- Joined
- Oct 30, 2003
- Messages
- 18,445
- Location
- Santa Maria, California
- Aircraft
- Givens Predator
- Total Flight Time
- 2600+ in rotorcraft
Tired, off for a month and overtasked.
This is a story about a 65 year old client who will remain anonymous who had an unpleasant experience while learning to fly with me in The Predator.
I will call him Bob which is not his real name and it’s not him in the pictures.
I feel there are many important lessons here about learning to fly a gyroplane so I felt I should share them with my friends in the hopes they avoid having an unpleasant experience doing what for me was a big challenge and a lot of fun.
The story will have more value if you don’t think things like I would never do anything that stupid.
I have made all of these mistakes myself; just is a different order.
It is a long post so take you time if you want to find value in it.
A month previous I had transitioned my ten hour primary learner into the front seat. There are many things nicer about being the front seat but it also comes with extra responsibilities.
The pilot in the front seat has to manage the magneto switches, the intercom, the transponder, the rotor brake, the mixture control, radio frequencies, the toe brakes for steering and I prefer they make the radio calls. They are also responsible for monitoring the engine instruments.
When I first transitioned Bob to the front seat a month previous I managed the radio calls to keep him further away from task saturation. There are a lot of new tasks to manage and a whole different sight picture. We had spent more than an hour briefing Bob on the front seat before his first flight in the front seat.
He did very well and he knew he would be off for a month and wanted to mitigate the impact with chair flying so he took pictures of the Predator’s panel and created a very nice panel on cardboard that he attached to his work bench at home and spent a lot of time chair flying and practicing the various check lists and verifying the instruments.
Recent flight experience has value.
In my experience flight skills are perishable and the newer they are the faster they deteriorate.
I was confident enough in Bob that we were going to do his cross country the next day after accessing the impact of not flying for a month.
I suggested that it might be easier if I made the radio calls.
Bob had been practicing, making notes and listening to live ATC and he felt the radio calls would not be a distraction.
We practiced the radio calls at Santa Maria (SMX) with me playing the fast talking sometimes hard to understand atc (air traffic control).
He worked though the startup check list, initial call to ground, read back to ground and the run up procedures and everything went very well.
Bob made the call to Santa Maria tower and atc responded experimental gyroplane one four two Mike Golf; hold short of runway three zero for landing traffic.
Bob’s read back was perfect.
Atc; “gyroplane 142 Mike Golf, Runway three zero cleared for takeoff.”
Bob’s read back for his takeoff clearance was correct and with very little coaching his takeoff was nice as can be.
On his initial climb out the tower told him to make left traffic and report abeam with intentions. He read it back perfectly.
I was picking up a squeal in my active noise reduction (ANR) head set making it harder to hear, I felt I could still hear ok and there was no reason to abort the mission. We had lots of ways to deal with intercom problems.
Bob was having a little trouble with airspeed and altitude but was still to practical test standards. His turns to cross wind and downwind were tidy maintaining airspeed and altitude and I gave him some praise.
Bob made his downwind call: “Experimental Gyroplane one four two Mike Golf, request the option for left closed traffic runway three zero” I feel this minor mistake began his troubles.
Atc responded “gyroplane two Mike Golf; number two following the Cessna, runway three zero cleared for touch and go.
Bob got as far as experimental gyroplane one four two Mike Golf before there was a long pause and I felt Bob was losing his situational awareness.
Because of the lack of clearance acknowledgement atc repeated; “Gyroplane two Mike Golf runway 30 cleared touch and go.”
After another long pause Bob responded “Experimental Gyroplane one four two Mike Golf clear touch and go.”
Bob said something that I was not able to understand and I said; I can’t hear you. We later discovered that Bob and inadvertently tuned down the intercom. At the time I thought it was because my ANR was acting up combined with the extra wind noise in the back seat and maybe his microphone was badly positioned.
It appeared to me Bob had lost situational awareness because we were more than a hundred feet below pattern altitude (800 feet mean sea level 550 feet above the ground) and had slowed to 35kts indicated air speed (target airspeed is 50kts) and was deviating from the normal downwind flight path.
I like to have a big safety margin and the trees and power lines were close enough to make me uncomfortable.
I pointed out these deviations and it appeared to me Bob didn’t respond with the appropriate control inputs.
