How an afternoon’s events, and the teachings of several instructors, combined to push a “low-time” pilot out of his, admittedly fairly small, comfort zone.
Background
After moving to Ballarat for work in the mid 1980’s, I was keen to get in touch with the local flying scene. I set out to join the Ballarat Aero Club, only to find out that it was currently in Receivership. The club rooms were still available to members, and through an interesting arrangement, the flying training had been “sub-contracted” out to an enterprising local Instructor, who owned his own aircraft, a Grumman AA-1C “Lynx”.
His Lynx was a pretty little thing. It’s only “quirk” was it had a fully castering nose wheel, instead of nose wheel steering. This meant that when in novice hands, it tended to proceed down the taxiways in a series of swerves! Otherwise, it was a sweet little aircraft.
After getting to know the Lynx’s owner and making a few flights with him, we became quite good friends. He declared that he considered I was a “safe pilot”, and offered me the use of his Lynx whenever I wanted to fly. This was a fantastic arrangement for me, and I took advantage of it on several occasions.
The Afternoon
One afternoon, I organized to take our young son up for a flight out to Burrumbeet to let him see our house from the air.
We took off, and made our short flight out to have a look at the house. After having a bit of a look around, it was time to return to Ballarat. Whilst on our return, I noticed some dark clouds rolling in, and I was keen to get back on the ground. On arrival back at Ballarat Airport, and landing, the weather seemed to be holding off, so I decided to do one quick circuit before putting the Lynx “to bed”.
As we taxied back out, we were No.2 behind a C-172. He called “Ready”, and took off towards the South and proceeded to disappear from view.
Hearing no further calls on the radio from the 172 we proceeded to line up, and take off for our circuit. The Lynx was quite lively, particularly with only an adult and a child on board, and we quickly gained our circuit height.
With the teachings of my Instructors ringing in my ears, to “keep your circuits nice and tight”, and not to make “bloody cross-country circuits”. We levelled out at circuit height, and were soon ready to turn Cross Wind.
Cross Wind was uneventful, and when we got to the point of turning Downwind, I looked both right and left to ensure all was clear. We were part way through our turn, when I spotted the 172 that had taken off before us, approaching out of the distance from my right. He had apparently decided to do circuits too, despite not making any radio calls to that effect.
I had inadvertently turned inside his circuit.
Concerned that I had breached protocol and my teachings by turning inside another aircraft’s circuit, I called the 172 on the radio and apologised. I said that I would extend my Down Wind leg, to allow him to resume his place in the pattern. He acknowledged my call and thanked me.
I proceeded to extend Down Wind, and kept looking back over my shoulder, watching for the 172 to turn Base, so that I could also turn Base, and re-position myself as his No.2.
Already somewhat edgy, due to this deviation from my practiced circuit procedure, imagine my shock when I looked ahead and about a mile or so away, I saw a Pitts S2 approaching me head on at what seemed like the speed of sound! The Pitts was apparently practicing some manoeuvres for an upcoming competition, and had apparently strayed in to the Circuit Area.
Whilst I was gathering my somewhat scattered wits, and deciding what to do, the Pitts, had also spotted me, and he pulled up into a vertical climb. He proceeded to roll out at the top of his climb, and head back the way he had come from.
Would have been nice if he had said something over the bloody radio!
By this time, the leisurely 172 had turned base, and I was able to also turn Base and resume my position in the pattern behind him. He proceeded to wander down Base and eventually turn Final.
When I also turned Final, the 172 was still completing his approach, not yet having touched down.
Hearing my ghostly instructors telling me not to touch down until the preceding aircraft had vacated the active strip, I was doing my best to keep the little Lynx in the air. Extending full flap and slowing as much as I dared, we mushed our way onto short final. Meanwhile the 172 was meandering down the runway at what seemed to be a walking pace.
When I could keep the Lynx in the air no longer, I set her down as far behind the 172 as I could. I was relieved to at last be back on the ground, but my next shock was still in store.
I continued to taxi down the strip, still carefully keeping my distance from the 172. I again looked over my shoulder and I got one hell of a fright to see one of the local Ag contractor’s massive AT-301 Air Tractor’s seemingly taxiing close enough behind me to prune my tailplane with his huge prop!
I had not seen him anywhere in the circuit, and again, it would have been nice if he’d made a radio call to say he was landing!
I taxied back to the hangar and shut the Lynx down. I finally slid back the canopy and released my harness. I then took half a dozen very deep breaths to collect myself, before climbing out to help my son out.
With 40 years’ hindsight, nothing all that dramatic really happened that afternoon, but from the point of view of a “newbie” pilot, it was more excitement than I needed for one afternoon
