My worst flight on Vatsim just happened today (story)

[John Smith]

Ok so this was really my second flight on Vatsim but I don't think it can get any worse than this. Here is the story. So I was on a route from EGKK to EHAM. Departure went mostly smooth except that there were a few mishaps with the Holding point in where I missed my holding point. However, the controller was really friendly when I told him this and just cleared me for takeoff, no worries. Departure and cruise were quite stable. The real issue came when I was coming in on the ils approach for runway 06 at EHAM. I don't know how this happened but somehow I had entered the incorrect ils frequency (I was .5 off). I only realized this when closing in on the runway and attempts to align were unsuccesful. Knowing this I decided to go around and get the frequency issue sorted. I had a short stall warning after me looking outside my aircraft but was able to recover with relative ease as I was too high for the runway anyway. now here is where the "fun" begins. After go around was initiated I tried to set a go-around altitude on my a/p, what I didn't know was that my planes pitch was increasing more and more. When I was confused as to my autopilot not working I checked my vertical speed and it was 9999+ I seemed to be in a completely pitch up now and was stalling very fast. I managed to recover from the stall in time. What followed was a whole epidemic of go-arounds, stalls and one time even almost landing on the wrong runway. My right engine even ran out of fuel once but I quickly gave it some more through the menu as I didn't want to bother anybody with an emergency on Vatsim and I didn't want to deal with one myself (even though you could argue I was already in one). On my final approach, I had gotten within some clouds and wanted to pitch down a small amount just to get back under the clouds. However, what I didn't know while looking outside is, I had pitched down a lot more than I thought and only realized I was nosediving when going back into the cockpit. I thankfully recovered from this even though I thought for sure I would crash as at that point I dipped below 1000 feet. The ordeal ended with a hard -1000 fpm landing on rwy 06 and me feeling terrible after, but I was just happy to be down. I find it funny that this was caused by me entering the incorrect ils frequency as on my first flight I also did that. However, on my first flight, I entered the is for a parallel runway for my original runway so it wasn't that bad, on my first flight there was Unicom and no traffic on that runway I had lined up with so I just decided to land it and then I apologized after leaving the runway. It's interesting because this incorrect ils frequency thing never happened to me offline but happened both times online.

 

Anyways I am interested in hearing your worst flight even though it will probably be better than mine. Anybody who was at the airport at the time I sincerely apologize as what happened was not my intention and I don't think something like this will happen again as it has never happened before in my entire time actually doing routes on flight sims.

[Robert Shearman Jr]

I can do you one better -- I got video of mine!

 

This video is an hour & 45 minutes long, but, you only need to watch a minute & 15 seconds of it. The link starts you at 1:33:05. I start talking about Swift just as the ice begins to pile onto the airframe & the airspeed starts to drop off, but I'm talking on & don't realize it. Then I notice it just as the stall hits, 36 seconds later (1:33:41). Another 39 seconds after that (1:34:20), I'm a smoking crater in rural Illinois, USA.

 

... and, yes, in the post-mortem, I know that I forgot to reduce throttles to idle during the spin. Recommendations for (a) proper flight planning to avoid severe icing situations, (b) more education on use of the anti-icing systems in the XP11 default Baron, and © a refresher on spin recovery techniques were all part of the VNTSB write-up.

 

[Peter Punsvik 1401265]

Interesting to hear theses stories. I don't think I have had a flight I would consider really bad, although I did overrun the runway once on vatsim(which i'm really banging my head for). It was when landing in Bristol which has a relatively short runway for a 737. What I did was setting the autobrake to the 3. position which I really thought would be enough and planned on using idle reverse thrust. I touched down, but after using half the runway I still had plenty of speed and I just couldn't get my head around why it didn't slow more down and ofc I forgot to use manual brakes because of the confusion.

 

It's so easy to just do the things you always do, but one day something doesn't work out as expected and you get distracted trying to troubleshoot and meanwhile you forget the other things you need to do, which makes you even more stressed. There is many things a pilot need to keep track of, but one must never forget the very basic of flying: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. Fly the airplane, then do the other things you need to do!

[Norman Casserley 1103456]

Hey! I'v been flying for 15 years now and my wife still will not fly with me.Nor will any of her friends.Cheers Norm.

[Andreas Fuchs]

At least she's still married to you

[Andreas Fuchs]

Not long ago I started streaming most of my online-flights. I had a very interesting one earlier this week, when one of the arms on the base of my office chair broke off on short final! I had just disconnected the autopilot and had to trim the plane up, when this event surprised me - luckily I could keep my balance and land the aircraft more or less gracefully...

 

You can watch the event unfold: I received my landing clearance, reviewed where I would vacate the runway, disconnected the autopilot/autothrottle and then... just watch:

[Robert Shearman Jr]

It's a shame I don't speak whatever language you were cursing in

[Andreas Fuchs]

German

[Daniel Morris 1132365]

I think my worst happened last night!

 

Sharing a cockpit with my best friend (that kind of friend who you've flown with for years and years).

 

I'm Pilot Flying this time, we're getting to grips with sharing cockpits and this is our third go at it, taking off during an event in Canada immediately into IMC in rain and generally just nasty weather. Climbing into colder air we turn on the anti ice, my mind turns to this thread and the video on icing, we easily agree the conditions are such that we're having all the anti-ice we can muster! still climbing through to our cruise altitude and we were just discussing the route....

 

Suddenly the aircraft JOLTS, like a wild bull, she was getting more and more wound up, banking left and right until eventually the motion turns into chaos, it's at this point the aircraft completes a barrel roll... I let out some profanity... screaming at my buddy: "WOAHHH, Dave, What's going on?!!"meanwhile Dave, my best friend, resigns himself to completing the newspaper crossword instead: "5 Accross, feeling about to vomit? Eight letters".... staring at the ground now I shout to him again, he responds "8 Down, Marine Mamal? Seven Letters"....I let out a girly scream and after a few more painful seconds we impact the ground.

 

This video contains adult language and scenes of peril,

Also you can't hear my buddy, he's the one who hit the shadowplay button.

https://streamable.com/029ls

 

After analyzing the video and reproducing this scenario again with data refs my friend, Dave has since reported to Zibo, the Zibo 737 anti-icing has broken in an update at some point.