STEVEN SIMPSON wrote:

I flew up to Tri city airport from central virginia in a 172 rg whith a
full load and just enogh fuel for the trip.Guess what happend on short
final?Good thing I am up to speed on dead stick.Anyone else have a close
call they learned a valuable lesson from.You know; the one you don't tell
you flying buddies about.

Yesterday I was flying the jump plane (parachute operation) and managed to
get the cuff of my sleeve tangled up on the pitch control of a C206 when
attempting to adjust the mixture (WTF?!?). Pitch went to full fine
(2850RPM) at which point I over-corrected an sent it back to 2000RPM :-/
Hmmm. Bit embarrassing considering I have over 1500hrs in C210's!!

Further back in my flying career, I overloaded a C172 and nearly wen splat
when it wouldn't climb after take-off.

A few years after that I spun a C210 from FL120 to A020....at night....in
IMC after falling asleep...without an autopilot. During the incipient spin
all the freight shifted aft and sent the CoG out the back....I ran out of
forward trim on descent at my next landing point and could only get one
stage of flap out before I ran out of trim in the approach. Once I shut
down and climbed out, the poor thing sat on its tail. I do NOT want to be
a test pilot again.

I stopped flying single-engine night freight (in piston-powered aircraft
anyway) after that, and started flying Grand Caravans and B55/58's instead.

Stupid enough? There's more, but I don't want to detail the "stupid coz
it's illegal" things I've done to avoid getting the sack from employers who
expect their pilots to break the rules...we've all been there.

Cheers,

James
--
There is no sin but ignorance.
-- Christopher Marlowe