We had descended below 500 feet mean sea level (250 feet above the ground) and the airspeed dedicator was showing 35kts. Shouting this time; WE ARE TOO LOW AND TOO SLOW, FULL THROTTLE, NOSE DOWN.
Bob shouted back; “I AM AT FULL THROTTLE”.
I shouted NOSE DOWN!
I did not seem able to get Bob to respond with appropriate control inputs and I could barely hear him.
We have a procedure for intercom failure where if I shake the stick; I am taking control of the aircraft. I felt Bob would learn more if I talked him through it.
Atc announced “gyroplane two Mike Golf; pattern altitude at Santa Maria is eight hundred feet.”
Bob appeared to have lost directional control and was deviating left.
With three aircraft in the pattern I made a call to Atc “gyroplane two Mike Golf; this will be a full stop landing.
Atc came back sounding somewhat relieved; “gyroplane two Mike Golf; runway three zero cleared to land.”
I repeated the clearance and told Bob to turn right and get the nose down.
This seemed to me to be the turning point and I was glad I had not taken the controls. “Make a normal landing” I said loudly; trying to be less abrasive and attempting to sound confident and in control of the situation.
I talked Bob through the landing and after he ballooned up, he got the power in and saved the landing.
I made the radio calls on the ground. Bob didn’t respond when I told him to turn right at alpha five until I shouted at him to TURN RIGHT and we got a little lost on the way to fuel nearly missing turning left at taxiway Romeo and nearly turning at Sierra (the commercial ramp with all the attendant transportation security administration rules and fines). TURN LEFT, SHARP LEFT TO ROMEO. This is not an uncommon mistake because Taxiway Alpha, Alpha five, Alpha six, Romeo and Sierra all come together.
We had a long debrief where we attempted to identify the path to this unpleasant situation. Tired, a month off, and task saturation seemed to be the greatest contributors with turning down the intercom and my shouting adding to a bad situation.
I believe in using the acronym IMSAFE before every flight. It stands for Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, and Emotion. Flying is a no go for me if any of the items are not where I would like them to be.
We determined that Bob was stressed and fatigued.
Bob was crippled by task saturation and trying to make perfect radio calls pushed him over the edge.
Aviate, Navigate and Communicate in that order is sage advice.
I don’t think Bob would have crashed if I had not been there to intervene.
I do feel Bob lost control of the aircraft and the practical test standards are all about aircraft control and are written in blood.
Bob knows well that power controls altitude and pitch is how airspeed is managed and yet in my opinion when overtasked he reverted to the natural tendency to believe pulling back on the stick will make her climb and full throttle will make her go faster.
There is a lot of bent metal and some dead pilots from this mistake in a gyroplane.
After a lengthy debrief Bob decided we were done flying for the day, got some rest, returned to the back seat the next day and made nine nice takeoffs and landings while making all the radio calls correctly if not perfectly.
If you are wondering how I remember the details; I have studied the video of the flight extensively including the audio to learn and help me become a better flight instructor. I was particularly listening for the change in Bob’s voice to try to identify when it started. I suspect he was in on the edge and managing things well before his failed read back and struggling with the read back pushed him over the edge. It appears from the audio that once I made the radio calls he recovered quickly.
Bob and I learned a lot from this and I hope you have too.
![[RotaryForum.com] - Aviate, Navigate and Communicate!](data:image/svg+xml;charset=utf-8,%3Csvg xmlns%3D'http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg' width='200' height='267' viewBox%3D'0 0 200 267'%2F%3E "[RotaryForum.com] - Aviate, Navigate and Communicate!")
This is a story about a 65 year old client who will remain anonymous who had an unpleasant experience while learning to fly with me in The Predator.
I will call him Bob which is not his real name and it’s not him in the pictures.
I feel there are many important lessons here about learning to fly a gyroplane so I felt I should share them with my friends in the hopes they avoid having an unpleasant experience doing what for me was a big challenge and a lot of fun.
The story will have more value if you don’t think things like I would never do anything that stupid.
I have made all of these mistakes myself; just is a different order.
It is a long post so take you time if you want to find value in it.
A month previous I had transitioned my ten hour primary learner into the front seat. There are many things nicer about being the front seat but it also comes with extra responsibilities.
The pilot in the front seat has to manage the magneto switches, the intercom, the transponder, the rotor brake, the mixture control, radio frequencies, the toe brakes for steering and I prefer they make the radio calls. They are also responsible for monitoring the engine instruments.
