waterinthefuel
Active Member
I'm a pilot. However, I'd like to think I have a few functioning brain cells. Here are some of the stupid things I have personally witnessed some of my pilot bretheren doing while I was working at the airport:
1. Flying into our airport in turbo props and private jets at 300-400mph through rain and turbulance, only to land and go into panic mode telling us to hurry up and put their airplanes in the hangar before the "bad weather" gets there.
2. Yelling and screaming to the point that the lineguys are ready to fight this particular pilot who says it will hurt his King Air for a 160lb line guy to sit on the root of his wing to fuel his aux tank. As if flying a 12000lb airplane at 300mph doesn't stress it nearly as much as that 160lb line guy's butt does. (He isn't referring to anything scratching the paint, he literally means the weight of the guy on the wing will hurt it)
3. Another pilot managing to park his King Air's main gear on only one of two 18" drainage grates on the entire ramp, and calling us at 2am to come move it because he doesn't want the plane on the grate for an extended period of time.
4. After realizing he has forgotten to remove the chock, this bright pilot gets out of his plane, with the engine still running, and proceeds to pull the chock out from IN FRONT OF THE NOSEWHEEL. I only saw a glimpse of him actually removing the chock as it was literally too terrifing to watch. The airplane was a Cirrus SR 22.
5. Another bright flyer proceeds to fly his airplane, which he isn't qualified to fly as it is a high performance retract, a C-210, around our local patch. He flies around for a while, comes in on final approach and makes the shortest short field landing ever accomplished in a 210. He left the gear tucked nicely up. He stated he didn't know what the warning horn was on final approach. Would that be because he wasn't qualified to fly the airplane? $60,000 worth of repair later he knows now. He just happens to be the owner of one of the most popular car dealerships in Acadiana. As soon as it happened the plane was hidden in a hangar and this mishap was never reported to the FAA.
6. A 727 charter pilot, upon leaving our facility, decided to jam the throttles forward and considerable jet thrust then severely damaged a little Cessna on one of our tiedown spots. Two people ran over to it and jumped on the tail to hold it down as it broke the tail tie down rope. The wing spar was buckled and the plane's wing was in our hangar for months being repaired.
7. And lastly, a Baron pilot, knowing he couldn't get his gear up, decided to take off way over gross with his 7 passengers (him, his wife, his 3 teenage daughters, and one set of grandparents, oh yea, did I mention a Baron is a 6 passenger airplane?) for New England. He managed to get almost there when he lost an engine soon after takeoff and the plane crashed violently, killing all on board. This one I didn't witness, but I knew the guy and I'd spoken to two of his daughters less than a month before this happened and I was at the airport when the phone calls started coming into our facility. They were very sweet people, very respectful little girls, a sad trajedy.
C'mon guys, we can do better than this.
1. Flying into our airport in turbo props and private jets at 300-400mph through rain and turbulance, only to land and go into panic mode telling us to hurry up and put their airplanes in the hangar before the "bad weather" gets there.
2. Yelling and screaming to the point that the lineguys are ready to fight this particular pilot who says it will hurt his King Air for a 160lb line guy to sit on the root of his wing to fuel his aux tank. As if flying a 12000lb airplane at 300mph doesn't stress it nearly as much as that 160lb line guy's butt does. (He isn't referring to anything scratching the paint, he literally means the weight of the guy on the wing will hurt it)
3. Another pilot managing to park his King Air's main gear on only one of two 18" drainage grates on the entire ramp, and calling us at 2am to come move it because he doesn't want the plane on the grate for an extended period of time.
4. After realizing he has forgotten to remove the chock, this bright pilot gets out of his plane, with the engine still running, and proceeds to pull the chock out from IN FRONT OF THE NOSEWHEEL. I only saw a glimpse of him actually removing the chock as it was literally too terrifing to watch. The airplane was a Cirrus SR 22.
5. Another bright flyer proceeds to fly his airplane, which he isn't qualified to fly as it is a high performance retract, a C-210, around our local patch. He flies around for a while, comes in on final approach and makes the shortest short field landing ever accomplished in a 210. He left the gear tucked nicely up. He stated he didn't know what the warning horn was on final approach. Would that be because he wasn't qualified to fly the airplane? $60,000 worth of repair later he knows now. He just happens to be the owner of one of the most popular car dealerships in Acadiana. As soon as it happened the plane was hidden in a hangar and this mishap was never reported to the FAA.
6. A 727 charter pilot, upon leaving our facility, decided to jam the throttles forward and considerable jet thrust then severely damaged a little Cessna on one of our tiedown spots. Two people ran over to it and jumped on the tail to hold it down as it broke the tail tie down rope. The wing spar was buckled and the plane's wing was in our hangar for months being repaired.
7. And lastly, a Baron pilot, knowing he couldn't get his gear up, decided to take off way over gross with his 7 passengers (him, his wife, his 3 teenage daughters, and one set of grandparents, oh yea, did I mention a Baron is a 6 passenger airplane?) for New England. He managed to get almost there when he lost an engine soon after takeoff and the plane crashed violently, killing all on board. This one I didn't witness, but I knew the guy and I'd spoken to two of his daughters less than a month before this happened and I was at the airport when the phone calls started coming into our facility. They were very sweet people, very respectful little girls, a sad trajedy.
C'mon guys, we can do better than this.
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