Agreed, Alan. I think I've just jumped on that one since I saw the interpretation of RNAV being quite a lot, from radio navigation up to range navigation. I still miss room navigation, which becomes rather tricky after some cocktails, sometimes leading to rolling navigation. What about real navigation by the way?

 

Gregg, right you are. I guess the first RNAV capable stuff commonly used indeed were the INS units. The ones in need for some DME update. Like the fine freeware CIVA INS offers in FS9 and FSX. Highly recommend for the older birds or folks just loving some cryptic displays and a lot of lit switches.

Yup, it was originally INS navigation between known beacon points, rather than actually steering towards and away from them on specific radio-based headings. Which could be done even when there was INS drift, since it could be corrected on the fly when cross-referencing your location with other sources.

 

These days the fancy ring laser gyros that nav systems use are combined with GPS and radio positioning, thus the aircraft's location is updated more often, which is why they can now guarantee that an aircraft will be more or less where it thinks it is, which is of course improved when there are more nav aids in range. Thus the criteria for RNP these days is: within four nautical miles of your actual real position when over the ocean, within two nautical miles en route over land, within one nautical mile in a terminal area, and within 0.3 of a nautical mile when on an approach. If your aeroplane can manage that, then you can do all that RNAV/RNP/IAN malarkey.

 

Al

Lets not forget that all the precision around doesn't help if the pilot decides to land on the wrong runway. ^_^ Being guilty on that one, in the sim.

I've seen that done, in fact I once landed in between two aircraft which were landing downwind on a grass airfield unannounced when I was coming in the right way (yes really!). That was a bit of a squeeze LOL. I pointed out the windsock to them afterwards, that's always a clue.

 

Al

:vava:

I should point out here that it was a fairly wide grass airfield, and I couldn't really blame them for wanting to get down, because it was during an evil thunder storm which is why they made the mistake, since when the storm cell passed over the airfield, it swung the wind direction through 180 degrees. Funnily enough though, in his haste to get down, one of them actually forgot to put his wheels down, which fortunately because the grass was soaking wet through from the heavy rainfall meant that all he did was get a few green stains on the gel coat on the underside of the fuselage, a load of us actually picked it up while he dropped the gear and remarkably, the fuselage was completely undamaged apart from a nice big green streak along it LOL.

 

Al

Since then, he loves the green tint, huh?

 

Here's a guy collecting some of the rw incidents (can you still call it that way?), in case you rw or sim folks need a lift. http://www.thirdamen...m/wrongway.html Well, I think that landing on the wrong runway or even the taxiway already is classy, while landing at the wrong airport (Seattle area :Peace: ) really sets a mark.

Direct GPS is a flight plan which will simply create a line between two airports which you define. It would typically be used by a light aircraft flying under visual flight rules (VFR) in good weather, where the autopilot can be slaved to the GPS to fly the route, or flown manually by observing the GPS screen to enure one is following the route, but responsibility for seeing and avoiding stuff is still largely a case of looking out of the window for other traffic when under VFR.Airways, both low al**ude and high al**ude, are effectively 'roads in the sky' which used to be defined between airports and radio beacons, and often still are, but nowadays with the advent of GPS which is able to allow an aircraft to accurately position itself independent of ground-based radio aids, are now sometimes between waypoints that are not marked by ground-based aids.Airways are intended to allow aircraft to all fly safely separated from one another, much like roads. And again like roads, they differ somewhat over different countries as far as rules go, but generally speaking, an airway is a corridor which is approximately ten miles wide, between two specific al**udes, where you have to get cleared by air traffic control to fly along them at a specific al**ude, so they are almost exclusively used for flights operating under intrument flight rules (IFR), where a flight plan is filed with ATC and they direct you along your route, but know more or less where you want to go anyway, so can tell you to continue along your filed flight plan route without the need to constantly tell you which way to steer and what speed to fly at.VOR-to-VOR, is an older flight navigation method, which dates from the time when aircraft did not have sophisticated autopilots and flight management computers, and radar coverage was minimal. It is still used where radar coverage is not fantastic, i.e. in Central Africa for example. VOR stands for Very High Frequency Omni-Directional Radio, and refers to radio beacons on the ground which are marked on charts. They all have slightly different radio frequencies, so it is possible to tune them in on your aircraft's naviation radios, then fly by means of an instrument in your cockpit which points to where they are. Some (in fact most) VORs also have a DME capability, which stands for Distance Measuring Equipment, and those can also tell you how far away from them you are when you tune them in on your aicraft navigation radios. Thus you can plan a route which goes from VOR to VOR. You can also work out your position by tuning more than one VOR at the same time (which is why you have two nav radios). Cross referencing the two pointers on your gauges in the cockpit, then comparing that to a map will then allow you to determine your position.In recent years, the advent of more accurate GPS capabilities has blurred the line somewhat on these different methods of navigation, and it is now quite common for aircraft on IFR flights to be routed directly to where they are going instead of just flying them down airways. This is referred to generally as RNAV, which is short for Required Navigation, which means that your aircraft must be equipped with enough capability to ensure that it can be automatically flown to a certain level of positional accuracy. If your aeroplane can do that, which many can these days thanks to GPS, then ATC can steer you via more direct routings, which saves time and fuel.What all this means, is if you are just flying a Cessna on a pleasure flight, you would probably be best doing a direct GPS plan. If you are flying an aircraft with less sophisticated avionics, you might choose VOR to VOR, and if you are flying a modern airliner, you would probably choose an IFR plan via airways. High al**ude airways are intended for stuff like jets such as the 747, low al**ude airways are for stuff such as prop airliners, larger private aeroplanes such as twin engined Beechcraft Barons and the like, and helicopters, all of which cannot cruise at very high al**udes like big jetliners can.Al

