I knew you'd say that the aircraft which made the gear up landing was another glider. Of course it was. Which AGAIN proves my point about you being arrogant and careless with regards to your flying in this situation.

 

If you want to take what I am saying on a more broad application to yourself that is your fault, not mine.

 

I have only been speaking about your attitude with regards to your decision making, in and out of the cockpit, and how those decisions negatively effected your airmanship and needlessly endangered others as well as yourself. You could have said no to the flight, but you didn't, that was your mistake, not anyone elses.

 

You were the one who added an "LOL" to your original offhand and unexplained statement about landing in between two aircraft who were landing in the opposite direction.

 

Yes, you were so fuming mad that you look back on the incident and find it humorous, or at least lead others to believe it was. But that wasn't the story after all was it?

 

Feel free to get back on topic any time you like. I was just finishing what you started and letting you know that not everybody gobbles up what you say hook, line, and sinker.

 

Peace Out.

I think you are reading way too much into a LOL or a graphical smiley, Aviator4Life. Mind the context, please.

 

While nobody can influence the way how you read things and perceive communicational threads, I'd still say that the conclusion to call somebody 'arrogant and careless' (or worse) after having posted the full story as above is a bit off.

 

I did not read any of those things into Alan's story. In fact, I find a lot of the opposite in it and I'm also thankful for developing the picture of that special day, nicely showing some of the small and big influences on situations where the beer in the pub tastes extremely well after you came close to the edge of flying. A lot of human factors there on the whole airmanship and situational awareness.

 

So why not stick to the OPs questions again? Means, if they are still open. I'm accusing myself for starting something off topic. :Peace:

I did not needlessly endanger anyone, and I strongly resent that suggestion. If anything, the instructor should have known better, since I bowed to what I presumed was his greater experience. So I trusted an instructor, which was a mistake as it turned out on that occasion, since he made an error and then suffered some kind of failing under pressure, which ultimately I have ended up feeling sorry for him about, since that could probably happen to anyone.

 

I concede that my inexperience at the time contributed to going up when I should have stayed on the ground, and it is worth relating the tale for its cautionary usefulness, but I think you are completely out of order to suggest that I am arrogant, and I know you are completely out of order for intimating that I am a liar. It is the tale of someone gaining experience from flying, and relating it may one day make some be smarter than I was in my then limited experience, and choose to stay on the deck.

 

Al

Aviator4Life,

 

I have sent you a warning message and suggest you read it and heed it. Any further conduct like that demonstrated above will result in additional moderation consequences. It stops right now, or you will be stopped right now, your choice. You have my word on it.

 

Kind regards,

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

 

Al, guess you meant PBN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance-based_navigation). RNAV means "area navigation" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_navigation). PBN basically requires RNAV and RNP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Required_navigation_performance).

 

Andreas

Already been there and done that one Andreas, see some posts above, but yes, RNAV does nowadays stand for Area Navigation, it used to stand for Random Navigation (which was a terrible idea calling it that, made it sound like guesswork LOL). I probably should have worded it better on the original post, in that what I really was alluding to, is that most people refer to the general topic of the various modern ways of getting steered accurately about the sky and making precision approaches and tracks as Required Navigation, although as you say, that's really what RNP stands for. I personally liked CoolP's version of it relating to finding your way about after a few drinks.

 

Al

I would suggest that we avoid harsh criticism of decisions other pilots have made. We need people to feel comfortable telling about what mistakes they made (I've been there...I've made them.) Not talking about them is dangerous. You have the opportunity to learn from their experience rather than your own. Al points out two that should make many of us swallow hard. 1) Listening to someone with more experience who is suggesting something that you're uncomfortable with and 2) following other people into the air when things are 'iffy'. I know I had to swallow pretty hard when he mentioned them.

Yup, I've learned a few things the harder way with flying, although thankfully not in the hardest way you could. For example, I once took off and got a weird vibration in the panel, it was making a buzzing noise, probably just a loose screw or something. I took my attention from what I should have been doing, which was flying the aeroplane, to investigate that noise, and when I looked up after faffing about for twenty seconds or so not having found the cause, I noticed that I was now fairly nose high and with the airspeed dropping off, and I'll admit that it was the change in wind noise which actually made me look up and not my sterling attention to airmanship at the time, but even so, it was not a smart thing to be doing. Not to mention the fact that I should also have been looking where I was going. Two lessons learned there for the price of one you might say.