When I first transitioned Bob to the front seat a month previous I managed the radio calls to keep him further away from task saturation. There are a lot of new tasks to manage and a whole different sight picture. We had spent more than an hour briefing Bob on the front seat before his first flight in the front seat.
He did very well and he knew he would be off for a month and wanted to mitigate the impact with chair flying so he took pictures of the Predator’s panel and created a very nice panel on cardboard that he attached to his work bench at home and spent a lot of time chair flying and practicing the various check lists and verifying the instruments.
Recent flight experience has value.
In my experience flight skills are perishable and the newer they are the faster they deteriorate.
I was confident enough in Bob that we were going to do his cross country the next day after accessing the impact of not flying for a month.
I suggested that it might be easier if I made the radio calls.
Bob had been practicing, making notes and listening to live ATC and he felt the radio calls would not be a distraction.
We practiced the radio calls at Santa Maria (SMX) with me playing the fast talking sometimes hard to understand atc (air traffic control).
He worked though the startup check list, initial call to ground, read back to ground and the run up procedures and everything went very well.
Bob made the call to Santa Maria tower and atc responded experimental gyroplane one four two Mike Golf; hold short of runway three zero for landing traffic.
Bob’s read back was perfect.
Atc; “gyroplane 142 Mike Golf, Runway three zero cleared for takeoff.”
Bob’s read back for his takeoff clearance was correct and with very little coaching his takeoff was nice as can be.
On his initial climb out the tower told him to make left traffic and report abeam with intentions. He read it back perfectly.
I was picking up a squeal in my active noise reduction (ANR) head set making it harder to hear, I felt I could still hear ok and there was no reason to abort the mission. We had lots of ways to deal with intercom problems.
Bob was having a little trouble with airspeed and altitude but was still to practical test standards. His turns to cross wind and downwind were tidy maintaining airspeed and altitude and I gave him some praise.
Bob made his downwind call: “Experimental Gyroplane one four two Mike Golf, request the option for left closed traffic runway three zero” I feel this minor mistake began his troubles.
Atc responded “gyroplane two Mike Golf; number two following the Cessna, runway three zero cleared for touch and go.
Bob got as far as experimental gyroplane one four two Mike Golf before there was a long pause and I felt Bob was losing his situational awareness.
Because of the lack of clearance acknowledgement atc repeated; “Gyroplane two Mike Golf runway 30 cleared touch and go.”
After another long pause Bob responded “Experimental Gyroplane one four two Mike Golf clear touch and go.”
Bob said something that I was not able to understand and I said; I can’t hear you. We later discovered that Bob and inadvertently tuned down the intercom. At the time I thought it was because my ANR was acting up combined with the extra wind noise in the back seat and maybe his microphone was badly positioned.
It appeared to me Bob had lost situational awareness because we were more than a hundred feet below pattern altitude (800 feet mean sea level 550 feet above the ground) and had slowed to 35kts indicated air speed (target airspeed is 50kts) and was deviating from the normal downwind flight path.
I like to have a big safety margin and the trees and power lines were close enough to make me uncomfortable.
I pointed out these deviations and it appeared to me Bob didn’t respond with the appropriate control inputs.
We had descended below 500 feet mean sea level (250 feet above the ground) and the airspeed dedicator was showing 35kts. Shouting this time; WE ARE TOO LOW AND TOO SLOW, FULL THROTTLE, NOSE DOWN.
Bob shouted back; “I AM AT FULL THROTTLE”.
I shouted NOSE DOWN!
I did not seem able to get Bob to respond with appropriate control inputs and I could barely hear him.
We have a procedure for intercom failure where if I shake the stick; I am taking control of the aircraft. I felt Bob would learn more if I talked him through it.
Atc announced “gyroplane two Mike Golf; pattern altitude at Santa Maria is eight hundred feet.”
Bob appeared to have lost directional control and was deviating left.
With three aircraft in the pattern I made a call to Atc “gyroplane two Mike Golf; this will be a full stop landing.
Atc came back sounding somewhat relieved; “gyroplane two Mike Golf; runway three zero cleared to land.”
I repeated the clearance and told Bob to turn right and get the nose down.
This seemed to me to be the turning point and I was glad I had not taken the controls. “Make a normal landing” I said loudly; trying to be less abrasive and attempting to sound confident and in control of the situation.
I talked Bob through the landing and after he ballooned up, he got the power in and saved the landing.