 

Fabulous Stuff Man!Now question is that the real World plans are same as given in FSX? Suppose we select high Altitude plan, so FSX will select the same route as the real World pilots use?

 

Two more Out of Topic Questions: (Please don't mind):

Second question is coming to my mind is that I've seen many aircrafts go at 350 or 400 knots in the air but in FSX, when I choose 350Knots in Boeing 747-400 then it remains at 250 or 280, so why it don't goes to 350 or 400knots? Even I've chosen 29000ft or 35000ft altitude too but plane still fly in 250 or 280knots. If I increase it to 400knots then plane flies smoothly but give warning over speed. So how can I fly plane in 350knots and is over speed indication good?

 

Last question is that I'm using registered version of FSX and some times it itself own gets close, some times after 10 minutes, sometimes after 1 hour, some times 30 minutes and sometimes not close for a long time. So what's the reason of this? I want whenever I'm flying the plane, FSX should not be closed.

 

Regards,

 

AP.

I would never land in direct contradiction to traffic already in the pattern, radio calls or not. At uncontrolled airports running into aircraft without radios is not completely uncommon - I've experienced it many times. A pilot is supposed to observe the flow of traffic ALREADY in the pattern and enter the pattern in a way which does not interfere with that traffic.

 

Really? Landing in between two other aircraft whom you know are flying the pattern in the opposite direction or landing in the opposite direction was the best choice you could make at the time? In my book, you lost the right to complain about them landing with the wind when you chose to land in between them "because you were right". Do you know how arrogant and careless you sound when explaining this experience? What if the wind was so strong that it had pushed you both to the same side of the runway (assuming some crosswind component)? What if they didn't see you or saw you to late? What if they assumed that anyone else would enter and land in the same direction as they were and being without radios didn't even know you were there and the timing had been "to close"?

 

Amazing, in a very bad way.

Nope, I chose to land in between them because I was in a glider, flying the correct circuit, having announced it on the airfield traffic channel, and because it's kind of difficult to go around when you have no engine. There was enough room to do it, if there wasn't, I would not be here to relate the story. In any case, I know you were not there, and so you cannot know all the circumstances, which I won't go into here since it is getting off the thread topic.

 

Al

Two more Out of Topic Questions: (Please don't mind):

Second question is coming to my mind is that I've seen many aircrafts go at 350 or 400 knots in the air but in FSX, when I choose 350Knots in Boeing 747-400 then it remains at 250 or 280, so why it don't goes to 350 or 400knots? Even I've chosen 29000ft or 35000ft altitude too but plane still fly in 250 or 280knots. If I increase it to 400knots then plane flies smoothly but give warning over speed. So how can I fly plane in 350knots and is over speed indication good?

 

If you're asking it to climb at 350kts, it could simply be a case of the plane not being able to.

 

As you climb your indicated airspeed - the one showing in the cockpit is lower than your true airspeed. Once you get up to those sorts of heights, Mach number is used rather than knots (bottom left on the screen in front of you, below the airspeed tape). I think it's 0.82M for a 747 cruise but someone can correct me on that one because 0.88M rings a bell too. If you check out the GPS you'll find your ground speed is a lot higher than the 250 odd knots of indicated airspeed you have.

