into wake turbulence on short final, getting lost (momentarily), forgetting to apply carb heat on a long fast descent in an old 172, trying to land a 172 on a 1500ft forest clearcut runway with gusts to 35 knots, forgetting to tighten the screws on the fuel door on an old Mooney and noticing it only after the fuel gauges reported something amiss. :(

jonthedoors,Would you mind starting a new thread on the original topic? With a link back to this one so people will see the first few posts already made?

I don't really see much point!Why?

The student pointed to the nose wheel....I still had the tow bar connected after I pulled the plane to its engine start area. Whoops! :(

Oh crikey! This is the only post on the thread I laughed properly out-loud at! That's a good one!

:( :( Great thread!I once took off with the stairs deployed in my PMDG NG!

That must have been quite a sight!!!Mid if I ask you how to deploy the stairs? I've tried the tailhook and wingfold commands with no avail...

Real world...second solo. Beginning to feel like I'm Chuck Yeager in a Cessna 150. What could POSSIBLY go wrong?Returned to the airport and decided to do a few touch and go's. First two were fine. Third one I did a simulated short field landing. Full 40-degree flaps. No problem landing. Cranked the trim back to takeoff setting and pushed the throttle to full power.Abruptly "departed" the runway feeing like I was in an elevator going straight up. Airspeed hovering at 55 mph (yeah...it was that many years ago, when the airspeed guage was calibrated in mph), and I'm pushing the yoke towards the panel as hard as a can to keep the nose down and the airspeed up. Nose of aircraft will NOT go below level horizon, regardless of how far forward the yoke is. Stall horn is ######in' at me like there is no tomorrow. Had a rate of climb of over 1000 FPM in a Cessna 150. Hmmm...something's not right! Took about 5 seconds for me to realize I just took off with full flaps. I swear the view out the windshild was horizon level...no nose pitch up or down at all, and I can't push the yoke any farther forward to get the nose down to increase airspeed. My first thought was reduce power...but something in the back of my brain said, "That may not be a good idea, seeing as you are only a couple mph above stall speed already and only a few hundred feet above the ground". So, I figured the only thing to do was retract flaps. The Cessna 150 I was in had the electronic flap "toggle" switch. Thankfully, my foggy brain also said, "Don't retract them all at once. The loss of lift might be rather bad right now!"I nursed all 40-degree of flaps back to zero about 1-degree at a time, I think. Each time I hit the switch, I got a little more airspeed and the yoke became more responsive. But by the time I was done, I was sweating bullets.

Good recovery thinking!! It always amazes me whilst flying that a small mistake can lead to a big one in very quickly!