On the way to becoming a virtual stunt legend I've had more than my fair share of accidents.
One of the hardest was my infamous "Across the bridge" trick in Paris, only took 14 attempts before I made it!!!!

My worst fail was at Cosford Flying School on their simulator... I was using a yoke and rudder pedal set for the first time. And for some reason the aicraft gained massive amounts of pitch when the flaps were deployed. Not good when on finals, I went soaring up, and because of my lack of experience with using a yoke, I made 3 landings on the same runway 

Online:

was to, once, mistake take off runway. Such an embarrassment with the controller.

Off line:

...the perhaps WORST mistake I ever did was not under FS, but in one of my first flights under X-plane. It was still X-plane 8 at that time. That day, I decided to take off with a Extra 400 add-on from a small runway in the US (forgot which airport, sorry). The day's weather was oppressive, with its menacing 8/8 covering, yet it wasn't [still] raining. The clouds were threatening, all right, but I decided to treat X-plane like FS9. "I will shake and dance a little, maybe," I thought, "But in the end, I'll get out of the clouds juuuust fine, you'll see..."

It didn't end up like that. As soon I entered the most interesting part of the clouds... my windshield flew apart and the plane was targeted by an horrifying hail storm... I did not last even one minute in those conditions.... my plane ended up exiting the clouds yes, but like a tattered, spinning corkscrew headed towards the unforgiving ground.

PS

That was the start of a beautiful side experience with X-plane, for me. Up until that moment I really did not know what to do with it, but that day, it showed to be more life-like than anything I had used up until that moment, and that it deserved a rightful place among my flight simulators.

jetprop wrote on Sep 28^th, 2011 at 5:10pm:


Oh no.

Didn't happen like that. It was on a Pacific Island... don't remember which one, but was not Hawaii. I THINK it was in the French Polynesia... maybe... been a while. I took off with my trusty L-1649A (as I do not do kerosene burners, if I can help it) on a long haul, but there was control. The airport had ONE runway, he gave the... 24... I think... and I managed to bring the plane on the 6.

Truth to be told, at the time I was (and still am) quite green in online flights, and had expected the airport to be unmanned. Add to this that the controller would not hear reasons and insisted I had to fly a RNAV SID, while I was alone in a 2000nm radius, in a propliner, simulating a back-in-the-days flight, and you have a recipe for a disaster.

In the end he allowed me take off from there, since wind was weak, and released me to UNICOM as soon I was airborne... talk about consistency...


jetprop wrote on Sep 28^th, 2011 at 5:10pm:


Are you talking default ATC? I left it behind alone and forgot quite a lot of time ago.

For the reason you exposed and a lot more.


jetprop wrote on Sep 28^th, 2011 at 5:10pm:


IRL, the plane in the front wising up to the SNAFU would have to do a balked landing. FAST. The ones behind could only hit the reversers and brakes full blast and not attempt anything else, not to make a FUBAR Tenerife style. Both crews, afterwards, would have to unite and accurately search the idiot(s) in the tower to give them the gratitude they deserved, of course. With the help of several knobby clubs, possibly.

Anyway, I'm quite surprised a staffed online ATC fell in this kind of snag.


jetprop wrote on Sep 28^th, 2011 at 5:10pm:


Been there, done that, got several T-shirts.


jetprop wrote on Sep 28^th, 2011 at 5:10pm:


Eh, one of the reasons I've stopped attempting carrier landings was because I always came too low... with unsightly disasters following suit.


jetprop wrote on Sep 28^th, 2011 at 5:10pm:


A real Tree-hugger.

I've weaned out that tendency in myself in ancient versions of FS, when trees were only in your mind, but "bush landings", as you call them, happen to me still, from time to time, when against all common sense I try to push the envelope, trying to land WHERE I shouldn't, WHEN I shouldn't, IN THE WAY I shouldn't. The sole fact we're flying a simulator is the only reason we're still here, talking about it. ALL of us.

Being new to the 777 (addon plane I got from simviation), I took off, let it stall, made the wrong move to recover from that and went on a dive that ended up on the ground. I guess that it was one of the worst errors I made since I was flying in FSX for some time already. Yet it always serves as a learning lesson. From that day on my flights with the 777 have improved a lot.

I have had one glaring mistake too. One time I took off in my Embraer 170 and shortly after takeoff engaged the NAV, VNAV, and A/T, but forgot to push the AP MAST. so I thought the autopilot was flying the plane when it wasn't so I went down right into the middle Kansas City.

I majorly underestimated how much fuel a 727 consumes. Ran out of fuel half way through my flight and crashed in the forests of Venezuela.

Took a picture right before impact:



That was 3 years ago. I'm now much better at calculating how much fuel I need.

multiprops wrote on Feb 13^th, 2012 at 12:28pm:


Default ATC is infamous for that and for other great choices of flight, like giving you clearance to leave cruise level (above 30.000 feet) only 50 miles away from the landing place, giving you clearance to land at about 17.000 feet, while executing a meteor-like descent, and instruction to contact tower above 15.000 feet (like happened to me once, and set the linchpin of my decision of leaving behind Default ATC for good).

In spite of my breakneck descent profile I reached 5000 feet well AFTER the runway zoomed away under my 747 (with which I decided that time to allow for a breaking or 250 Kias under 10.000 rule, too. Kept the plane redlined from start to end of the descent, in spite of full airbrakes / engines idle rule applied during the whole license-revoking maneuver, and still it wasn't enough). Maybe they (said default ATC) thought I was piloting some sort of Japanese Anime starship, to be able to do such a descent as the one they wanted me to do, at the time.

Another reason I don't use it anymore is that ever since I've begun piloting mainly radial engined old propliners, and for realism's sake those MUST adhere to descent profiles that the default ATC is totally unable to comprehend, let alone control.