 

Last question is that I'm using registered version of FSX and some times it itself own gets close, some times after 10 minutes, sometimes after 1 hour, some times 30 minutes and sometimes not close for a long time. So what's the reason of this? I want whenever I'm flying the plane, FSX should not be closed.

 

Are you getting an error message? There's a whole series of threads about crashes to desktop at the top of the threads page. Check those out to see if there are any similar. I don't know much about it all... I normally just mutter and restart.

 

(I managed to stay on topic this time..... :yahoo: )

 

Mike

I see . . . so you were absolutely exercising extreme care while flying your glider during "an evil thunderstorm". :Thinking:

 

That is a fact unless there is yet more to the story we haven't heard . . .

 

. . . and if conditions changed that much during your glider flight to go from acceptable conditions at the time you began your tow, to an "evil thunderstorm" that quickly, then surely you must have disregarded weather forecasts in your area and what you could see by looking up into the sky, deeming it an acceptable day for glider flying.

 

Lastly, and here again is my point. If you had enough time and altitude to setup for the correct runway AND you surely knew of the other traffic in the pattern (by your own comments) then you must have had the altitude and spacing - at least initially - to slip your aircraft around at the other end of the runway and land in the same direction as both of them, and after them, had you chose to do so.

 

But then again conditions were so bad that one of the pilots who had a complex aircraft endorsement forgot to follow the most basic of landing acronyms, GUMPS, and get his mains down, the weather had him so badly shaken. Which aircraft was it that had it's mains retracted and didn't suffer any prop damage? Oh yah, must have been an unusually configured experimental . . . :Waiting:

 

Answer this: What difference does it make to anyone who is right or wrong if people die as a result? To do something that you KNOW will put yourself and others in jeopardy just because you are "right" IS arrogant and careless, especially when there is another option. But maybe, even though your airmanship is good enough to make a glider flight in an "evil thunderstorm" your judgement isn't good enough to do a slipping 360 degree turn (depending on your altitude), or just a straight up, coordinated 360 degree turn to a landing - rather than landing in between two other aircraft who are landing in the opposite direction.

 

I fly into RMY, the Marshall Brooks airport here in southwest Michigan several times each summer. They have a large population of glider pilots and "jumpers" there. I have seen several very close calls due to people who "knew they were right" - that is why glider pilots and pilots who don't at least make the minimum recommended blind radio calls, at uncontrolled airports are pet peeves of mine. It doesn't matter that the glider has the right-of-way over a powered aircraft if the glider doesn't have a radio and if the pilot of the powered aircraft doesn't get a visual on the glider and they have a mid-air collision. Most likely everybody is going to wind up dead and there won't be anyone left who was involved to discuss who was right or who was wrong.

 

To hear a glider pilot say that they deliberately did something that could have had dire consequences because they "were right" does sound very arrogant and careless. I'd bet that 999 out of a 1000 pilots would agree with me on this point.

 

However, I still say arrogant and careless even if it only pertains to your decision to go flying a glider that day and nothing else. I won't remark further on your hangar story because if you truly think that being "right" is more important than keeping yourself AND OTHERS alive then I know I am simply wasting my time.

 

Honestly, and I'm truly being up front with you about this, I have a hard time believing this story at all. But if it is true, then you HAVE BEEN arrogant and careless, at least one time that we know of by your own admission.

 

Yes, we certainly shouldn't be discussing this because it is off topic. Even though you brought it up, and even though it is to your advantage to not discuss it further as it might have negative implications for you in some way. You are also correct that I wasn't there, and only have what you've shared to go by, even if what you've said so far is enough to prove my point. Okey doke, but don't think for a minute that you've caught all the fish in this pond with the bait you are using.

 

Mum's the word. :Secret: :im Not Worthy:

Edited June 18, 201213 yr by Aviator4life

check out the aircraft realism settings for speed, you have true speed and airspeed.

I see . . . so you were absolutely exercising extreme care while flying your glider during "an evil thunderstorm". :Thinking:

 

That is a fact unless there is yet more to the story we haven't heard . . .

 

. . . and if conditions changed that much during your glider flight to go from acceptable conditions at the time you began your tow, to an "evil thunderstorm" that quickly, then surely you must have disregarded weather forecasts in your area and what you could see by looking up into the sky, deeming it an acceptable day for glider flying.

 

Lastly, and here again is my point. If you had enough time and altitude to setup for the correct runway AND you surely knew of the other traffic in the pattern (by your own comments) then you must have had the altitude and spacing - at least initially - to slip your aircraft around at the other end of the runway and land in the same direction as both of them, and after them, had you chose to do so.

