How To Not Spoil Your Day

How To Not Spoil Your Day

Topical Tips For Aspiring Aviators

Patrick Harrington

How To Not Spoil Your Day

Copyright © 2015 Patrick Harrington

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Smashwords Edition

The information, views, opinions and visuals expressed in this publication are solely those of the author(s) and do not reflect those of the publisher. The publisher disclaims any liabilities or responsibilities whatsoever for any damages, libel or liabilities arising directly or indirectly from the contents of this publication.

A copy of this publication can be found in the National Library of Australia.

ISBN:  978-1-742844-94-7 (pbk.)

Published by Book Pal

www.bookpal.com.au

Contents

Foreword

INTRODUCTION

One Door Closes…

CHAPTER 1 - 1960 – 1969

A Little History

Some Useful Flying Facts

Up, Up and Away…

The Kid on the Fence

THE THRILLS

Goodbye Soul-Destroying Office Job

Ornithopter Fly-Past

How to Terrify a Novice Private Pilot

Even More Exciting – an Inverted Spin

There but for the Grace of God go I

The Wheels and Flaps went down Simultaneously

Brunette at the Aero Club Bar

It Flew Through the Air with the Greatest of Ease

Back Seat Controller

DHC1 Crash – Vale Arthur Kell

Eternal Vigilance

If You’ve Got the Money Honey, I’ve Got the Licence

I Thought He’d Reverted to the Mother Tongue

I’m Only an Engineer. Oh, Really?

And Then there were Five and a Half

How (and/or where) to NOT Land a C172

Get it All in

RIP Overconfident C Grade Instructor

It’s Not a Hook for your Handbag, Dear

Fasten Your Seatbelts

That’s How I was Taught to Do It. (Least Favoured Response No.1)

And then there was the Murrurundi Gap

We Raised the Nose…The IAS Went UP

Castlemaine Rocks

His English Wasn’t Very Good

Who Said a Cherokee Won’t Spin?

To Prop or Not to Prop, That is Indeed the Question

Engine Failures (Opinion)

Simulated Engine Failures are Perfectly Safe – Yair, Right

Not the Recommended Way to Land at Night

VH-What?

Chuck It in the Back?

(Not a Good Idea, Team!)

Shell Charter in Far North Queensland

Just Out of Service? Alarm Bells Should Ring

Bad Combination

(Country Boy and High Performance Twin)

Another Last Thing

THE SPILLS

Precautionary Search and Landing:

My One and Only

Then We Ran Out of Noise

I Turned It into a Swept-winged Aircraft

What Did I Learn from That?

An Error of Judgment

A Wrecked Wingtip and Several Propeller Slashes Later…

May Day, May Day, May Day

Mayday?

CHAPTER 2 –

1970 – 1979

A Little More History

That’s What Flying’s All About.

To Report or Not To Report – That’s The Vital Question

What’s The Last Thing?

What is the Most Important Navigational Instrument?

10 Mile Marks or 10 Minute Marks?

Sometimes you have to Plan an Error

Old Flight Plan Blues

Departure Delays – Beware of Last Light

Design a Nav. Competition – Who Me?

Sucker Bait (or Accidents Going Somewhere to Happen)

Which Lever? (Identify It First.)

Beware the Change of Model

The Next Sound You Will Hear…

Do You Give a TOSS about your TTS?

(Take Off Safety Speed, Target Threshold Speed.)

Dopey Question 1. Can Jet Airliners Glide?

Stability = The Aircraft Can Fly Itself

Tipsy Nipper - What a Ripper

Just a Dot on the Chart

And Then The Runway Turned On Its Side

Ideo-Kinetic What?

Aircraft with Flaps CAN be Sideslipped

The Pig

10% Overload

The Truckies were Flood Bound and Bored

Two Greens

The Engine Broke in Half

One in Sixty – It Really Works

Tea and Cake at a Stonehenge Break

Cowboys Can Fly Too

He Said He Learnt Something that Day

UFO Approaching Katherine

Intermittent Magneto on Initial Climb

More Aviation Wisdom

Funny You Should Say That. (Mnemonics)

Sine, Cosine, Tangent

Never Trust the Loaders

Know Your Position

Two Kinds of Pilot

Back Seat or Front?

