personal Acts of aviation stupidity, who has done one and is prepared to admit it? me

[watto]

I am pleased to see that this thread has provoked some discussion and amphasised safety and also the changes that have taken place with RA Aus in the picture, for the better of course and these forums are a great learning tool that was not available to the pioneers of the air, they really were brave men I would be interested what the wright brothers would be thinking if they could see the technology we have today????

They would be blown away!!

Watto

Watto

[icebob]

Thanks for the trip down memory lane Ozzie. That is how i leaned to fly a hang glider. To start with low sand hills just south of Woolongong and after two years of "getting the hang of it" graduated to Stan well Tops and took instruction from "Rabbit" and "Giggles" two local identities from the early 1970's and that was the start of a long and sometime bruising relationship, oh the follies of youth. On a number of flights i was successful in nose diving into the beach on landing.
I too taught myself to fly my self constructed VP-1 with assistance from a number of extremely patient Navy pilots and yes at HMAS Albatross I was know as the ground loop king(sometimes the ground loop ace) fond memories and not one accident or injury in 18 years of flying the VP-1.

Bob.

[ozzie]

Ice Bob. Great times. Avoided the majority of running back up sand hills. But how fit were you back then?
I was jumping at Wilton one Sunday and met a fellow student on the way to height called Ray. He suggested after the jump to drop into Stanwell with him to check it out. when we arrived it was on and he introduced me to several of the Cohen gang. Ray had been flying since he was 15. There was some disscussion amonst the gang then i was given a harness and we clipped into a brand new Skyhook model with a bench seat to sit on. so we just simply walked off and flew around for half an hour and topped it off by landing back on top. The group of pilots came up and congratulated Ray and made a bit of a fuss. It took me a bit to catch on but it seemed that no one wanted to be the first passenger so Ray had made me the unknowing guinea pig. We were back in the air right after devouring a 'Bolga Dan's Beautiful Bolga Bacon Burger'. had my H3 rating (skipped over 1&2) within a couple of months. My two instructors were Ray Dunkerley and Arnold Cohen. Hang gliding was very much in it's infancy. It was very popular and and far too easy to buy a glider and just slip thru the system and kill yourself. i saw it happpen twice that summer. i wittnessed a lot of near misses due to design, luffing dives were on main problem for one manufacturer. a couple due to structual failure. and plenty from brain failure.I was very lucky to have always flown with very talented people for several years.
Again would never change anything to do it different. even the scarey bits.
Ozzie

[Tomo]

Originally Posted by motzartmerv

I'd buy it

I would to

[icebob]

Yes those were the days. That was the location of my most idiotic flight attempt, the wind was so strong but youth and a lack of common sense, i took to the edge at Stanwell Tops, the next thing i remember is being inverted hanging from the harness.
The wind had picked me up and flipped me. Bent the glider and the harness had rashed me up something chronic. That act of stupidity cost me yards of skin and a new glider from Ray plus i was convinced to shout the boys Berger's at you know where.

Bob.

[BLA82]

Icebob and Ozzie,
Thanks for sharing your stories, this thread has been a great read, please share more

[slartibartfast]

Bob and Oz's stories reminded me of my earliest piece of aviation stupidity.
In the early 80s I worked shift work. When I worked the night shift (23:30 - 07:30) I often went without sleep between shifts if something better to do came up. I was on my third day in a row of finding better things to do when a beautiful easterly came up. This meant that the Lake George escaprment was soarable for about 15 miles, with the large expanse of the lake to smooth out the air (it had water in it back then). It was like coastal flying.
I raced out to Geary's Gap, setup and launched my hang glider and had a wonderful flight ending up down near Bungendore (7 to 10 miles from launch) where I lost height trying to cross the road gap and had to land. The easterly had dropped off. I packed up, carried it up the hill and waited for a while. The wind came up a bit, so I tried launching again and only just survived the turbulence and landed at the bottom again.
Bad decision, but I got away with it. After 3 days of no sleep, you'd think this would be where I'd realise my stupidity - right? Wrong.
I packed up and lugged to a farmhouse. Nobody home, so I stashed the kite and walked to the road. Failed to get a lift for about 3 hours.
Eventually got one and got back to my car to find the cops were looking for me. They were extremely annoyed that I was alive, but got over it.
Drove back to get the kite, went back to Geary's to find a brand new seabreeze had come up. Woohoo went my tired brain. Let's fly again.
I took off and scratched for lift on the ridge. I was certainly in no condition to make good decisions, so I made a bad one. I hung in too long, got one wing in the wind shadow of a tree, spun around the front of the tree and hit the hill. Luckily I got back into the wind before I ran out on non-ground bits and hit with minimal force, but enough to bang my knee and bend the A-frame.