 

But then again conditions were so bad that one of the pilots who had a complex aircraft endorsement forgot to follow the most basic of landing acronyms, GUMPS, and get his mains down, the weather had him so badly shaken. Which aircraft was it that had it's mains retracted and didn't suffer any prop damage? Oh yah, must have been an unusually configured experimental . . . :Waiting:

 

Answer this: What difference does it make to anyone who is right or wrong if people die as a result? To do something that you KNOW will put yourself and others in jeopardy just because you are "right" IS arrogant and careless, especially when there is another option. But maybe, even though your airmanship is good enough to make a glider flight in an "evil thunderstorm" your judgement isn't good enough to do a slipping 360 degree turn (depending on your altitude), or just a straight up, coordinated 360 degree turn to a landing - rather than landing in between two other aircraft who are landing in the opposite direction.

 

I fly into RMY, the Marshall Brooks airport here in southwest Michigan several times each summer. They have a large population of glider pilots and "jumpers" there. I have seen several very close calls due to people who "knew they were right" - that is why glider pilots and pilots who don't at least make the minimum recommended blind radio calls, at uncontrolled airports are pet peeves of mine. It doesn't matter that the glider has the right-of-way over a powered aircraft if the glider doesn't have a radio and if the pilot of the powered aircraft doesn't get a visual on the glider and they have a mid-air collision. Most likely everybody is going to wind up dead and there won't be anyone left who was involved to discuss who was right or who was wrong.

 

To hear a glider pilot say that they deliberately did something that could have had dire consequences because they "were right" does sound very arrogant and careless. I'd bet that 999 out of a 1000 pilots would agree with me on this point.

 

However, I still say arrogant and careless even if it only pertains to your decision to go flying a glider that day and nothing else. I won't remark further on your hangar story because if you truly think that being "right" is more important than keeping yourself AND OTHERS alive then I know I am simply wasting my time.

 

Honestly, and I'm truly being up front with you about this, I have a hard time believing this story at all. But if it is true, then you HAVE BEEN arrogant and careless, at least one time that we know of by your own admission.

 

Yes, we certainly shouldn't be discussing this because it is off topic. Even though you brought it up, and even though it is to your advantage to not discuss it further as it might have negative implications for you in some way. You are also correct that I wasn't there, and only have what you've shared to go by, even if what you've said so far is enough to prove my point. Okey doke, but don't think for a minute that you've caught all the fish in this pond with the bait you are using.

 

Mum's the word. :Secret: :im Not Worthy:

 

Look, I don't know what your problem is, but to launch into me with a big diatribe calling me arrogant and accusing me of poor airmanship, and of lying too, after I've merely related a small part of an unusual story where you don't know the facts is extremely out of order, and I don't appreciate being cross examined and tried by someone who does not know the facts.

 

For example, the type of aircraft which can do a wheels up landing and not damage its prop, is a glider, since it does not have a prop, and you will note that I never said it was a powered aeroplane which I was referring to before you threw that accusation of lying at me and launched into your big long dig at me. So, for your benefit, here is the full story, including, from my log book, the date, aircraft registration, location and additional details, which will presumably be enough to prove that it is true, feel free to look up any of those details if you like, I'm pretty sure they will be logged with the BGA and the FAI, since the airfield is overseen by those organisations. My FAI license number is 100875, if you want to check that as well:

 

Log entry: Date: August 1st 1999. Take off time: 3pm. Location: Camphill Derbyshire. Aircraft: SZD Bielsko dual control 50-3 Puchacz, D&LFC BGA registration Hotel Hotel Charlie. Flight Details: take off to the North West, routing to Derwent Reservoirs for advanced instruction. Major storm encountered. Problems with instructor. Good landing under the circumstances. See additional.

 

This was intended to be an advanced training flight from from the Derbyshire and Lancashire Giding Club at Camphill, demonstrating some more complex approaches and stuff, notably setting up a west wind approach into the airfield across-wise, although at the time of departure that would have meant a pretty strong crosswind, so it changed a bit. Although I was already checked out and cleared for solos from Camphill, which requires an airfield-specific rating since it is a dangerous place to fly from, noted for wind shear, it being located on a hilltop approximately 1,000 feet above the surrounding terrain, I was always interested to learn more from instructors there, and so I was making this flight in the dual control 50-3. I can't name instructor, because I actually can't remember his name and can't read his initails in my log book either, which is probably just as well for him when you read this tale, although it looks like his initials are DS, but I could be wrong on that, they are small and scribbled.