Compass Deviation Card? What Compass Deviation Card?

Take the Job, Any Job

To Trim or Not To Trim…

The North has its Challenges

Some May Call it Cheating but…

The Windmill Mechanic Saves the Beef

Swift as a…

And Then there was Toowoomba

Gently, Bently

Near Miss over Lake Clarendon

Know Your Aircraft

THAT WAS FOR REAL.

FREEZE FRAME

CHAPTER 3

1980 – 1989

Some More History

My Short but Action-packed Metro Career

You Call This Work?

More Unlucky Engine Failures

Okay, Manduwuy, You do the Briefing.

Hostie Baiting

A Legend -The DC 2½

Wet Drill Cairns Style

Look Ma…

Sorry Ocker, the Fokker’s Chokka.

This Is your Captain Speaking.

Balled and Chained

Get out the Crowbar

Snake, Snake.

Round and Round at Bundy

Darn It

Listen to your First Officer

Free trip to France

Toulouse et al.

My First Jet at Fifty

Inflicted on the Unsuspecting Public after only 45 Minutes

Twenty Sectors = Big Learning Curve

Excuse Me, Captain…

You’re Not a First Officer.

Oh my Aching Arms

Two Degrees per Second

What was I Doing Right?

Can you Bounce a Boeing 737? Well, Let Me Tell You…

Its Next Flight Didn’t Depart on Time

Where is the Cyclone? they asked

Busy as the Proverbial One-armed Paperhanger

The Redeye

Airspeed, Airspeed.

Vanuatu for Morning Tea

Once in a lifetime

The Dreaded Crosswind Landing

Which Button?

To Yaw or Not to Yaw?

Oh My Aching Back…

The Attitude is Critical

Sinc-phasing? What’s Sinc-Phasing?

I’d Enjoy the Day More if it Started Later. (Sleep Inertia)

Crew Rest on International Flights

Wednesday 2 April 08 - I finally Did it – went Gliding

So What Is The Last Thing?

A Final Point to Ponder

Foreword

The Following Introduction was a speech I delivered in 1995 at the Ipomoea Toastmasters Club in Brisbane as part of my training to become a Competent Toastmaster. It encapsulates my flying career over a period of 28 years from when I took my first flight to when it was abruptly ended by the Pilots’ Dispute of 1989.

It has always concerned me that General Aviation in Australia has rarely benefited from the experience of many fine pilots who retire and disappear into the ether as it were.

Basic Flying Training is still given mainly by recently qualified Commercial Pilots who take further training to gain their Flying Instructor Rating in order to get their first job. This must affect the accident and incident rate due to their lack of practical experience.

With this book, I hope to make a small contribution to the General Aviation Industry by recounting some of the incidents, accidents and crashes I experienced in my career.

The title comes from an expression I first heard as a Student Pilot on Bankstown Airport in Sydney, Australia. Spoil your day, was a euphemism for crash.

The tips may, if heeded, make your aviation career more enjoyable and save you from some of the traumas I experienced, while ensuring that you do not spoil your day.

Pat Harrington.

Survivor.

INTRODUCTION

One Door Closes…

On a cold, blustery, wintery day in 1957, a young man stood on the Rongotai Airfield, in Wellington, New Zealand, waiting for his first light aircraft flight. It was called an Aptitude Test and its purpose was to evaluate applicants for a Scholarship to learn to become a Private Pilot.

Mild fear lurked in his heart, initially because of fear of the unknown… what was flying like…in this frail looking Auster Aircraft… on a rough day… and because he had not told his parents he was doing this.

The flight was OK although a bit bumpy and very noisy and he set off home to tell his Mum and Dad. The news wasn’t well received, so plans to become a pilot were shelved for the time being.

Time moved on, the young man migrated to Sydney, Australia and found work as an accountant. Then one day a friend invited him for a flight in a Cessna at Bankstown. At takeoff he felt mild elation coupled with fear as the ground fell away and the small plane climbed to cruising altitude. By the end of the flight, he was hooked. This was for him.

Six months later, after spending most weekends at the airport, he was the proud owner of a brand new Private Pilot’s Licence.