I made the radio calls on the ground. Bob didn’t respond when I told him to turn right at alpha five until I shouted at him to TURN RIGHT and we got a little lost on the way to fuel nearly missing turning left at taxiway Romeo and nearly turning at Sierra (the commercial ramp with all the attendant transportation security administration rules and fines). TURN LEFT, SHARP LEFT TO ROMEO. This is not an uncommon mistake because Taxiway Alpha, Alpha five, Alpha six, Romeo and Sierra all come together.
We had a long debrief where we attempted to identify the path to this unpleasant situation. Tired, a month off, and task saturation seemed to be the greatest contributors with turning down the intercom and my shouting adding to a bad situation.
I believe in using the acronym IMSAFE before every flight. It stands for Illness, Medication, Stress, Alcohol, Fatigue, and Emotion. Flying is a no go for me if any of the items are not where I would like them to be.
We determined that Bob was stressed and fatigued.
Bob was crippled by task saturation and trying to make perfect radio calls pushed him over the edge.
Aviate, Navigate and Communicate in that order is sage advice.
I don’t think Bob would have crashed if I had not been there to intervene.
I do feel Bob lost control of the aircraft and the practical test standards are all about aircraft control and are written in blood.
Bob knows well that power controls altitude and pitch is how airspeed is managed and yet in my opinion when overtasked he reverted to the natural tendency to believe pulling back on the stick will make her climb and full throttle will make her go faster.
There is a lot of bent metal and some dead pilots from this mistake in a gyroplane.
After a lengthy debrief Bob decided we were done flying for the day, got some rest, returned to the back seat the next day and made nine nice takeoffs and landings while making all the radio calls correctly if not perfectly.
If you are wondering how I remember the details; I have studied the video of the flight extensively including the audio to learn and help me become a better flight instructor. I was particularly listening for the change in Bob’s voice to try to identify when it started. I suspect he was in on the edge and managing things well before his failed read back and struggling with the read back pushed him over the edge. It appears from the audio that once I made the radio calls he recovered quickly.
Bob and I learned a lot from this and I hope you have too.
![[RotaryForum.com] - Aviate, Navigate and Communicate!](https://data3.rotaryforum.com/attachments/124/124684-d8e53e398afd190da7c23a135dc8524f.jpg?hash=JjiWei6-mt "[RotaryForum.com] - Aviate, Navigate and Communicate!")
Attachments
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![[RotaryForum.com] - Aviate, Navigate and Communicate!](https://data3.rotaryforum.com/attachments/124/124685-a26659e215c56e77ac3e326375c27776.jpg?hash=jPVDcmemkd)
1.Taxi to runway three zero via Alpha Alpha eight.webp -
![[RotaryForum.com] - Aviate, Navigate and Communicate!](https://data3.rotaryforum.com/attachments/124/124686-15bc90fcf540aa29d9040202648a4d6c.jpg?hash=Qka2GDRugi)
2. Holding short of runway three zero at Alpha eight.webp -
![[RotaryForum.com] - Aviate, Navigate and Communicate!](https://data3.rotaryforum.com/attachments/124/124687-d6617a09246e41934f902206b307750c.jpg?hash=zbp-C4MFJY)
3. The takeoff roll on runway three zero.webp -
![[RotaryForum.com] - Aviate, Navigate and Communicate!](https://data3.rotaryforum.com/attachments/124/124688-5716212803d036afe33ce462a49b40a4.jpg?hash=DIVgVNaYSR)
4. Pattern altitude on crosswind from runway three zero.webp -
![[RotaryForum.com] - Aviate, Navigate and Communicate!](https://data3.rotaryforum.com/attachments/124/124689-55d98026fa67d8159dd7da50285ecf63.jpg?hash=le6bwI91bH)
5. Abeam the numbers for runway three zero to land.webp -
![[RotaryForum.com] - Aviate, Navigate and Communicate!](https://data3.rotaryforum.com/attachments/124/124690-13a5b5594b08ab234da1967acb7a23c6.jpg?hash=1YdSeyFKzy)
6. Short final for runway three zero to land and 500 feet (250 fee above the ground).webp -
![[RotaryForum.com] - Aviate, Navigate and Communicate!](https://data3.rotaryforum.com/attachments/124/124691-beb932f3355828382205f48342383221.jpg?hash=nz7DuhxftJ)
7. Taxi to debrief and fuel at SMX.webp