 

When on the flight line waiting for a couple of other aircraft to depart, doing the walk around removing the rudder gust lock and donning my parachute, I noticed lightning flashes off in the North West area about twenty to thirty miles away, and I pointed this out to the instructor as we waited to board the aircraft, although he at first did not see this because he was facing me and so his back was to the lightning. In total I think I saw three straight lightning flashes, mentioning all of them with a 'there's another one' type of comment before the instructor acknowledged that was indeed the case and that he thought he saw one of them.

 

At the time I do remember thinking, is this guy okay? He didn't see those? And I also asked if he was sure we are going to be okay flying in this. When he did eventually look around at where the lightning flashes on the horizon were, he said that we'd be okay and that it was going to pass to the North of us, making it sound like I was being overly cautious, and I foolishly trusted him on the matter. These days I'd have said something and frankly I'd probably have cancelled the flight, but at the time I had only 65 flights in a glider under my belt, which was not a huge amount, and therefore made the mistake of presuming this guy knew better than me. That was to prove very wrong as we shall see.

 

When the flight line cleared and it was our turn to go, I was feeling a bit dubious, but two other aircraft had taken off before us, and that somewhat stupidly convinced me that I was being a wimp about it. But anyone who flies for real should take that as a lesson in itself and go back to the hangar if they ever feel that way, although my inexperience at the time made me foolishly press on. So, we hooked on and were winch-launched into a rather leaden sky with me in control in the front seat, the instructor in the rear. I took us up to a respectable 1,200 feet AGL off the launch, since the wind was strong, doing an automatic back release, which put us about 2,000 feet or so above the surrounding terrain when the hills drop away.

 

We turned right and the instructor then directed me to put us in a shallow high speed dive to take us over to the reservoirs a few miles off to the East. Again I was a bit dubious about this call, because that put us a long way downwind of the airfield with only about 2,000 feet of altitude, less after the high speed glide, however, in that hilly terrain, if there is any wind at all, you can usually at least keep aloft by using ridge lift, and so deferring to what I thought was his greater knowlege, off I went to the South East in a fast glide at about 120-130 knots or so, arrow straight to where the reservoirs are. When we got near the reservoirs, it became quickly apparent to me that we were going to be in trouble, we were losing height quite badly and the storm I had seen was now moving more Southward, coming over the airfield behind us in the distance, and effectively blocking our return to the airfield. Again I commented on it, but was told 'oh we'll be alright'.

 

As the saying goes, it is better to be on the ground wishing you were up there, than to be up there wishing you were on the ground, and this was my rather scary introduction to that scenario. As noted, these days I know a lot better, but back then I made the mistake of trusting someone else's judgement on the matter, which I wouldn't do these days. Believe me, if you fly for real and ever find yourself thinking anything like that might be a possibility, then park the aircraft and go to the pub. you'll be a lot happier.

 

So around we went, with me me basically trying to tack us along hills to get us within gliding distance of the airfield. After getting us back to about half way, the guy in the back pipes up and says, let me have a crack at getting us there, so I relinquished control, and sat there preparing to be amazed and impressed with the skills I had been hoping to see demonstrated; that was another mistake. The guy did not do any better than me, in fact, he took us across an area South of Offerton Moor, losing a lot of height in an area which is even lower than the airfield elevation, and we eventually ended up along a ridge to the South West of Camphill, near the village of Eyam - famous for its heroic part in the history of the Great Plague of the 1600s, if you like trivia.

 

At this point it looked like we were going down, the down drafts from the storm were forcing us lower and lower and when we got to near a well known landmark for pilots flying from Camphill - The Barrel Pub - the guy in the back did something which I hope never happens to anyone else; he made a weird wailing noise and then blurted out, 'you have control'. This is not something you want to hear an instructor do, trust me. I was not a complete novice pilot of course, but even so, when someone with a lot more hours than you does that, it's not a great confidence builder LOL. I'm fairly certain it was because he knew he had stuffed up very badly and wanted to relinquish responsibility, but at the time I had bigger fish to fry, so I took over control, vowing to have this out with him, if we survived. Any notion of bailing out was long gone, you'd need about 2,500 feet to get away with that with two people exiting, since in a tandem cockpit layout the CoG would go haywire the moment one person went, we were way too low for that anyway, and in any case I could not have abandoned the aircraft, since glancing back at the guy behind me, I could see that he had now completely frozen up and would not answer me at all when I asked him if he was okay, merely staring blankly ahead, so I was stuck with trying to fly us down. I had asked him for advice on what best to do, and receiving no reply, that's when I looked around and found out that he had frozen up. So I ignored that problem and concentrated on the bigger one.