Flying fever now had him firmly in its grip driving him on to train for a Commercial Pilots Licence. It was a long, hard task, more study, more expensive lessons, taking another five years… but he made it. It was time to resign from the accountant’s job and get on with what he now knew was his REAL calling, flying.

And fly he did, rising through the ranks of Charter Pilot to Instructor to Chief Flying Instructor. Seven years and 5000 flying hours later life was good… married, three children… a nice house… steady salary.

Then fate took a hand. It was meant to be a simple scenic flight to Palm Beach and back on a perfect sunny Sunday, but when the engine lost power over the Sydney suburb of Hornsby things became slightly more complicated. The Piper was gliding at 80 knots losing height rapidly and would be on the ground in about one minute. There was a golf course nearby, but it wasn’t level and the only open piece of fairway was downhill and too short for a normal landing. With some skilful manoeuvering, the pilot got it on the ground, but it bounced over the tees, cleared a hedge and… BASH…came to a sudden stop as it crashed into the base of a huge tree. The pilots body jack-knifed, slamming his face into the instrument panel, inflicting horrible injuries in a split second. One passenger died and the others were injured enough to be hospitalised for a day or two.

After extensive facial surgery and three months recuperation he was declared fit to fly again. Then the authorities stepped in. He was summonsed by the Coroner’s Court to appear before a hearing to determine whether he should be charged with manslaughter. Then started the three longest days of his life in the hot seat until he was finally cleared of all blame. The aircraft had a mechanical fault, which hadn’t been reported and he had been unlucky enough to be allocated that plane when it was technically faulty and unfit to fly.

So now he could fly again with a clear conscience. However the door had closed; no job, an outcast among his peers, New South Wales Civil Aviation and Authorities trying their hardest to prevent him flying on their patch again. He eked out an existence for the next six months doing free-lance charters and a little flying instruction until another door opened.

A phone call from a former pupil was about to change all that and give him a chance to redeem his former good reputation. His pupil, now a Commercial Pilot, had recommended him to the Townsville Aero Club. A job was waiting, but it meant moving his family to Townsville, 2000 kilometres away, no easy task when he was virtually broke.

With his family he duly started the long arduous drive to Townsville. Murphy’s Law was alive and well, If anything can go wrong, it will, and at the worst possible time.

In the first 100 k’s the car’s gearbox broke down. While the family picnicked in the park waiting for the car to be repaired, a truck hit a power pole and rained live power lines down on them, and the last of their meagre savings was spent on the repair.

Eventually they arrived in Townsville, only to find there was no accommodation to be had. Three months living in a 4-berth caravan, a family of five plus a dog, while settling into a new job. Things settled down eventually, a house was bought, the family comfortably housed, life got better for him day by day.

A year later another door opened. Bush Pilots sent him a telegram asking him to join their organization. He accepted their invitation and things got better and better. Bigger, faster aircraft, more pay, better conditions. And then, a wonderful thing happened, the Company became an Airline. Fokker Friendships came into the fleet, he was sent to Melbourne to be trained to be an Airline Pilot and of course the pay and conditions improved even more.

And if that wasn’t good enough that airline was bought out by another airline…Australian Airlines (now known as QANTAS Domestic.)

By now he was fifty years old and was sent to Melbourne again… This time to be trained to fly jet airliners. Three years of flying all over Australia in Boeing 737-300 Airliners was his final reward for the years of study and hardship. Eventually that door closed also… but that’s another story.

But who would have thought a crash and the worst time of his life would have resulted in an Airline Pilot’s Job. I wouldn’t …and I didn’t at the time … because you see…I was that pilot.

One door closes…another door opens.

CHAPTER 1 - 1960 – 1969

A Little History

In 1961, the sky was no longer the limit for manned flight, as Yuri Gagarin orbited once around the planet within 108 minutes. This action further heated up the space race that had started in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Soviet Union. The United States responded by launching Alan Shepard into space on a sub orbital flight in a Mercury space capsule. With the launch of the Alouette 1 in 1963, Canada became the third country to send a satellite in space. The space race between the United States and the Soviet Union would ultimately lead to the