Your funniest mistake as a virtual pilot in MSFS?

[David Mills 4,774]

Here's mine. When I first bought the PMDG 737 for MSFS, I had no knowledge or experience at all in programming an FMC. I kept seeing FL150 or FL250 or FL300 in the display, and I thought that the "FL" stood for "flaps." So I thought "FL150" meant that at a given waypoint, the FMC would automatically set my flaps to 15 degrees. If my waypoint said "FL250," I expected the FMC to automatically configure my flaps to 25 degrees, etc. It never worked! After about a month, I followed the old advice, "If all else fails, read the instructions."

[Car147 2,346]

Forgetting the gear on landing with the FBW A320, I wondered why i was getting so low before the dreaded scraping sound.

[polosim 893]

 

When I was in my practices to obtain my Instrument type rating, I used in home a version of Flight Simulator II to improve my proficiency. In one of those practices I decided to design my own approach to the Avalon airport (KVAX) it was a VOR approach, with such bad luck that I confused the elevation of the runway (1602ft) with its length (33, that is to say 3300ft). So, confident that the field elevation was 33ft, I designed everything according, so that the minima was 500 above the field elevation (533ft) and placed a overcast ceiling at a height of 400ft, to force a missed approach, ( MAP it was located over the Catalina VOR).

So you can imagine my surprise when I reached the minimum, leveled the aircraft and waited to reach the missed approach when what had to happen happened 💥. I was stunned and thinking about the mistakes made, which made me see the importance and seriousness of this profession. Lesson learned for sure.

 

 

 

 

[Guest abranpuko]

I made my take off, after one hour i discover all my doors were open since departure. No one died.

[Mace 2,014]

That LA area chart brings back so many memories.

The good ol Fillmore VOR.

Let me guess, you had a CFIT on approach to Avalon?

That reminds me of a near-miss with terrain at Vagar one time.  It was a similar situation but, if I had read my heading correctly, would not have been a problem.

[sd_flyer 6,272]

I had long flight last week. At the end of the flight I was going to disconnect usb drive on the top of my pc tower and accidentally press power button . My top  of descent went to PC shutdown lol

 

[icewater5 181]

When i first flew an airliner, a 767 or 747, 767 add-on i think without learning the basics. I realised that you dont start to brake when you see the runway and overshot lhr by about 10 miles, lol.

[polosim 893]

1 hour ago, Mace said:

had a CFIT on approach to Avalon?

That’s how it was. In those days an overcast ceilings was just a white screen, isn’t?

[cappy42 44]

Unless you want to read a lot of boring manuals, flying the PMDG with the FMC is definitely a steep learning curve:

1) I thought the temperature setting in the PERF INIT page was the current outside air temp.  That made the FMC go absolutely crazy on climb out.

2) I thought the flap settings and speeds on the VREF APPROACH page was the flap schedule.  

[Virtual-Chris 682]

Just last night I was trying my 2nd flight in the Longitude and forgot to raise the gear and flaps. Couldn’t figure out why my speed was limited to 200Kts. Ultimately I did something that stalled it at around 20,000Ft and crashed. 😩

Edited August 2, 2023 by Virtual-Chris

[Virtual-Chris 682]

5 hours ago, Car147 said:

Forgetting the gear on landing with the FBW A320, I wondered why i was getting so low before the dreaded scraping sound.

This happens… it immediately reminded me of  Pakistan Airlines Flight 8303.😞

It makes my wonder why gear deployment is not automatic on final approach. 

Edited August 2, 2023 by Virtual-Chris

[z06z33 782]

1 hour ago, Virtual-Chris said:

This happens… it immediately reminded me of  Pakistan Airlines Flight 8303.😞

It makes my wonder why gear deployment is not automatic on final approach. 

Because thousands of flights daily don't forget the gear. PIA also hired pilots with fordged licenses so I wouldn't think there is a culture of safety at that airline.... I remember the one time I forgot the gear... I was 14 flying the Flight1 C421 in FSX and forgot it landing at Grand Cayman. In 34 now and that mistake has stuck with me. Since then in the sim or real world flying I verify the gear multiple times on approach and one last check in the flare. Forgetting the gear as an airline pilot IRL is inexcusable.

Edited August 2, 2023 by z06z33

[Virtual-Chris 682]

2 hours ago, z06z33 said:

Because thousands of flights daily don't forget the gear. PIA also hired pilots with fordged licenses so I wouldn't think there is a culture of safety at that airline.... I remember the one time I forgot the gear... I was 14 flying the Flight1 C421 in FSX and forgot it landing at Grand Cayman. In 34 now and that mistake has stuck with me. Since then in the sim or real world flying I verify the gear multiple times on approach and one last check in the flare. Forgetting the gear as an airline pilot IRL is inexcusable.

Yeah it sounds like it was very poor crew behavior on that flight. That's alarming that pilots could be flying without a valid license!  But just because it's inexcusable and perhaps only one incident has occurred, it doesn't mean it shouldn't be automated. There are lots of functions that are automated that don't need to be. So I still think there's merit in auto gear deployment's unless there's a safety reason for NOT automating gear down on final approach that I'm not thinking of.  It wouldn't hurt to have gear automatically up on departure either.

Edited August 2, 2023 by Virtual-Chris

[Virtpilot 157]

Got a takeoff clearance from Gatwick and as I moved my hand from the throttle, accidentally shut off my other engine. Have no idea, why I did not abort the takeoff... Thanks God there was no another ATC online.... Would have been rather embarassing to explain the problem.... 

[Fiorentoni 4,653]

Love that topic! I once landed on a runway under construction on UUDD (the scenery had modelled it correctly as under construction, but there were charts available for it, so I didn't notice). I started to wonder why there were no runway lights at night, but I didn't have time for a go-around so I landed there anyway...

Another time on the 737 I accidentally turned the IRS switches into align mode while I was taxiing and was completely shocked after takeoff when AP didn't engage and I looked down on the ND... to make matters worse, it was on Vatsim. Not proud to say it, but I just quit the sim; couldn't bear the shame calling in on tower "Sorry, I have to come back in, I turned off my IRS".

What happened a couple of times is that I forgot to raise the gear after a go-around. Go-arounds on Vatsim is when you *really* feel the lack of a second pilot!