 

By now we were below the ridge line and I was in fact looking up at trees and indeed buildings on the hills, fighting the downdrafts of the storm and looking out for a place I might put us down. The terrain there is mostly sheep farms, with small fields generally not big enough to land diagonally across, bounded by dry stone walls, so options were limited, and I thought our best chance would be to do a landing in between two trees to take the wings off and slow us down, since we were both wearing four point harnesses. So I began looking for some likely candidate trees. This is not a fun thing to do. I was pretty confident of being able to pull it off, I've landed in some tight spots before, but of course nobody likes to wreck an aeroplane, and it would probably have hurt, a lot.

 

fortunately, this is where my luck changed, I managed to find enough ridge lift to keep us level, and so I scraped back and forth along the ridge near The Barrel pub, not gaining much height, but crucially, not losing it either, whilst all around there were lightning flashes and the turbulence was bucking us around like crazy, with visibility not that great either owing to the rain on the canopy, so I had to open the DV panel and use that a lot to see as we were getting condensation on the canopy. I was still considering taking us in for a crash landing if I could, but then we hit the edge of the storm, where there was in fact a large updraft as there often is in a storm, and so I began circling in that, making use of some welcome lift, and took us up to the base of the storm clouds, although at this point I was also getting worried about taking a lightning strike, since that often destroys grp aircraft if there is moisture in the wing cavities. The altimeter was of course not a reliable gauge for height AGL with the pressure dropping from the storm, and so I had to continue circling under the storm until I surmised that we had enough altitude to make a dash for the field, and so that's what I did.

 

I was certainly very glad to eventually see that I had what I estimated to be circuit height for right hand turns into the field, but as I approached along the ridge to the East of the airfield, I noticed that the windsock was now spun through 180 degrees from its earlier indication when we took off, this being caused by the storm having now passed over the airfield, and so I abandoned my circuit, doing a left 180 away from the ridge as you should and announced coming in for a North West approach, into the wind since there was nothing else visible in the circuit and nothing on the radio, such procedures at that site are normally all visual and radio calls are not mandatory since it is not an airfield which powered aircraft use very often, in fact I've only ever seen one powered aircraft land there, although I thought the call might be useful for anyone else who might be heading back there.

 

When I made the turn, the guy in the back finally piped up, enquiring why we were turning, almost casually, to which I replied somewhat tersely, 'Oh, back with us are we? look at the f****** windsock', which was a bit rude, but as you can imagine, I was less than thrilled with him at the time. So, having announced the landing and now committed to the approach because of the headwind, which was unusual given the position of the storm, but that's storms for you I guess, in I came. As I was preparing to flare at about 100 feet AGL, I noticed two other aircraft were landing the other way about a quarter of a mile ahead. They were widely separated running parallel to each other, but there was also a tow tractor on the field heading out to where one of them would come to a halt, but either having heard my announcement, or observed aircraft coming in, he stuck to procedure and stopped giving way to anything coming in. So I used the spoilers to drop us a bit quicker and slow us, landed and I rolled out with one aircraft rolling out to my left ahead of me, and the one on the right having stopped quickly owing to the gear not having been lowered, although it did in fact slide quite some way on its belly.

 

When we came to a halt, it was still hammering down with rain and I can promise you that you could have cut the atmosphere in that cockpit with a knife, with me absolutely fuming and the instructor not daring to say a word, so we sat there with the rain drumming on the plexiglass, awaiting a tow tractor, and we took that aircraft back to the hangar (which is a long way and requires some manhandling) without saying a word to one another.

 

And if you don't believe that story and think I'm a rotten pilot after that, then I don't care frankly, because that's exactly how it happened, and if it had not been for me, that guy would have been dead. And he should have known better anyway, as to be honest, so should I really, but that's a mistake I've never repeated, since this occurred twelve years ago. Needless to say, I never flew with him again, and I also rather mercilessly joked with the guy who landed downwind and wheels up, because guess what? He was an instructor too, and one I actually rate pretty highly. And I can tell you that in the flying club's bar later on that day, everyone who was up in that storm had some story to tell, and they were all glad to be back on the ground regardless of which way they came in, even with the wheels up.

 

Can we get back on topic now?

 

Al

Can we get back on topic now?

I won't spoil that wish intentionally, Alan. What a read! Thanks for that.