Just one of those lessons of youth where only luck allowed me the luxury of learning from it instead of dying from it. There were plenty of others, but after this one I mostly confined them to non-aviation lessons.

[Michael Coates]

I can also remenber spending months running down the Kurnell sandhills for 12 seconds of flight and then after a total flight time of about 8 minutes being ready to go to Stanwell Tops.... Ahh.... those were the days.

[ozzie]

I wonder how many times we stood at Stanwell within earshot of each other.
12 seconds off the sandhills you must have had a high performance machine.

[Michael Coates]

I was 'light' and only 15 or 16 years old and i milked that wing for every last second... push, push, push "crash"

Who ever said sand didnt hurt... i still have scars from sand burn and memories of a few Sunday nights in Sutherland hospital getting locals so they could scrub sand from a fresh - sticky wound. Ever noticed how it didnt hurt when you did it - But it killed for weeks after ???

[Elk McPherson]

This is great - I was always told the AUF was about you guys but I didn't believe it.

When I was doing my PPL training in the early 1990's I wandered out of the training area towards a winery (just over the river from Luskintyre - there you go, you know who I am now) bearing the family name.

It perhaps illustrates my ignorance that I didn't even know there was an airfield nearby. I decided that, as I knew better than the rule makers, I should do a little contour flying along the Hunter river at about 100' past Wyndham Estate, hook around the bend in the river (the bank on the bend is about 150' high) and so on.

The great thing bout this, I thought, was the fact that I could look up at the 150' river bank off my right wingtip.

That was when I saw the single-strand powerline I was flying under.

[watto]

Thanks for sharing Elk

[bushpilot]

Its real interesting how many of us have gone thru the hang-gliding phase.. and learned a lot about the flying fundamentals, the hard way...

For me it started in Adelaide - self taught, then instructing based on what I thought was right, and comp. flying for the then local hang-glider manufacturer "Freeflight".

One comp. at Mt Buffalo in Vic. - took off in light conditions, scratched back and forward along the cliff face for awhile; wind dropped even more; got in closer to the face - right wing tip (38' wingspan "Jaguar") dragged on the cliff face; glider turned 90o and nose plate hit the cliff; bounced back a bit and pancaked 200' down into canopy of gum-trees.. Took the recovery team about an hour to get down there and pull me and rearranged glider out of tree.. Happy ending, apart from dislocated shoulder.

But the positive thing about this type of experience is I think I understand the first principles of flying and meteorology fairly well.. I sometimes cringe now as a passenger in someone else's RAA a/c when they fly low into situations where I know there will be some rotor or turbulence; you tend to inherently read the terrain and wind direction / speed... which has to be a good thing.. Likewise when flying near 'active' clouds..

[ozzie]

Hey Elk you were pretty lucky that day. there is not just one single wire there are three all starting from the top and running over the river. i live just behind that ridge.
often go for walks along the ridge. if it was not for those stupid lines it would be a good place to take off from.

ozzie

[Maj Millard]

Can relate to Motzartmerv on almost hitting that damn wire, that's one of the reasons I won't fly low down rivers, even though I really want to sometimes.
Had a friends' SS4 Storch once for about a week, for maintenance. Had done about 2 hours in it, and felt pretty comfortable with the aircraft. Figured I'd show it off a bit round the valley, and decided to land at a friends short grass strip, where several ULs were hangared. Normally I landed at this place in my Drifter. The turn off to the hangars was only about 100 mts past the low fence at the threshold of the strip, and I decided it was well within the capabilities of the Storch with full flap, to drop on, brake, and easily turn off at the hangars. That should impress them.
Hell, I had even done it in the Drifter when the wind was right !.
Problem is, the mains on a Drifter are about 2 feet below your XXXX, whereas on a Storch they would be a good 6-7 feet below you in flight. I set up the familiar approach as I always had, and prepared to snick it over the fence and put it on. (can you see where this is going ?) About fifteen feet out from the fence it dawned on me that I was in a Storch, and not a Drifter. Don't know to this day how I didn't catch the gear on that fence, it had to be down to inches. Anyway got pulled up, taxied in, and everyone thought I was a very talented Storch pilot...except me !.

[watto]

I can imagine what a power cable would do to an aircraft, cut it open like bread roll Maj