 

The very same kind of distraction (a busted gear indicator light bulb in this case) was what caused the crew of an Eastern L-1011 Tristar to crash in the Folorida Everglades in 1972, so it is something which can afflict even the very experienced. Ever since that day of me getting distracted like that, unless the seat was on fire, I'll ignore stuff like that and worry about what really matters at the time. Thus I'm not afraid to point out stupid stuff I've done like that owing to inexperience; if it helps someone else to avoid making the same mistake and prevents them from having an accident, then it is worth my embarrasment.

 

But contradicting an instructor is a bit socially awkward it has to be said, and all that time ago I was not as confident personally as I am nowadays which probably did not help, so it is a tricky situation. Nevertheless I absolutely would speak up these days if I felt someone was taking a risk, and especially if the risk they were taking involved my &@($* LOL.

 

Al

The very same kind of distraction (a busted gear indicator light bulb in this case) was what caused the crew of an Eastern L-1011 Tristar to crash in the Folorida Everglades in 1972 ....

 

So far so good...

 

But contradicting an instructor is a bit socially awkward it has to be said, and all that time ago I was not as confident personally as I am nowadays which probably did not help, so it is a tricky situation. Nevertheless I absolutely would speak up these days if I felt someone was taking a risk, and especially if the risk they were taking involved my &@($* LOL.

 

And this is pretty close to the definition of what caused the teneriffe disaster, you should be learning more from these, Al :)

Yup, trust me, I did, note that the incident I quoted occurred twelve years ago, and there are a lot more dog eared pages in my log book since that oneI

 

Get-home-itis, and indeed 'get-up-in-the-air-itis' are things I have built up an immunity to these days. I like flying, but I like coming down to Earth with the aircraft still intact too LOL

 

Al

But contradicting an instructor is a bit socially awkward it has to be said,

 

On an IMC lesson with an instructor, but flying in my own (part-share) plane, he didn't like my approach towards the 660 yard grass runway, and told me to "go around". I said "landing" and did so, not elegantly, but certainly safely. There then followed an argument where he said that I had disobeyed a direct order, and I retorted that whilst he was the instructor for the purpose of the lesson, I was the commander, had noted his opinion, but considered myself a better judge of the capabilities of my own French-manufactured aircraft than he might be. Not an easy situation, and although I was vindicated by the Chief Instructor, he always glowered at me thereafter, and I avoided that particular instructor when it came to my IMC test!

Was that a Jodel by any chance? Just curious because I don't know many of those rigged for IFR.

 

Your story and the mention of 'following an order' reminded me a little of a check ride I had with a very fearsome CFI way back in the 1990s. This CFI was a lot like James Robertson Justice in his manner (looked a bit like him too actually), so he was sat there behind me in the rear cockpit as I made a check flight, whizzing about all over the Leicestershire countryside, doing various maneuvers, with him yelling at me like an overwrought army colonel, and whenever I did not do something lickety split, or was half a degree off the heading requested, he would yell things such as: 'Good God Man!', like I'd just shot the Queen down or something.

 

I remember sitting there thinking: 'At what point did I join the army? I must have missed that, I thought I was paying for this'. Funnily enough though, he signed me off just fine when we landed and said my flying was good. I guess it was just his way, but everyone at that airfield was terrified of the bloke.

 

Al

Was that a Jodel by any chance? Just curious because I don't know many of those rigged for IFR.

 

Socata Tobago TB10.

 

Interestingly, "my" instructor was ex-RAF, bushy mustache, florid complexion. I guess old habits die hard.

That was the other one I thought it might be, or possibly the Trinidad. Pretty aeroplane actually, I've got the Lionheart sim version of that, which is showing its age a bit in places, notably the prop animation, but it is still one of my regulars in FSX, along with the Trinidad, as it happens to be a fairly nice aeroplane with a rather cool VC.

 

Al

Yes, when I first saw the inside of the cockpit I thought, "Quirky French, a bit like the inside of a Citroen". But it turned out to be extremely intuitive in design.

 

The Lionheart captured my impression of the TB10 pretty well, including the slightly alarming nose-up after takeoff, and its desire to land rapidly and heavily, ignoring such niceties as ground effect.